July 30, 2026

Consent? More like click and cry

1,741 "informed" consents with one click? GDPR complaint filed

One tap, 1,741 trackers, and the comments are absolutely losing it

TLDR: A privacy complaint says dict.cc asked users to agree to tracking by 1,741 companies at once, which critics say makes real understanding impossible. Commenters are furious that rejecting tracking is often harder than accepting it, with many mocking the whole system as fake choice.

A privacy fight over dict.cc has turned into pure comment-section theater after privacy group noyb filed a complaint saying users were pushed to say yes to 1,741 advertising “partners” in a single click. Under Europe’s privacy rules, people are supposed to give permission knowingly and clearly. Commenters, however, are asking the obvious question: how is anyone supposed to “knowingly” agree to a list so long it would take days to read? One person summed up the general mood perfectly by joking that even a site with “only” 134 partners already felt absurd. Somehow, 134 is now the reasonable number in this cursed discourse.

The community reaction is a mix of outrage, exhaustion, and dark comedy. Some zeroed in on the real-life misery of these pop-ups: not just the giant partner count, but the fact that saying no can mean clicking through company after company one by one for 15 minutes straight. Others dragged the now-familiar trick where websites basically say, “Sure, you can keep your privacy... if you pay us.” That sparked the hottest take of the thread: maybe the law was never built for this industrial-scale consent circus in the first place. In other words, the drama isn’t just about one dictionary site — it’s about the internet turning “consent” into a game of find the reject button before your soul leaves your body. The comments are blunt: this doesn’t feel informed, it feels like surrender.

Key Points

  • noyb filed a GDPR complaint against dict.cc over a one-click consent banner covering 1,741 partner companies.
  • The article says GDPR requires consent to be freely given, informed, specific, and unambiguous.
  • noyb argues that reviewing the privacy policies of 1,741 partners would take at least 170 hours, making informed consent impractical.
  • The article states that advertising data collected through tracking may be further shared, sold by data brokers, or used for surveillance purposes.
  • noyb asked the Austrian Data Protection Authority to order deletion of unlawfully processed data, notify recipients, and consider a fine or broader action.

Hottest takes

"you have to disable one by one, it’s probably 15 minutes of work" — jcul
"sure you can opt-out of tracking - by buying a premium subscription" — xg15
"apparently that’s only 134 and I thought that was ridiculous" — andrewstuart2
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