Apparently, the cookie notice is only supposed to show up if the cookies are not related to the site’s purpose; e.g. cookies that keep you logged in or similar are perfectly fine and don’t need a warning. The issue is that every website began using cookies for tracking, so the warnings jut became noise. It’s sad: this law was reasonable, but advertisers were able to completely subvert it into an annoyance for users, and in doing so, prevented the real problem from being solved.