Yes, seriously , and counting... €
Even in the time it took you to read this, it has cost €
This site is a live counter of the money wasted by EU citizens clicking cookie consent popups. Essentially, in 2018, the boomer bureaucrats in Brussels created a policy that requires websites to obtain "consent" from visitors to use cookies. This "consent" is currently implemented in the form of an annoying popup on almost every website. This counter estimates the amount of time EU citizens have wasted clicking these popups since the policy started and assigns a monetary value to their time.
The calculation is based on an article from Legiscope.
Because I'm fucking sick of clicking fucking popups on every fucking website, for every fucking browser, in every fucking app on every fucking device.
To be clear, I'm a big fan of privacy, but if your policy implementation requires everyone to click popups all the fucking time then you have not empowered citizens with consent to use their data, actually you have just furthered the enshittification of the internet and you need to get real: you fucking blew it. All that has been achieved is adding yet another internet annoyance to a long list that already includes bullshit like newsletter popups, sponsored links, ads, auto playing videos and CAPTCHAs.
Maybe the EU should copy Global Privacy Control and require websites adhere? Maybe bring back Do Not Track and require website owners to honour it? I don't know and honestly I don't care, just allow me to decline consent by default without having to click buttons on every fucking website, please.