Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
Top comments
”Cookie banner” is a misnomer. These consent popups are usually asking for you to consent to having hundreds if not thousands of companies build and sell a profile of you. They will combine your behavior and device data from various sources, identify you across platforms by linking device IDs, and ultimately sell your privacy to the highest bidder. Typically, you can’t even turn these permissions off, nor can you deny consent or object to their purposes: they are increasingly claiming…
I wish there was a standard browser API for this. If the law is going to force this to be a thing, and it's not going away, web standards should respond. It could even just be a flag in the cookie itself declaring that something isn't strictly necessary.
If you trust prebuilt versions of extensions like this-- Available on Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/consent-o-mat... Available on Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/consent-o-matic/md...
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
HN stats
- Breakout years
- 2
- Total points
- 338
- Total comments
- 235
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-09-15 | Consent-O-Matic | krn | 2 | 0 |
| 2022-01-19 | Consent-O-Matic: browser extension to automatically answer GDPR popups | eropple | 2 | 1 |
| 2022-03-10 | Consent-O-Matic: Automatic handling of GDPR consent formsFirst breakout | zigzag312 | 141 | 135 |
| 2026-01-18 | Consent-O-MaticBest thread · Latest 20+ point return | throawayonthe | 193 | 99 |