Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefox's tracking protection

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 314 posts

Re: Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefox's tracking protection

#301

Post by Reason077 »

chriswarbo wrote: post #245
Reason077 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Privacy protection laws are a good thing. But “cookie consent” pop-ups are stupid and pointless. Pop-ups do not improve privacy, and they make the web worse.

> “cookie consent” pop-ups are stupid and pointless. Pop-ups do not improve privacy, and they make the web worse. GDPR is not about cookies or consent popups. Even the previous directive from 2011, known as the "cookie law", wasn't about cookies or consent popups. Both laws are about tracking (GDPR also covers personal data in a broader sense). Developers are completely free to use cookies, or any other technology, i…

That doesn’t seem to be how it’s been interpreted by much of the web, unfortunately.

Even respectable sites that I’m pretty sure aren’t doing “shady stuff” with data, like the BBC, make us suffer through multiple “consent” pop-ups. One particular BBC site I use requires clicking though 3 pop-ups before you can use the damn thing. It’s ridiculous.

If it was really meant the way you interpret it, then the law should have been more clearly written. As it stands, it seems everyone is so paranoid about it that they implement popups by default.

Re: Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefox's tracking protection

#302

Post by MauranKilom »

behringer wrote: post #268
AsyncAwait wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's a bad implementation on the part of the site, under GDPR you should have the option to opt-out as well.

Why? If I'm a site owner that wants to track where you come from and where you're going, even within my own site, then I have the right to ask you to gtfo if you don't like it. GDPR allows for this.

> ask you to gtfo if you don't like it. GDPR allows for this.

No, it explicitly does not.

Re: Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefox's tracking protection

#303

Post by TeMPOraL »

stickfigure wrote: post #297
TeMPOraL wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to see that data, because my current pet theory is that adtech applies the same morals internally that they do externally - i.e. everyone tries to scam each other, pretending their tools work.

The people buying Facebook ads know if they work. You can track customers through every click to the sale. You can experiment with $10 if you want. Try it. I built a large print-on-demand apparel marketplace. Most of the sellers were driving traffic with facebook ads. It worked great. Unfortunately (for the sellers) so many people jumped into the game that they bid up the ad rates. Now Facebook makes most of the mone…

> You can experiment with $10 if you want. Try it.

Guess what, I actually thought about doing that just "for science" - setting up some nonsense page, launching a $5-10 ad campaign, and seeing what happens. I.e. measuring the impulse response of the system, in a way.

To be clear, I source my distrust to adtech partly from personal experience as well. I worked at a company that also did social media marketing once, in particular it would run content marketing on Facebook for people. I had a first-hand look at "how the sausage is made", and my overall impression is: marketers having no clue about statistics dump some charts into a Word file and write a story about how that graph means things are great; customers having no more clue and no way to verify effectiveness believe that. Both sides are happy, and money changes hands.

Also funny you mention print-on-demand, for two reasons. One, I'm building a side project in this space right now. Two, print-on-demand apparel are the ads that are pissing me off the most right now on Facebook (in particular a certain company that's named after a game animal saying "hello" in Hawaiian).

Re: Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefox's tracking protection

#304

Post by chriswarbo »

Reason077 wrote: post #301
chriswarbo wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “cookie consent” pop-ups are stupid and pointless. Pop-ups do not improve privacy, and they make the web worse. GDPR is not about cookies or consent popups. Even the previous directive from 2011, known as the "cookie law", wasn't about cookies or consent popups. Both laws are about tracking (GDPR also covers personal data in a broader sense). Developers are completely free to use cookies, or any other technology, i…

That doesn’t seem to be how it’s been interpreted by much of the web, unfortunately. Even respectable sites that I’m pretty sure aren’t doing “shady stuff” with data, like the BBC, make us suffer through multiple “consent” pop-ups. One particular BBC site I use requires clicking though 3 pop-ups before you can use the damn thing. It’s ridiculous. If it was really meant the way you interpret it, then the law should ha…

> That doesn’t seem to be how it’s been interpreted by much of the web, unfortunately.

Yes, I find this really frustrating too :(

> As it stands, it seems everyone is so paranoid about it that they implement popups by default.

I implemented compliance with the first "cookie law" at two different companies. At the first, all we changed was making the login screen's "remember me" tick box off by default. At the second, our sites were full of trackers, which the marketing department didn't want to remove, so I had to add popups.

