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Am I logged in or not? GDPR case study on the example of Chrome browser change

blog.lukaszolejnik.com

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Re: Am I logged in or not? GDPR case study on the example of Chrome browser change

#31

Post by llampx »

cm2012 wrote: post #12
TekMol wrote: post #6

I think that currently pretty much every service, device and website violates the GDPR. The GDPR requires consent or some other legitimate reason to store data about a person. I see dark patterns everywhere. I never give consent. But I get tracked to death everywhere all the time. Even before I touch anything on a website, it plants dozens of cookies on my machine. But cookies are not even the problem. Fingerprinting…

The user has the option to not get through the "pile of nonsense" and just close the website. The fact that the user does not should tell you something. Unless you think every website should force the user to go through a 15 minute webinar to help them specifically understand privacy policies before letting them browse the website?

If the website was not tracking your every move and then selling the relevant bits to ad exchanges, they wouldn't need to do the 15 minute webinars.

Re: Am I logged in or not? GDPR case study on the example of Chrome browser change

#32

Post by baq »

Nursie wrote: post #16
Analemma_ wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t understand why the Chrome team is picking this hill to die on Because they’re not “dying on a hill” at all, because nobody cares. Nobody outside Hacker News and Twitter infosec people only followed by other Twitter infosec people cares about this. > I really expect this change to push a lot of people away from chrome Care to bet on that? Because I would happily take the opposite side of that bet. I think th…

Sad but true. People don't care about this stuff, in general.

this means that the voice of those who care will be loud and clear, because those who don't care stay quiet. a top 30 post on HN makes a difference.

Re: Am I logged in or not? GDPR case study on the example of Chrome browser change

#33

Post by mehrdadn »

sp332 wrote: post #24
mehrdadn wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the worst case here is thinking that your data is being synced when it's not Confused, what do you mean? To me thinking that my data isn't being synced when it really is sounds much worse...

Yeah there's a usability issue for sure, but the article is talking about privacy and potential GDPR problems. Edit: what I mean is, there's no way to get the interface into a state where it looks like you're not logged in, but it is syncing in the background. The only confusion here is in the other direction: you're visibly logged in, but it's not syncing.

I was talking about privacy too, not usability... it's a privacy issue when your data is being synced when you think it isn't. (I think you might be mixing up the two scenarios?)

Re: Am I logged in or not? GDPR case study on the example of Chrome browser change

#34

Post by drusepth »

Analemma_ wrote: post #14
tedivm wrote: post #3

I don't understand why the Chrome team is picking this hill to die on- their team (managers and developers) are all over twitter and reddit trying to explain the privacy violations away as if the people upset about this are just not understanding what's going on. I really expect this change to push a lot of people away from Chrome, and frankly I wouldn't be surprised if it started opening up more antitrust possibilit…

> I don’t understand why the Chrome team is picking this hill to die on Because they’re not “dying on a hill” at all, because nobody cares. Nobody outside Hacker News and Twitter infosec people only followed by other Twitter infosec people cares about this. > I really expect this change to push a lot of people away from chrome Care to bet on that? Because I would happily take the opposite side of that bet. I think th…

>Because they’re not “dying on a hill” at all, because nobody cares. Nobody outside Hacker News and Twitter infosec people only followed by other Twitter infosec people cares about this.

Ever since I updated to 69 I've been absolutely loving it. The most noticeable improvement is it feeling incredibly faster, but as someone who's been using 4-5 profiles on Chrome for over a year the new user management stuff just feels so much more intuitive/integrated.

I was super surprised to see people complaining about it on HN this morning, and I'm still not entirely sure what the problem is. FWIW, I also severely disagree with a lot of the implementations of GDPR, so maybe I'm just not the audience who cares here. To me, this update has been nothing but improvements so far.

