An interesting twist in the ‘cookie walls’ saga.

France’s Council of State has ordered the CNIL (French data protection watchdog) to cancel parts of its guidelines on cookies as the ban on cookies walls was not valid. The court explained that the CNIL exceeded its specific mandate under an act called “flexible law” which refers to instruments, such as regulatory authorities’ guidelines, which do not create a legal right or obligation.

Although a recent update of the EDPB Guidelines on consent invalidated ‘cookie walls’, our patient may still be very much alive. There potentially might be similar court decisions in some other Member States.

Recently, the BfDI (German watchdog) said that “cookie-walls are permitted if a comparable service is also offered without tracking, for example, as a paid service”. This happened right after the update of the EDPB Guidelines on consent came out.

Original text of the decision is in French:

https://www.conseil-etat.fr/actualites/actualites/le-conseil-d-etat-annule-partiellement-les-lignes-directrices-de-la-cnil-relatives-aux-cookies-et-autres-traceurs-de-connexion

3 Replies to “An interesting twist in the ‘cookie walls’ saga.”

  1. Cookie walls take away Choice, and Choice is a human right. Hope this turns around again. Cookie walls must be illegal, if they are not Marketing will be making hay to their hearts content 🙁

  2. Excellent post, Konstantin. The act called Flexible Law and what it means is very interesting to me as a legal concept. I want to look at that topic a bit more before I comment more.

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