Why your "reject" button might make your banner illegal
The single most common cookie-banner failure is also the easiest to spot: a big, bright "Accept all" and a reject option that is hidden, greyed out, or two clicks deeper. Regulators have been explicit that this is not valid consent.
Why it fails
Valid consent under GDPR must be freely given. If accepting is effortless and rejecting is deliberately harder, you are nudging people into consent they would not otherwise give, which regulators treat as no consent at all. Design that steers the choice ("dark patterns") has been called out specifically.
What compliant looks like
- Reject and accept are equally prominent and equally easy, ideally on the same screen, same styling.
- No making people wade through settings just to say no.
- No pre-selected non-essential options.
The catch most people miss
Fixing this honestly means more people will reject, so your measured data drops, unless your tracking is built to handle rejections with Consent Mode and modelling. That is why compliance and measurement have to be solved together, not one at a time. See the full banner compliance check.
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