Our action on cookies gives 40 million people greater control online

We set out to give people more meaningful control over how organisations track them online. Our action on cookie compliance means that over 95% of the UK’s top 1,000 websites met our compliance checks at the time of testing. This ensures users can make real choices about advertising cookies. 

This change benefits an estimated 80% of UK internet users over the age of 14 – around 40 million people – by giving them greater control over personalised advertising. 

Our assessment focused on three key areas: 

• Were non-essential advertising cookies stored before users could choose to accept or reject them? 
• Was it as easy to reject non-essential advertising cookies as to accept them? 
• Were any non-essential advertising cookies placed without consent? 

As a result of our work, 979 of the top 1,000 websites passed our compliance checks. Of those that passed, 564 improved their practices after engagement with us. Where necessary, we escalated action – issuing 17 preliminary enforcement notices – which prompted nearly all websites to comply. 

We continue with action against the 21 websites that have still not passed our testing criteria.  

This work has improved user experience, with a greater number of ‘reject’ options on cookie banners and fewer cookies placed without consent. We’ve also worked with trade bodies and consent management platforms, driving changes so cookie banner options are compliant by default. 

Next, we’ll work with stakeholders to understand whether publishers could deliver privacy-friendly online advertising to users who have not granted consent but where the risk to privacy is low. We’re also working with the government to explore potential legislative changes to support this.