Re: Am I logged in or not? GDPR case study on the example of Chrome browser change

#35

Post by stefano »

krisgenre wrote: post #17
tedivm wrote: post #3

I don't understand why the Chrome team is picking this hill to die on- their team (managers and developers) are all over twitter and reddit trying to explain the privacy violations away as if the people upset about this are just not understanding what's going on. I really expect this change to push a lot of people away from Chrome, and frankly I wouldn't be surprised if it started opening up more antitrust possibilit…

I personally know people who think they are signing into Chrome when they sign into google.com. Maybe the Chrome team is right about their larger user base?

The question is, what about other sites? Do they also think they're signing into Chrome when logging into amazon.com?

Google services are getting preferential treatment over the rest of the web on a browser with a market share big enough to be subject to an anti trust case. Vestager must be licking her lips right now...

Re: Am I logged in or not? GDPR case study on the example of Chrome browser change

#36

Post by Xcelerate »

TekMol wrote: post #6

I think that currently pretty much every service, device and website violates the GDPR. The GDPR requires consent or some other legitimate reason to store data about a person. I see dark patterns everywhere. I never give consent. But I get tracked to death everywhere all the time. Even before I touch anything on a website, it plants dozens of cookies on my machine. But cookies are not even the problem. Fingerprinting…

> He is not giving consent. He is just trying to get through this pile of nonsense to reach the content.

Then don’t access the content? Why should the user get content that someone has worked to create without having to give anything in return (whether that’s in the form of payment or information). There would be no monetary incentive to create content anymore.

Re: Am I logged in or not? GDPR case study on the example of Chrome browser change

#38

Post by jonbronson »

cm2012 wrote: post #12
TekMol wrote: post #6

I think that currently pretty much every service, device and website violates the GDPR. The GDPR requires consent or some other legitimate reason to store data about a person. I see dark patterns everywhere. I never give consent. But I get tracked to death everywhere all the time. Even before I touch anything on a website, it plants dozens of cookies on my machine. But cookies are not even the problem. Fingerprinting…

The user has the option to not get through the "pile of nonsense" and just close the website. The fact that the user does not should tell you something. Unless you think every website should force the user to go through a 15 minute webinar to help them specifically understand privacy policies before letting them browse the website?

The lesson to companies should be, don't provide a Hobson's choice up front like this. Offer the webpage you meant to offer, and simply don't try to nickel and dime all the data out of your visitors.

Re: Am I logged in or not? GDPR case study on the example of Chrome browser change

#39

Post by stefano »

redm wrote: post #28
Analemma_ wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t understand why the Chrome team is picking this hill to die on Because they’re not “dying on a hill” at all, because nobody cares. Nobody outside Hacker News and Twitter infosec people only followed by other Twitter infosec people cares about this. > I really expect this change to push a lot of people away from chrome Care to bet on that? Because I would happily take the opposite side of that bet. I think th…

Maybe not in a few months, but things like this are funny. People who were looking for a reason to leave Chrome may use this to justify it, and while it may be a small audience, small audiences can be trendsetters, especially if they are passionate. Much like the slide from IE and FireFox to Chrome, by the time Mozilla and Microsoft reacted, it was already too late. Time will tell if this is the start of such a momen…

Part of Chrome rise to success was, on top of its (at the time) superior performance, the massive marketing from the biggest advertising company in the world.

Re: Am I logged in or not? GDPR case study on the example of Chrome browser change

#40

Post by jonbronson »

noja wrote: post #27
Analemma_ wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t understand why the Chrome team is picking this hill to die on Because they’re not “dying on a hill” at all, because nobody cares. Nobody outside Hacker News and Twitter infosec people only followed by other Twitter infosec people cares about this. > I really expect this change to push a lot of people away from chrome Care to bet on that? Because I would happily take the opposite side of that bet. I think th…

> because nobody cares A lot of people do not understand, but we do, we're the techies. It's our job to understand. Don't mistake people not understanding for not caring. Once people understand, they care.

This can't be overstated. The update did not even mention this feature change, making it even more difficult for non-techies to know something has changed, and what it means.
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