exodude - Slashdot User

Submission + - Europeans Spend 575 Million Hours Clicking Cookie Banners Every Year (legiscope.com) 1

Submitted by exodude on Saturday October 12, 2024 @02:28PM

exodude writes: A recent study reveals that Europeans spend over 575 million hours each year clicking through cookie consent banners, resulting in an economic loss of €14.35 billion. Consent banners are mandated by the outdated ePrivacy Directive from 2002, that was originally intended to protect user privacy. However, in a lot of cases today, banners are used by small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to understand website usage and providing minimal actual privacy benefits.

The cumulated time loss is equivalent to 287,500 full-time employees dedicating their workdays accepting cookie banners every year...

Experts are urging an urgent revision of the ePrivacy Directive to exempt SMBs, thereby alleviating the €14.35 billion burden and reclaiming valuable time for both businesses and users.

Submission + - New EU legal privacy framework: we're not kidding

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25, 2012 @09:42AM

An anonymous reader writes: Viviane Reding, Vice-President of the European Commission announced today a new regulation for data privacy in Europe in replacement of a 1995 Directive. Recently, privacy laws have been under a lot of criticism for their practical inability to ensure a high level of protection to EU citizens. The new data privacy framework will bring a lot of changes: 24 hours security breach notifications, mandatory security assessments, end of notifications to local data privacy agencies, mandatory data protection officers and huge administrative fines: up to 2% of the annual worldwide turnover (that would have meant 1.2 Billion $ for Microsoft in 2008 !). Indeed that'(TM)s "the necessary 'teeth' so the rules can be enforced".

Slashdot Top Deals