>I think DNT could be rescued if it could be turned into a browser-wide consent UI.
This is kind of what I was getting at.
I think there would he subtleties to the user interactions though - I might say yes to marketing cookies if I knew not accepting it would lead to a degradation of service on some sites, but not for every site.
Driving a standard that can manage that kind of thing might be something regulators simply aren't up to.
Some people might reasonably prefer ads that are more tailored to them and would consider it a negative impact on the service.
Other sites might, for example, use your current location to display the local weather, which isn't required (you can type in your city in the search bar) but would be prefered by many.
A better solution would be to have the browser ask once, globally, on first install and then send the DNT after that. Any attempt to circumvent anything would be an instant fine.
Myself, I wish another GDPR iteration would instead mandate the shape and form of the initial consent popup, requiring it to fit to the following template (or something similar/equivalent):
With an explicit [>I do not consent<] button, pre-selected, in the "call to action" color, doing the same thing as [X] does, which is declining data collection described. Displayed in the same language website content is, and with specific regulations guarding against the common "dark pattern" bullshit. I'm sure Brussels has some webdevs that would be happy to provide standard templates and React components and whatnot, so that site authors could just plug in a stylesheet and a JSON blob to configure the [Learn purposes...] section.The ultimate solution would be for member states' DPAs to get off their collective butts and start issuing fines for the current crop of blatantly illegal consent popups, but in the interim, it would be helpful to regulate the popups, so that they clearly communicate that a) they're requesting strictly unnecessary tracking that can be safely ignored, b) showing an annoying popup is a choice by the website owners, who decided to request consent for additional tracking.