The privacy organisation noyb will file more than 10,000 complaints for use of cookies contrary to its interpretation of compliance.

By Gail Crawford, Myria Saarinen, Tim Wybitul, Wolf Boehm, Charlotte Guerin, and Amy Smyth

On 31 May 2021, the nonprofit privacy organisation noyb (short for “none of your business”) launched a large-scale campaign to combat allegedly unlawful cookie banners and practices. According to a press release, noyb has already sent draft complaints to the operators of more than 500 frequently visited websites, and is intending to send a further 10,000 complaints this year. This is space where website operators arguably have considerable room for interpretation and to develop a variety of approaches for providing cookie information and obtaining cookie consent. Noyb’s campaign seeks to impose its interpretation of applicable cookie rules across the EU through threats of complaints to supervisory authorities.

Affected companies that fail to bring their cookie practices into compliance with noyb’s interpretation of the legal requirements will face complaints brought by noyb to the competent data protection supervisory authorities.