I think companies are so used to tracking as much as possible, that they don't see any value in avoiding it; hence they're willing to absorb the cost of poorer UX (especially since they're not alone).

I don't know if this situation will change. It's certainly possible, e.g. if we treat data as a liability rather than an asset (which I've seen mentioned here a few times, in the wake of data breaches). I have no idea how it will play out, but at least things like GDPR are making spying more painful and costly, even if only a little bit.

Re: Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefox's tracking protection

#305

Post by ddalex »

akho wrote: post #124
davidgh wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. I hope someone comes up with a “Netflix for online content”. I’m not going to subscribe to a dozen news sites individually and I also don’t want to make a purchase decision, even if tiny, every time I visit a site. For me a bundle of the top 10-15 high-quality news sites, perhaps letting me choose from different packages at different price points, and allocate the revenue to sites based on which content I read…

Yes, that’s my thinking as well (also — I already pay my ISP for access to the web, why can’t they all just work together and find a way to share?) There is a tricky point though. “allocate the revenue to sites based on which content I read” implies mandatory, centralized tracking. I’m not at all sure I want that.

Mandatory? Yes. Centralized? No, think block chain. Anonymous? Yes.

Re: Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefox's tracking protection

#306

Post by rhizome »

x0x0 wrote: post #42
rhizome wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So sell regular old display ads. Native ads are the future (again).

Not anymore. There's very low demand / price for run-of-site dispñay ads.

Are you saying that if WaPo started selling only native ads nobody would buy them? I'm skeptical of that prediction.

Re: Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefox's tracking protection

#307

Post by andai »

jnky wrote: post #202
fnordsensei wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the consent workflow should be abstracted and standardized, and put into web browsers. Rather than everyone rolling their own workflow (most which are horrible), the browsers could offer a unified way to do this, and a central place to revoke consent. Though it would probably take legislation to make orgs use it. The current workflows have a lot of dark patterns, despite GDPR.

Hasn't this been tried before? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P3P

> Then when a user visits a site, P3P will compare what personal information the user is willing to release, and what information the server wants to get – if the two do not match, P3P will inform the user and ask if he/she is willing to proceed to the site, and risk giving up more personal information.[4] As an example, a user may store in the browser preferences that information about their browsing habits should not be collected. If the policy of a Website states that a cookie is used for this purpose, the browser automatically rejects the cookie.

This sounds ideal, or at bare minimum, vastly superior to preferences boxes which take 10+ seconds or more of JavaScript to load, and impede access to content, (and sometimes don't load properly and never go away).

Re: Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefox's tracking protection

#308

Post by isolli »

conscion wrote: post #300
isolli wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try Blendle: https://launch.blendle.com/ Articles cost between $0.10 and $1.15 (most between $0.20 and $0.50). You can request a refund if you don't like an article, which makes the transaction almost frictionless. The one thing I miss is the ability to share articles without requiring the recipient to sign up for Blendle. Especially since the article can usually be read for free by going directly to the publisher's…

What I couldn't tell from their site, and what really is the "killer feature": Do I need to go through their site to access articles, or can I follow a native link and have Blendle automatically authenticate that I can read the article?

No, you have to read the article in their app or website. The other way would be nice!

Re: Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefox's tracking protection

#309

Post by Ntrails »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #279
Ntrails wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People narrowly voted to bankrupt their economy, that's for sure. Source Required.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/17/apple-ios... https://www.marketwatch.com/story/pound-tanks-stock-futures-... etc.

Those are not evidence of a bankrupted economy. Yes, the pound has tanked, and yet strangely the economy is not bankrupt. You're entitled to believe a thing may come to pass, but don't be under the illusion it either has (it objectively has not) or definitely will (it probably won't)

Re: Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefox's tracking protection

#310

Post by akho »

ddalex wrote: post #305
akho wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that’s my thinking as well (also — I already pay my ISP for access to the web, why can’t they all just work together and find a way to share?) There is a tricky point though. “allocate the revenue to sites based on which content I read” implies mandatory, centralized tracking. I’m not at all sure I want that.

Mandatory? Yes. Centralized? No, think block chain. Anonymous? Yes.

I have yet to see anything improved by blockchain.
Post reply on HN