Neither GDPR nor ePrivacy directive demands cookie walls. ePrivacy directive demands consent. That consent can be given programmatically by browser APIs. There's even acknowledgement of such possibillity in the legal text (see point 7 in the directive). GDPR itself does not demand cookie banners, either. It merely demands there to be a legal basis for processing of data that constitutes personal data. One of those bases is consent. It's not the only basis. Other notable basis includes contractual necessity (includes all the cookies that are necessary for user experience, i.e sth like PHP placed session cookie).
Browsers do not have automated means to give consent/not give consent under ePrivacy because the largest browser is ran by an ad company. Monetarily speaking, the ad company earns more if it coerces its users with dark patterns into giving consent under ePrivacy than it does offering pro-user choice technologies to give a blanket not consent.
And ePrivacy itself is not just about cookies. EDPB recently released binding recommendations that severely expanded the perceived scope of ePrivacy (the true scope was always as it is, the adtech industry just ignored it). ePrivacy includes JavaScript side tracking, fingerprinting with various APIs and so on. It's not just cookies.
Browsers do not have automated means to give consent/not give consent under ePrivacy because the largest browser is ran by an ad company. Monetarily speaking, the ad company earns more if it coerces its users with dark patterns into giving consent under ePrivacy than it does offering pro-user choice technologies to give a blanket not consent.
And ePrivacy itself is not just about cookies. EDPB recently released binding recommendations that severely expanded the perceived scope of ePrivacy (the true scope was always as it is, the adtech industry just ignored it). ePrivacy includes JavaScript side tracking, fingerprinting with various APIs and so on. It's not just cookies.