Navigating Cookie Consent Violations Across the Globe

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Tang, Brian, Bui, Duc, Shin, Kang G.
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Tang, Brian
Bui, Duc
Shin, Kang G.
author_facet Tang, Brian
Bui, Duc
Shin, Kang G.
contents Online services provide users with cookie banners to accept/reject the cookies placed on their web browsers. Despite the increased adoption of cookie banners, little has been done to ensure that cookie consent is compliant with privacy laws around the globe. Prior studies have found that cookies are often placed on browsers even after their explicit rejection by users. These inconsistencies in cookie banner behavior circumvent users' consent preferences and are known as cookie consent violations. To address this important problem, we propose an end-to-end system, called ConsentChk, that detects and analyzes cookie banner behavior. ConsentChk uses a formal model to systematically detect and categorize cookie consent violations. We investigate eight English-speaking regions across the world, and analyze cookie banner behavior across 1,793 globally-popular websites. Cookie behavior, cookie consent violation rates, and cookie banner implementations are found to be highly dependent on region. Our evaluation reveals that consent management platforms (CMPs) and website developers likely tailor cookie banner configurations based on their (often incorrect) interpretations of regional privacy laws. We discuss various root causes behind these cookie consent violations. The resulting implementations produce misleading cookie banners, indicating the prevalence of inconsistently implemented and enforced cookie consent between various regions.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_08996
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Navigating Cookie Consent Violations Across the Globe
Tang, Brian
Bui, Duc
Shin, Kang G.
Cryptography and Security
Online services provide users with cookie banners to accept/reject the cookies placed on their web browsers. Despite the increased adoption of cookie banners, little has been done to ensure that cookie consent is compliant with privacy laws around the globe. Prior studies have found that cookies are often placed on browsers even after their explicit rejection by users. These inconsistencies in cookie banner behavior circumvent users' consent preferences and are known as cookie consent violations. To address this important problem, we propose an end-to-end system, called ConsentChk, that detects and analyzes cookie banner behavior. ConsentChk uses a formal model to systematically detect and categorize cookie consent violations. We investigate eight English-speaking regions across the world, and analyze cookie banner behavior across 1,793 globally-popular websites. Cookie behavior, cookie consent violation rates, and cookie banner implementations are found to be highly dependent on region. Our evaluation reveals that consent management platforms (CMPs) and website developers likely tailor cookie banner configurations based on their (often incorrect) interpretations of regional privacy laws. We discuss various root causes behind these cookie consent violations. The resulting implementations produce misleading cookie banners, indicating the prevalence of inconsistently implemented and enforced cookie consent between various regions.
title Navigating Cookie Consent Violations Across the Globe
topic Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.08996