I'm really trying to understand how anyone can think this is sensible. Maybe 20 years ago when these laws were written by people who had never used WiFi at a cafe before, but surely everyone involved with writing this bill intuits that this sort of a measure is utterly worthless and just induces frictions. Maybe it enables prosecution later for lying? Hard to believe they think that outweighs the costs.
Did you ever take a look who sits in the European Parliament and European Commission?
Introducing Günther Oettinger, the European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society: (wait for his English at the 0:20 mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88OGXLFpeMw
So I get that his poor English is a sign of his age, and that older folks are less likely to grok tech. But I'd still wager he has used WiFI before, and should be able to understand how useless but still costly those click-to-agree screens are.
He's basically reading off a script word-by-word with German phonemes. He sounds like a first year English student forced to read out loud from a text book he's never read before.
It's not that he has an accent. It's that his English skills are ridiculous for the position he is in. English is taught throughout all high school education in Germany and fluency in English is required or at least recommended for the vast majority of jobs.
He's not just any politician either. He's not some lowly drone in a communal government branch. His office involves a lot of international communication and English is the standard language for most of it.
But there's a bias here: he's mostly ridiculed by younger Germans. His English (just like Merkel's) is on par for his generation. It's not entirely ridiculous when you consider that he likely grew up in times when learning English wasn't considered as important as it is now -- my grandmother speaks no English whatsoever and my parents-in-law just barely understand some basics.
If young Americans groan about their presidents' "dad jokes", this is more like being embarrassed by your grandparents.
They do it for taxes in the US: "Income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Form 1040, line 21, or on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity."
Maybe they could do the same thing for premises, where by entering a restaurant or any other business you must sign a waiver even if you're just browsing.
When? 2011. Why? Privacy. But tracking companies have decided that instead of giving users the privacy the law was meant to deliver, it was preferable to ruin their browsing experience to obtain 'consent'.
Of course they had to include that paragraph, forcing everyone to tick some stupid check-box. As if the cookie agreements weren't enough already.