There's nothing about the gdpr that forced cookie banners for each website. The tech industry could have implemented the requirements differently, but they have

There's nothing about the gdpr that forced cookie banners for each website. The tech industry could have implemented the requirements differently, but they haven't done that, instead taking the most annoying and obvious route. The closest thing to a technical solution that was widespread is do-not-track, but since it gets thoroughly ignored nowadays, it's worthless. As an example, since the DNT header is a pretty clear signal that you don't want to consent for various tracking, websites wouldn't have to display the consent-form for that and could only use essential cookies (or leave a choice for cookies for other purposes, if there are any). Recital 32: "This could include ticking a box when visiting an internet website, choosing technical settings for information society services or another statement or conduct which clearly indicates in this context the data subject’s acceptance of the proposed processing of his or her personal data." And according to the ico (https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/consent/what-is-valid-consent/ https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protectio...), the common click-this-button-to-get-through or do annoying things is not valid consent: "You may not rely on silence, inactivity, default settings, pre-ticked boxes or your general terms and conditions, or seek to take advantage of inertia, inattention or default bias in any other way.". The reason why you don't want a specific technical provision in this law (and almost all laws) is that they get outdated in less than five years. For example, imagine a framework based on http-headers fixed in law. That would've made it (almost) impossible for google to introduce spdy in europe, since it isn't http. Or, more general, the EU initiative to use micro-usb connectors would have made the switch to usb-c impossible, if they were written into law. And that's a comparatively slow moving field, with a very specific applications (charging mobile phones).