My understanding is that under some interpretations of recently still valid EU regulations it's legally required to have some sort of explicit cookie notification and consent.

I'm willing to be corrected, and specific references would be especially valuable.

I don't think it's as important any more. They relaxed the rules a bit.

I ignored them from day 1 and I'm fairly confident in that this will not lead to any trouble on my part. The best ones are the websites that block access until you've clicked the 'I agree' button without an 'I disagree' option (that still allows you to view the content).

Shift-ctrl-P should be the default anyway.

Please give a source about that perceived relaxation.

Please always give a source when writing about things on the internet.

The UK requires a cookie-consent to be accepted before any tracking is performed. Caused a bit of an uproar a year or two ago but nobody seems to mind now.

The simple and correct response to this is to not track people.

Which would immediately shut down every web site you don't pay for.