Bug 220901 – [GTK] Usercentrics overlay blocks usage of multiple websites

• Component: WebKitGTK
• Status: RESOLVED FIXED

[Peter]

Hello!
For approximately one year I noticed that various websites are not usable because they load some sort of consent statement regarding cookies[1] or the GDPR. The websites show a transparent layer above the content - which prevents actual usage - and fail to show the usual buttons "OK" or "EVEN MORE COOKIES".

Examples:
German state of Bavaria - Corona regulations https://www.gesetze-bayern.de/Content/Document/BayEQV/true
Mey - Underwear manufacturer - https://www.mey.com/de/
Commerzbank - Bank https://www.commerzbank.de/

Example screeshot, with web-inspector open:
https://i.imgur.com/P9nu1sx.png

With the web-inspector, I'm able to hide the `div` element with the id `usercentrics-button` and access the website. Sadly I don't know what technically goes wrong. I noticed that Usercentrics GmbH [2] in Germany is providing this. It looks like Usercentrics GmbH figured out a way of making money off the consent dialogs. Just follow their customer list and you will find probably many broken websites. Maybe this JavaScript [3] includes the cause? 

Another prominent user of this is the Heise Verlag [4] but there it seems to work as desired. And the Heise Verlag uses another another JavaScript [5] file.

I'm running Archlinux with epiphany "3.38.2-1" and webkit2gtk "2.30.4-3".

Thank you


[1] Dear politicians. You tried to protect us and improve the web but you made it even worse.
[2] https://usercentrics.com
[3] https://app.usercentrics.eu/latest/main.js
[4] https://www.heise.de/
[5] https://app.usercentrics.eu/browser-ui/latest/bundle.js

[Alexey Proskuryakov]

Created attachment 418246 [details]
commerzbank.de

I cannot reproduce this on commerzbank.de, the buttons are present (see screenshot).

[Alexey Proskuryakov]

I'm using Safari, to be clear.

[Jan-Michael Brummer]

Note: As soon as cookie storage for websites is disabled (web tracking), pages are working fine.

[Michael Catanzaro]

With WebKitGTK 2.31.1, I was able to reproduce this on all of the affected websites yesterday, but today they all work fine. Odd.

[Peter]

Jan-Michael is right. I can confirm that turning of support for Cookies bypasses the issue:

1.) Hamburger-Menu from CSD (Window-Frame)
2.) Preferences
3.) Tab Privacy
4.) Turn off "Website Data Storage"

I had the hope that the privacy window has the same effect but that doesn't worked out. I'm sorry that I didn't mentioned in the title that this is specific to WebKit2Gtk.

The websites remain here broken with the stable release when I visit them multiple times. Maybe some other issue around caching or internal state in the development release?

[Peter]

Seems to work now on most sites I remember using this.