The banner is legally required. The maze is not. When “Accept all” is a single glowing button and “Reject all” hides behind Manage preferences → Vendors → 812 partners → toggle each “legitimate interest” off by hand, the design has made refusing so expensive that most people accept just to read the article. That’s not consent. That’s exhaustion, monetised.
The honest version is trivial and some sites already ship it: two buttons, equal size, equal weight, on the same screen — Accept all and Reject all — and the “manage” link for anyone who wants the dimmer switch. Refusal has to cost the same as agreement or the word “consent” is doing a job it wasn’t hired for.
(We run a banner now — Analytics arrived on 17 September 2026 — so this crime is one we could commit. Ours is two buttons of equal size and weight on the same screen, no “manage preferences” maze, and it appears only where consent is actually required. Hold us to the fix, not to the exemption we used to claim. That’s Rule 2.)