Cookie policy notifications have ruined user experience on the web • Hacker News Board

Re: Cookie policy notifications have ruined user experience on the web

#71

Post by xg15 » Fri, Aug 03, 2018, 5:31 PM UTC

etatoby wrote: post #67

xg15 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that (from my IANAL understanding) the GDPR requires opt-in and forbids "click I accept or leave our service" style forced opt-in, I'd say this is not even CYA - it's closer to magical cargo cult incantations.

> the GDPR requires opt-in and forbids "click I accept or leave our service" That's an asinine law if I ever saw one. Telling me how I should run my business? Really? From what vantage point, if I may ask? If I had a company, I would ignore the whole thing and invite them to cross the pond and try their crap in my jurisdiction, under my laws. Or just block them altogether. If they want to go back to the middle ages,…

It's called "regulation". Yes, I think, the GDPR is quite opinionated in that they want to discourage "pay with your data"/"surveillance capitalism" type business models - the reasons have been discussed enough in the last years.

I guess the authors understood that without that clause, there would be an obvious loophole that would indeed lead to nothing more than annoying pop-ups and reduce the desired consumer choice to name-only. So they took the logical step to close the loophole.

Of course many businesses are trying to counter with a pop-up anyway. But then, that's not the fault of the regulation.

Re: Cookie policy notifications have ruined user experience on the web

#72

Post by mercer » Fri, Aug 03, 2018, 5:34 PM UTC

Bartweiss wrote: post #36

modzu wrote: post #6

then there's reddit and its giant full page ad for the app before finally redirecting me to the content once i find the tiny link to continue instead of opening the app store... yes reddit and fb and gmail and the like are intentionally crippled when viewed on mobile. why? maybe because the data an app can suck up off your phone is much more valuable. no pesky same-origin policies! i digress :(

I noticed that reddit now has three separate "use our app" prompts, which don't seem to communicate so they can all appear on the same page. There's the loading-in system popup, the bottom-of-screen one, and the internal popup with a picture and two choices. And then the bottom-bar one, instead of having two buttons, makes the entire field open the app store except for a tiny 'x' in the top right. Talk about unsubtle…

The reddit redesign feels a lot like the Digg changes before everyone moved away. I think reddit still has a lot more going for it, and being able to opt out solves the problem, but I'm still every so slightly worried.

Re: Cookie policy notifications have ruined user experience on the web

#73

Post by Confiks » Fri, Aug 03, 2018, 6:04 PM UTC

Bartweiss wrote: post #36

modzu wrote: post #6

then there's reddit and its giant full page ad for the app before finally redirecting me to the content once i find the tiny link to continue instead of opening the app store... yes reddit and fb and gmail and the like are intentionally crippled when viewed on mobile. why? maybe because the data an app can suck up off your phone is much more valuable. no pesky same-origin policies! i digress :(

I noticed that reddit now has three separate "use our app" prompts, which don't seem to communicate so they can all appear on the same page. There's the loading-in system popup, the bottom-of-screen one, and the internal popup with a picture and two choices. And then the bottom-bar one, instead of having two buttons, makes the entire field open the app store except for a tiny 'x' in the top right. Talk about unsubtle…

I gave up on the redesign and am now using a browser extension[1][2] that always redirects to the old design.

[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/old-reddit-re...

[2] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/old-reddit-redirec...

Re: Cookie policy notifications have ruined user experience on the web

#74

Post by Bartweiss » Fri, Aug 03, 2018, 6:27 PM UTC

mercer wrote: post #72

Bartweiss wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noticed that reddit now has three separate "use our app" prompts, which don't seem to communicate so they can all appear on the same page. There's the loading-in system popup, the bottom-of-screen one, and the internal popup with a picture and two choices. And then the bottom-bar one, instead of having two buttons, makes the entire field open the app store except for a tiny 'x' in the top right. Talk about unsubtle…

The reddit redesign feels a lot like the Digg changes before everyone moved away. I think reddit still has a lot more going for it, and being able to opt out solves the problem, but I'm still every so slightly worried.

It hasn't been pushed very hard, but the new 'chat' feature - on a website that already had private messaging - strikes me as a fundamental misunderstanding of what reddit's value is, one bad enough that it makes me doubt for the future design of the site as a whole.

