Consent-O-Matic

Summary

Most websites today want to process your data and ask for consent using cookie banners. While these banners are meant to give you control, in practice they often result in repetitive and time-consuming clicks—especially if your browser clears cookies when you close it. The same banner reappears, and you find yourself making the same choices again and again. Consent-O-Matic is a browser extension designed to solve this problem. Developed by the Centre for Advanced Visualization and Interaction (CAVI) at Aarhus University, the tool automatically handles consent banners on your behalf. After you set your preferences during installation, Consent-O-Matic will recognize many common Consent Management Platform (CMP) banners, apply your choices, and confirm with a little checkmark next to the extension icon. Because Consent-O-Matic is an open-source project, anyone can contribute to its improvement by adding new rules, updating old rules, or updating documentation. This collaborative approach ensures that the extension keeps pace with the constantly changing landscape of online consent banners—and makes it easier for everyone to safeguard their data with less hassle. Further reading Academic Papers Other mentions Compatible CMPs Consent-O-Matic currently works with more than 200 CMPs (see full list here), including major platforms like UserCentrics, CookieBot, OneTrust, as well as cookie banners for specific websites. Privacy Consent-O-Matic uses the following set of permissions in the browser when installed: Access to read all pages - It searches each page you visit for consent-related popups that it knows how to handle Information about tab URLs - You can turn the extension on/off on a page-by-page basis by clicking the icon. To check if it is enabled it needs to know the address of the page you are visiting Storage - Your preferences and settings are stored directly in your browser The extension only communicates with the web in two situations: When fetching and updating...