On 21 March 2019, Advocate General Szpunar
("AG") issued some clarifications
about consent requirements with regard to cookies in the
Planet49 case pending before the Court of Justice of the European
Union (Case C-673/17, Planet49 GmbH v. Bundesverband
der Verbraucherzentralen und Verbraucherverbände –
Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband e.V.).
The facts: before hitting the participation button of a
promotional online lottery organised by Planet49, the user had to
enter his name and address and, beneath these fields, there were
two sets of checkboxes accompanied by explanatory texts. One
required the user to consent to cookies being installed on
their computer (by unticking the box) while the other required the
user to agree to being contacted by a certain number of firms
for promotional offers (by ticking the box).
