That CNN website is great, except it still has a huge cookie banner. Looking at the cookies of the site, I think the only cookie it sets is that i clicked on the banner. Most of the size of the page is also related to the banner it seems.
If I’ve understood the grandparent post correctly, they don’t need the banner. They wouldn’t need it if the only cookie they set were a functional 1st-party cookie, and since that sole cookie is just to track cookie banner status, they especially don’t need it.
But taking the time to investigate that, get it approved by legal, etc. all takes longer than just slapping a cookie banner component on it.
This is why people complain about the unclear and bureaucratic nature of these laws, it leads to an over complicated investigation and compliance isn't always simple - meaning the safest option is to comply at the highest level and degrade the user experience.
Eh, it took me all of 2 days to strip all the unnecessary cookies out of our product, and convince management to leave out the giant unnecessary cookie banner.
The sites plastering those everywhere are doing a malicious compliance, pure and simple
