"seemingly every entity required me to make an account, share my mailing address, often my passport information, etc., just to buy a ticket or secure a table." He further expands on this in the latest episode of Dithering, stating that 'every single EU entity requires me to have an account just to do something like book a table' (paraphrasing as I don't remember the exact line but the 'every single EU entity' stuck in my mind).

To me this feels like the sadly common misconception that every country in the EU is the same. I live in Ireland and have never once had to create an account to book a table in a restaurant. Nor a cinema ticket, nor visits to tourist attractions. And that includes while travelling abroad.

Thompson is either being hyperbolic in the extreme or just had really bad luck (or, went to an EU country where this is actually common - I won't make the mistake of assuming they are all the same).

For example:

> every website has a bunch of regulatory-required pop-ups asking for permission to simply operate as normal websites, which means collecting the data necessary to provide whatever experience you are trying to access

is completely false.

Is it really a false claim that that nearly every website he would need to visit as a tourist would have a popup of some kind?

Even if his reasoning is off here, it's really a small anecdote at the beginning of a much larger article.

Yes. I'm in vacation in Brittany RN, I'll check the next place I'll have to contact to find a place to sail to: https://www.saintmalo-cancale.port.bzh No pop-up. I'll bet most ports don't have cookie pop-ups, most public campings won't either.

When I visit the site I instantly get a popup:

"Ce site utilise des cookies et vous donne le contrôle sur ce que vous souhaitez activer" "OK, tout accepter" "Interdire tous les cookies Personnaliser"

Do you have something blocking it?

It's a modal popup obstructing the entire website. Can't miss it :)