Cookie Consent Banner Examples (and What's Wrong With Each)
ConsentProof is a cookie consent checker that scans any website with a real browser and records which cookies and third-party trackers fire before the visitor consents.
Patterns, not screenshots of named sites
This round-up describes patterns rather than pointing at particular companies' live pages. Publishing a gallery of named sites annotated as non-compliant is a legal opinion about somebody else's business, and we are not in a position to issue one.
The patterns below cover almost everything you will meet in the wild.
The five patterns
The implied-consent bar: a strip announcing that using the site means accepting cookies, with a single dismiss button. It collects no choice at all, and the tags underneath it are invariably already running.
The accept-only modal: a blocking overlay with one button. There is no way to refuse, so there is no free choice.
The asymmetric pair: a solid Accept all button beside a low-contrast text link to preferences. Common, visible in a screenshot, and a recurring feature of enforcement decisions.
The correct-looking banner with an ungated tag manager: equal buttons, granular categories, and Hotjar firing on load anyway because it was added to the tag manager without a consent trigger. This is the most common failure among sites that are actually trying.
The banner that works: nothing non-essential before a choice, reject as easy as accept on the first layer, categories separable, and a withdrawal route afterwards.
How to place your own banner among these
Two of the five are visual and can be judged from a screenshot. The other three depend on what the browser did before you clicked, which is not visible by looking.
Run a scan, then read the before screenshot next to the pre-consent tracker list. Between those two artefacts, every pattern above is identifiable.
Frequently asked
- What does a compliant cookie banner look like?
- Equally prominent accept and reject on the first layer, separable purposes, clear information about recipients, and — the part you cannot see — nothing non-essential firing before the visitor chooses.
- Is a cookie wall allowed?
- Generally not where it makes consent a condition of access to a service, because consent is then not freely given. A few regulators allow narrow paid-alternative models; the details vary by jurisdiction and are contested.
- My banner looks like the good example. Why did the scan fail?
- Almost always because a tag was added outside the consent mechanism. The banner is fine; the tag never asked it for permission.
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