Within the most recent decision about the use of cookies by a Belgian publisher, the Belgian APD not only clarified its expectations for cookie compliance, but also offered insight into its methodology for putting websites to the test.

The Belgian APD (“BAPD”) has published a first decision in a series of investigations on the use of cookies by Belgian publishers. The observations leading to the EUR 50,000 fine for the first publisher in the list are based on a legacy CMP implementation. No breaking news here. More insightful are the criteria against which observations were vetted. In this post we argue why most publishers likely won't be able meet these standards as such.

Have you ever tried to tally up all cookies and trackers of your company’s website? I have tried dozens of times. My first attempt involved 3 months of surveying all technical and legal colleagues. I mapped 70% of cookies, which dropped below 50% a few months down the road.

In November 2021, the European Data Protection Supervisor (“EDPS”), the most prominent EU data protection adviser, called on EU legislators to ban targeted advertising on the basis of pervasive tracking.

Looking at the vastness and richness of web pages today, I still find it surprising that standards from the origins of internet have stood the test of time? When you look at the source of any given web page, you still find HTML, styled with CSS and code to change HTML and CSS dynamically.