VOX:

If you’ve visited a new website on your phone or computer over the past 18 months or so, you’ve probably seen it: a notification informing you that the page is using cookies to track you and asking you to agree to let it happen. The site invites you to read its “cookie policy,” (which, let’s be honest, you’re not going to do), and it may tell you the tracking is to “enhance” your experience — even though it feels like it’s doing the opposite.

The proliferation of such alerts was largely triggered by two different regulations in Europe: the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a sweeping data privacy law enacted in the European Union in May 2018; and the ePrivacy Directive, which was first passed in 2002 and then updated in 2009. They, and the cookie alerts that resulted, have plenty of good intentions. But they’re ineffectual.

“I would say they’re generally pretty useless so far,” Shane Green, CEO of private data sharing platform digi.me, told Recode. “We’re back to 1999 all over again with pop-ups everywhere, and it’s beyond annoying.”

It’s not just your imagination. It’s definitely gotten worse.