EU countries back cookie-free audience measurement. Browser consent signals are out

The Council of the EU agreed its position on new cookie rules on 21 October. Under the mandate, websites could place cookies for audience measurement without asking for consent. The text is part of the Digital Omnibus, a package that also changes the GDPR and cyber incident reporting.

The aim, the Council says in its press release, is fewer cookie banners. The ePrivacy rules on tracking stay. What changes is a clearer list of purposes that need no consent: running a service the user asked for, audience measurement and device security.

The Council text sets three measurement exemptions

PPC Land reviewed the draft mandate dated 2 October. A site may measure its own traffic if the data become anonymous totals and are not shared or combined with other data. Media measurement linked to the European Media Freedom Act is allowed if the data are pseudonymised. Contextual ad measurement and frequency capping are covered too, but not profiling, programmatic buying or tracking across sites.

The same draft lets a site ask again four months after a user says no. The Commission had proposed six months.

Germany, France and Poland opposed the browser consent signal

The Commission’s November 2025 proposal included Article 88b. It would have made sites respect consent choices sent by the browser. The Council deleted it. In June, privacy group noyb reported that Germany, France and Poland pushed for its removal. Its founder Max Schrems argued that cookie banners come from the tracking industry, not from data protection law.

Browsers are changing ad tracking without new laws anyway. In one recent case, iOS 27 Safari blocks The Trade Desk ads.

The European Parliament has not voted on the cookie rules yet

Talks with the European Parliament start once Parliament adopts its own position. In the GDPR part, the Council keeps the current definition of personal data. It clarifies when data may be used to build AI systems, with safeguards. A separate fight over ad consent continues: publishers asked EU and UK regulators to stop Meta’s new terms.

Teams that run analytics only after consent can check one thing now. Does their measurement tool share data with third parties or combine it with other sources? Under the Council text, only tools that do neither could run without a banner.