Recently our legal department is asking to add a cookie disclaimer thing to our marketing website. I hate those and want to put in the least intrusive version. How do people here deal with this? Thanks!!
Ask HN: What is the least obnoxious way to ask for cookie permissions?
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Re: Ask HN: What is the least obnoxious way to ask for cookie permissions?
#2[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: What is the least obnoxious way to ask for cookie permissions?
#3Personally ... I think the best option (if you have to have cookies (and there are plenty of reasons you may want/need them)) is to have screen-wide, contrasting-color, short-top-to-bottom bar with a single OK or Accept button for dismissal
Do not give people options about cookies - either they accept (and dismiss the notice), or they leave
When I am presented with cookie options, I start to wonder why there are "unnecessary" cookies present: why are you letting me accept "necessary" cookies or "all" cookies? Why would you have ones that are not needed? Seems hyper sketch ... and I'll go elsewhere (or reject all)
Re: Ask HN: What is the least obnoxious way to ask for cookie permissions?
#4The best thing one can do is not use cookies -> no need for a consent banner.
If that's not an option, the next best thing is to have an overlay that is as honest as possible and most importantly provides not only an "Accept all", but also a "Reject all" button.
Don't use dark patterns, basically. That is, use the same color, style and size for each of those buttons.
My experience is that most users are so used to these overlays by now, they just look for the button which gets rid of them most quickly. Marketing will typically push to tinker with the appearance of the buttons to increase the conversion rate in favor of the "Accept all" option.
Re: Ask HN: What is the least obnoxious way to ask for cookie permissions?
#5I would ask them what is the absolute minimum required by law and to provide citations and the penalties for not applying it correctly.
The last time I checked (a few years ago) most websites were doing a serious overkill with the banners, where the law didn't require it. Also, for certain companies the possible penalty for not having a banner was so low that it didn't make sense to have such banners at all.
Re: Ask HN: What is the least obnoxious way to ask for cookie permissions?
#6Personally ... I think the best option (if you have to have cookies (and there are plenty of reasons you may want/need them)) is to have screen-wide, contrasting-color, short-top-to-bottom bar with a single OK or Accept button for dismissal Do not give people options about cookies - either they accept (and dismiss the notice), or they leave When I am presented with cookie options , I start to wonder why there are "un…
If you're adding a cookie banner for legal reasons, that means you're covering against GDPR, which says that you're -not- allowed to refuse service based on someone not wanting cookies that are not necessary for providing the service (e.g. all the analytics/tracking crap).
You're obligated to give them a way to opt out while continuing to use your service, and it should be as easy to decline as it is to accept[0]. The funny part, of course, is that countless services have put up banners that don't make it easy at all to reject, which means they're still not compliant, they just make the legal team feel warm and fuzzy.
That's why you see necessary vs all, because it's "can we track you or not". If you're just doing absolutely required cookies (e.g. session cookie), you don't even need a banner.
Re: Ask HN: What is the least obnoxious way to ask for cookie permissions?
#7I think the effort would be best spent avoiding cookies and trackers in the first place.
What do you plan on using cookies for? There might be some ways of doing similar things without cookies or trackers (server-side analytics for example) that are more respective of users and also eliminiate the need for any banners at all.
I know my company's website has a pointless cookie modal - the necessary cookies are just for session affinity on a gateway (which I don't believe you'd need a modal for anyway), and the unecessary cookies are from one analytics integration that's been used just once since it was set up, and another that is used for the most basic reports that you could get from just the access logs.
Re: Ask HN: What is the least obnoxious way to ask for cookie permissions?
#8Cookie permissions and EU advertising options should absolutely be built into the browser, it makes no sense for the user to have permissions on each site individually like this with a different system on each one.
Then the user can centrally review what permissions they gave, revoke them etc.
So no sites should have these kind of approval banners.
Re: Ask HN: What is the least obnoxious way to ask for cookie permissions?
#9Cookie permissions and EU advertising options should absolutely be built into the browser, it makes no sense for the user to have permissions on each site individually like this with a different system on each one. Then the user can centrally review what permissions they gave, revoke them etc. So no sites should have these kind of approval banners.
Perhaps some sort of Do-Not-Track HTTP header sent by the user’s browser
Re: Ask HN: What is the least obnoxious way to ask for cookie permissions?
#10The best thing one can do is not use cookies -> no need for a consent banner. If that's not an option, the next best thing is to have an overlay that is as honest as possible and most importantly provides not only an "Accept all", but also a "Reject all" button. Don't use dark patterns, basically. That is, use the same color, style and size for each of those buttons. My experience is that most users are so used to th…
Yes, if you put the “reject all”, button behind a “customize cookie settings” click, you’re a bad, anti-social person.