You surely encounter cookie banners all the time. They’re the kind of low-level annoyance that seems to come with being a person on the Internet: a pop-up that asks you to agree to share some kind of information with someone, for some purpose. You can find out more, but no. Nobody does. You simply click “Accept” and proceed.
Are these banners annoying, or are they something more? on this issue of The VergecastKate Klonick, professor and senior editor at St. John’s Law and orderThis makes the case that cookie banners are a bigger problem than you realize. They recently published a paper arguing that there may be good intentions behind cookie banners, but they’ve become bloated and useless — and in the process, they’ve created a new kind of conversation that means trouble all over the web. The only solution is to get rid of them, and do it now.
after this, The VergeAllison Johnson takes us on a Gemini-fueled journey through Seattle. With the new Ask Maps feature, Google Maps uses AI models to answer deeper, more complex questions about the world around you, and Allison tested the new tool. It went surprisingly well! But this raises questions about what information we want to share and how much we want our computers to know about us.
Finally, Allison E Inc. is ready to help us answer a question from the Vergecast hotline (call 866-VERGE11 or email Vergecast@theverge.com!) about smartphones, and whether simpler displays might be the answer to our smartphone problems. We have some ideas and some objections.
If you want to learn more about everything discussed in this episode, here are some links to get you started:
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