VALLETTA — A routine website update has left local readers stuck in what engineers are calling “recursive consent” after the site began asking for permission to show its permission popup.
Users report mild existential crisis
The new flow — installed, according to source code visible to anyone who knows where to look, between a Marfeel SDK and three lines of Google Tag Manager JavaScript — starts with a simple question: “Do you accept cookies?” When users clicked “Manage”, a second box appears asking: “May we show you the manage cookies box?"
"I pressed ‘Iva’ but then another box asked me if I was sure I wanted to have pressed ‘Iva’,” said Karmenu, 67, who was trying to read an article about festas while eating a pastizz. “Uwejja, I gave up and went to get more pastizzi. The news can wait.”�
“It felt like entering a roundabout with no exits. I kept clicking until the roundabout asked for my consent to exist.”
Developers defended the change. “We take user privacy very seriously,” said a spokesperson in an email that required two confirmations before it displayed, then a third to allow the images to load. “Also, consent is trending, so we thought: why not consent to consent?”
At Malta’s cafés and ferry terminals, people tried to explain the new logic to foreigners who, having escaped stricter GDPR regimes, were nonetheless baffled. “They keep saying ‘no scripts’ and then the site asks if clicking ‘no scripts’ is allowed,” said a confused tourist. “I just wanted the Gozo ferry times. Kemm hu diffiċli?”
Privacy advocates were torn. Some applauded the extra layer as a hyper-protective shield, while others warned it could create an accessibility problem when seniors give up and read the site on someone else’s phone.
In response, the Planning Authority was asked whether the stacking popups required a permit; the Authority replied that while they do not normally regulate popups, they would consider whether the visual clutter requires an environmental impact assessment.
At press time, the site’s consent banner had displayed a small consent banner insisting it had permission to ask for permission to display the weather widget.