Tech 14 Feb 2023

Cookie consent is not enough

For all the time companies have spent on implementing cookie consent notices, the recent spate of privacy lawsuits and regulatory fines are growing in number and size. Needless to say, notices are doing very little to protect companies or their customers. Without a doubt, transparency is a good thing, and we’re starting to see more common-sense guidance emerge, but companies are still vulnerable to a host of issues that are often beyond their direct control. The recent lawsuits involving the Meta pixel, which are also affecting many U.S. healthcare companies, are a perfect example of this.  The problem is baked into the way websites are built. Other than a few of the largest tech companies, we all use third-party cloud services to build our websites. These services include essential software like CRM, analytics, form builders and also trackers used by advertisers. The problem is that these third parties have a lot of autonomy and very little oversight.