From time to time, important news gets overshadowed by other headlines, even though it could have a profound impact on our (online) world. To most of us, few things are more bothersome than the dreaded cookie banners. On countless websites, you’re confronted with a pesky pop-up urging you to agree to something. You end up consenting without really knowing what it is. If you try to figure out what’s going on, you quickly get lost among the often hundreds of “partners” who want access to your personal data. Even if you do give your consent, it’s questionable whether you truly understand what you’re agreeing to.

What's the solution?

Big corpos aren't going to comply and pay a small fine instead. https://proton.me/tech-fines-tracker

how is Belgium to live in and what would it look like to live there right now?

It's literally between France, Germany and the Netherlands, I mean geographically yes but roughly culturally too. Arguably Brussels is a mix of all that and other cities again match where they are.

So... it's a Western European country with good quality of life despite thanks to having one of the very highest taxes rate. You don't have to be a socialist to be here but if you want to become a rich entrepreneur it's going to be challenging.

Source : immigrated there from France ~10 years ago.

Edit: s/despite/thanks to/

I'm not sure a technical solution is feasible, other than dns-blocking these trackers. I suppose lawmakers need to spring into action to make this shit illegal.

it's a Western European country with good quality of life despite having one of the very highest taxes rate.

"Despite"? Try, "because"

From time to time, important news gets overshadowed by other headlines, even though it could have a profound impact on our (online) world. To most of us, few things are more bothersome than the dreaded cookie banners. On countless websites, you’re confronted with a pesky pop-up urging you to agree to something. You end up consenting without really knowing what it is. If you try to figure out what’s going on, you quickly get lost among the often hundreds of “partners” who want access to your personal data. Even if you do give your consent, it’s questionable whether you truly understand what you’re agreeing to.

I'm not sure a technical solution is feasible, other than dns-blocking these trackers. I suppose lawmakers need to spring into action to make this shit illegal.

Cookies are old news. What about browser fingerprinting which can track you across websites? https://www.amiunique.org/

There's basically no easy way to safeguard against it without making browsing nearly unusable.

it's a Western European country with good quality of life despite having one of the very highest taxes rate.

"Despite"? Try, "because"

wow i didn't know belgium was based. I guess i was wrong when i thought they peaked with french fries

I think they’re actually right about this one, taxes tend to cover things that give you high standard of living more than quality of life.

Idk, their waffles and chocolates are pretty good too.

I think you can reap the benefits from just using a VPN and set the country to Belgium?

From time to time, important news gets overshadowed by other headlines, even though it could have a profound impact on our (online) world. To most of us, few things are more bothersome than the dreaded cookie banners. On countless websites, you’re confronted with a pesky pop-up urging you to agree to something. You end up consenting without really knowing what it is. If you try to figure out what’s going on, you quickly get lost among the often hundreds of “partners” who want access to your personal data. Even if you do give your consent, it’s questionable whether you truly understand what you’re agreeing to.

And beer

wow i didn't know belgium was based. I guess i was wrong when i thought they peaked with french fries

Yes! You are unique among the 3874720 fingerprints in our entire dataset.

If the website says that I’m unique in green font, it’s actually bad and should be red, isn’t it ?

You already get the benefit of lower prices for digital products that have the same production cost regarless of where it is sold. I understand that your wages are lower, but I can not like paying a lot more for the same services/