It’s neither a cookie law, nor about cookies. It’s about tracking and is far more comprehensive. The adtech industry is just engaging in collaborative gaslighting and very successful at it.

Many third parties are now relying on information forwarded to them through first party systems and cookies. This forces sites to isolate those and provide a way of disabling the flow of personal data regardless.

In the absolute vast majority of cases those popup banners are illegal under the rather straightforward and unequivocal law.

If 5 years after GDPR went into effect you still don't know what it is and why it exists, your company deserves to be sued into oblivion.