Re: Cookie policy notifications have ruined user experience on the web

#75

Post by Bartweiss » Fri, Aug 03, 2018, 6:35 PM UTC

sumeno wrote: post #39

Bartweiss wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested to know what percentage of sites would actually lose functionality. At a crude estimate, >90% of the sites that show me cookie warnings do everything I actually want them to statelessly. And I have some backup for that, because when I block cookies by default very few sites actually seem to get worse. Are there clever user-aiding tricks with cookies that I don't realize I'm losing? Or is the average…

Pretty much any site with a login is using cookies to do it

True, and logins (along with browser games) leap to mind as the most widespread issue with general cookie-blocking.

But I probably sign into Broadly, I guess this is a gripe about how my web-use experience has become fundamentally adversarial. Cookies are one of many perfectly reasonable features which I cripple or disable even on respectable top-100 sites because they're used almost exclusively against my interests, but I'm not sure there's a good tech-level fix to that for users in general.

Re: Cookie policy notifications have ruined user experience on the web

#76

Post by gruez » Fri, Aug 03, 2018, 6:53 PM UTC

iKevinShah wrote: post #48

gruez wrote: post #14

We wouldn't be having this discussion if cookies were opt-in rather than opt-out. I don't sign into 90% of websites I visit, but why are all of them allowed to track me? If cookies were opt-in, then the legal issue of "consent" would be cleanly resolved, and the interface can be handled by the user agent rather than through obtrusive modals.

As a workaround, we can disable them on the whole and enable on per site basis (the 10% of websites you sign into). Its a hassle but yeah ...

that's sort of what I do with cookie auto-delete, which keeps cookies until you close the tab. otherwise some sites dont play nice when you disable cookies entirely.

Re: Cookie policy notifications have ruined user experience on the web

#77

Post by chatmasta » Fri, Aug 03, 2018, 7:43 PM UTC

jasonkostempski wrote: post #25

y0ghur7_xxx wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an adblock filter list for cookie warnings: https://github.com/r4vi/block-the-eu-cookie-shit-list

I figured, but maintaining that is such a waste of human life and parsing the list is a waste of my CPU time. Since no one on either side of the fence wants the notices to exist, web developers could just use a de facto standard element class and ad blockers can add a simple rule.

Is it a waste of human life? From a utilitarian perspective, it’s easy to see how one dev coding for an hour could save cumulatively many hours otherwise wasted by users clicking through GDPR/cookie pop-ups. From a purely “time invested” vs. “time saved” perspective, maintaining Adblock lists is likely a net benefit.

Re: Cookie policy notifications have ruined user experience on the web

#78

Post by dorchadas » Fri, Aug 03, 2018, 7:50 PM UTC

Bartweiss wrote: post #74

mercer wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reddit redesign feels a lot like the Digg changes before everyone moved away. I think reddit still has a lot more going for it, and being able to opt out solves the problem, but I'm still every so slightly worried.

It hasn't been pushed very hard, but the new 'chat' feature - on a website that already had private messaging - strikes me as a fundamental misunderstanding of what reddit's value is, one bad enough that it makes me doubt for the future design of the site as a whole.

Agreed. It's only a matter of time before they get rid of the opt-out of the redesign. When that happens, I'll likely quit. I find the redesign absolutely impossible to use.

Re: Cookie policy notifications have ruined user experience on the web

#79

Post by z_open » Fri, Aug 03, 2018, 8:14 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #14

We wouldn't be having this discussion if cookies were opt-in rather than opt-out. I don't sign into 90% of websites I visit, but why are all of them allowed to track me? If cookies were opt-in, then the legal issue of "consent" would be cleanly resolved, and the interface can be handled by the user agent rather than through obtrusive modals.

Cookies are opt-in. Install umatrix and be done with it.

Re: Cookie policy notifications have ruined user experience on the web

#80

Post by xg15 » Fri, Aug 03, 2018, 8:19 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #59

closeparen wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could a session ID not identify an individual? EDIT: I see there is an explicit exemption for session cookies: http://ec.europa.eu/ipg/basics/legal/cookies/index_en.htm

Laws operate differently than code. If nobody actually associates session info with anything outside the application then that's enough, if you do then it's a problem. Think of it as a 3rd dimension of what's going on where you can retroactively change what you did to something else. http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23

That is a really good writeup - and one of the reasons I'm sceptical of "code as law" until code can sucessfully model concepts like intent, origin or that articles' "color" that fundamentally rely on human - and often subjective - understanding.

(Though I'd argue that "color" still doesn't meet the core of the copyright problem. E.g., if you drew your own Micky Mouse sketch and published it, you'd probably still get in trouble for copyright violation, even though you never actually copied any material from Disney.

In that case the criteria seems that some humans (the lawyers and judges) believe some other humans (the general public) will reliably associate your drawing with their own concept of Micky Mouse...)