Which booking website are you going to that doesn't have cookie banners? I spot checked multiple EU and US airlines just now (Ryanair, Air France, United, Alaska) and all of them had a cookie banner.

I started with Google Flights and went to two other sites that it directed me to.

Just to reiterate, I'm not religious about this practice. If I need to click a cookie banner to book a plane ticket, so be it.

I just treat cookie banners as a strong negative signal.

Google, including Google Flights, does have a cookie banner. It's just likely that you already accepted/denied the prompt at some point.

That’s certainly possible. I don’t deny occasionally clicking them. I just don’t bother most of the time.

Edit: I just tried the flight ordering flow again (starting at google.com/flights) in a private/incognito tab, and did not encounter any cookie banners.

any site with a cart or user prefs should have a cookie disclosure

Not all cookie banner implementations are obstructive to the users. Only the ones that really want you click on "accept all" are.

This is not true, cookie disclosure is only required for non-essential cookies.

Well they need to track the above activities

Yes, they are essential. Therefore no permission needed for those.

> any site with a cart or user prefs should have a cookie disclosure

In the name of all that is holy!

Once again....

You are free to use whatever cookies you want to run your site with no need for "cookie banners". HOWEVER, if you are using those cookies to track me (advertisers take a bow) then you need my clear, opt-in informed consent to do so.

I remain utterly astounded at the ignorance some tech people have of the GDPR; a vital privacy law and one that is fundamental to modern data use and respect for the customer.

every business needs to "track" it's audience. how do you run an app without measurement?

Bizarre question.

You can gather statistical data for an "app" (meaning software installed on a users personal device holding that holds their private data) without tracking users or invading their privacy.

It may be possible, but it be nearly impossible to make money off of it, which is why nearly every app/website has a consent prompt.

I love how every argument is like "this extremely rare and practically useless application is possible, so you don't need cookie prompts".

and don't be so smug. user prefs are non-essential and require consent.

User preference cookies generally do not require consent under most privacy regulations, including the EU’s GDPR and ePrivacy Directive, as long as they serve a functional purpose directly requested by the user and are not used for tracking or profiling.

my point is that it's ambiguous, even gdpr.eu says otherwise, and it's so unclear that app developers err on the side of caution. It's nothing to be smug about. All of these seemingly capable people struggle with it .