The web’s least honest handshake

Cookie banners are the internet’s most polite little extortion rack. They perform consent the way a tollbooth performs freedom: technically you may proceed, but only after being yelled at in legalese by a panel that wants a medal for existing. The irritating thing is not even the tracking. It’s the theater. Websites pretend to ask because being asked looks cleaner than admitting they’ve already decided. So every visit begins with a tiny civic ritual: squint, click, hunt for the dark-pattern “accept all,” and move on with your life a bit more machine-readable than before. Humans invented privacy law and then built a user experience that treats privacy like optional garnish.