"toss your cookies" policy

Possibly if you use an ad-blocker (or maybe if you don't) you've encountered this irritating popup:

cookie_timewaster

It covers part of your screen until you click it. Your reasonable reaction might be, "Every website leaves a cookie -- what's the big deal?" But if you click "give me more info" you find the real reason -- it's the third party tracking cookies they want to put on your device (see boilerplate below from the VoxEU privacy policy). Why not say this on the website, as long as they are going to the trouble of interrupting the reader's "user experience"? This is a minor, sleazily disingenuous form of Dark Pattern: coercion disguised as choice.

Use of Cookies

This website uses cookies to better the users experience while visiting the website. Where applicable this website uses a cookie control system allowing the user on their first visit to the website to allow or disallow the use of cookies on their computer / device. This complies with recent legislation requirements for websites to obtain explicit consent from users before leaving behind or reading files such as cookies on a user's computer / device. [Blaming legislators for their marketing model.]

Cookies are small files saved to the user's computers hard drive that track, save and store information about the user's interactions and usage of the website. This allows the website, through its server to provide the users with a tailored experience within this website.

Users are advised that if they wish to deny the use and saving of cookies from this website on to their computers hard drive they should take necessary steps within their web browsers security settings to block all cookies from this website and its external serving vendors.

This website uses tracking software to monitor its visitors to better understand how they use it. This software is provided by Google Analytics which uses cookies to track visitor usage. The software will save a cookie to your computers hard drive in order to track and monitor your engagement and usage of the website, but will not store, save or collect personal information. You can read Google's privacy policy here for further information [http://www.google.com/privacy.html].

Other cookies may be stored to your computers hard drive by external vendors when this website uses referral programs, sponsored links or adverts. Such cookies are used for conversion and referral tracking and typically expire after 30 days, though some may take longer. No personal information is stored, saved or collected.