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Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop

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Re: Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop

#291

Post by mikeash »

duxup wrote: post #233
Jach wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big use of cookies for re-authentication and carrying around a session id enabled clean URLs lacking your session id as a query param, but it wouldn't be that big of a deal to lose it. You'd need to be careful with copy-pasting URLs -- but given browsers standardized on cookies they could have standardized on a sessionId param name to filter out of copy-pastes or not even display it at all similar to Chrome's pro…

>I don't really see it as "what we couldn't do" but "what poor usability we have overcome". I'm glad we have cookies and other forms of local storage, especially for the latter there are many other benefits. Maybe one day we'll get Web SQL. Yeah I think that's accurate. It's a little weird sometimes reading all these articles about cookies, JavaScript, etc and I always think "But I use those things to ... give people…

90% of web developers give the rest of you a bad name.

Re: Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop

#292

Post by Nextgrid »

The main problem here is that the GDPR is not enforced.

Those annoying cookie banners aren't actually GDPR compliant. GDPR mandates that consent should be freely given and should be opt-in, so forcing you to consent in order to view the site is illegal, and so is pre-checking the tick boxes or making it hard to opt-out (like having to explicitly visit the privacy policy, or uncheck hundreds of tick boxes).

If GDPR was actually enforced, fines would start flying out, and website operators will quickly start complying and cookie banners will become much less intrusive or annoying.

Re: Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop

#294

Post by rkeene2 »

cortesoft wrote: post #270
skybrian wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, saying it's ridiculous isn't an argument. it's expensive and maybe non-viable for many websites. But it's not like all websites need to exist? There was a world wide web before cookies.

The WWW before cookies was pretty limited, and didn't last long. I mean, the first web browser was released in 1990, and cookies were introduced in 1995. We didn't have e-commerce before cookies.

There was e-commerce before cookies.

The same functionality of correlating multiple requests for a single request (building sessions upon packets) was just more difficult to use by encoding the session ID as a parameter in query string for each request. Many frameworks still support this mode.

Re: Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop

#295

Post by renholder »

cortesoft wrote: post #273
renholder wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So websites are supposed to just absorb the cost? That seems like a ridiculous stance. The €0.00002 it took to serve that one page just because the user doesn't want to consent to cookie placement/tracking? Is it really that harmful? NPR seems to do this just fine for GDPR reasons: Decline and Visit Plain Text Site

The cost to serve the page is a misleading number to use. You also have to factor in the cost to create the content, manage the service, etc. I mean, by your argument, all digital goods should be free, since it never costs much to transmit the bits.

My argument was one user who requested one page and didn't want to consent to cookies/tracking in order to offset the ridiculously low cost of serving the actual page (I'm considering the cost to make it as having already been burdened, as it's already being served).

The OC didn't consider the fact that you can have advertising without cookies/tracking/fingerprinting and just reduced it to absrudism by saying that the company would bear the brunt of the cost but even the cost of that single event is marginally insignificant, overall.

So, no, my argument was never about all digital goods being free. However, if we want to play the devil's advocate and utilise your reduction to absurdism: By your argument, shouldn't all digital goods be paid for...? For example, Ubuntu costs money to host and serve, yeah?

Re: Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop

#296

Post by wsy »

DavideNL wrote: post #128

In The Netherlands the Data Protection Authority announced this month that websites are no longer allowed to block access when people click "NO" in the cookie warning; Clicking 'no' should still allow people to view the website, but without placing any tracking cookies. Source (in Dutch): https://autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl/nl/nieuws/websites-moe...

We are now in the middle game of GDPR. Companies whose business model depends on tracking users essentially have now an illegal business model, because practically no user will give informed consent when they are offered the same service without consenting.

So what can these - now shady - companies do? They probe the limits of the law, and try to keep their business model alive as long as they can. We need to wait and see. In my opinion, the most probable development is that European data protection agencies will start to hand out fines. Of course, the shady companies will fight them in court, and of course, they will lose. Then they will retreat a step, and try again with a little bit less intrusion into the user's privacy. Over time, courts will rule, and fines will increase, until the shady companies will give up in EU.

Then EU will essentially become free of tracking networks. It might take a few years, but I think the intermediate annoyance is worth it.

Re: Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop

#297

Post by gnud »

joemi wrote: post #227
scrollaway wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Cookies" are mentioned only once in GDPR, in a long list of examples. They're not targeted specifically. The law talks about information that can be used to identify a person . So a cookie such as "gdpr_response=ok" has ZERO effect on GDPR compliance.

> So a cookie such as "gdpr_response=ok" has ZERO effect on GDPR compliance. I wouldn't be so certain about that. Before now, most people were pretty certain that an accept/decline warning was enough and that they had the right to refuse service to people who did not click OK on the warning.

If anyone believed that, they did not research more than 10 minutes.

This comes up in _every_ discussion about GDPR.

I honestly worry - are we as developers just extra stupid, or are other occupations (electricians, ship captains, architects) equally lax when it comes to reading and following regulations?

Re: Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop

#298

Post by snailmailman »

kevindqc wrote: post #250
jrochkind1 wrote: post #216

That post reminded me about the https://amiunique.org/ site for seeing how trackable you are with browser fingerprints. I had remembered that I had installed a "Random User-Agent" plugin in Chrome, with privacy concerns in mind. Sometimes it sends a user-agent that causes a site to send me a page that can't actually be rendered by my browser, so I have to turn it off on some sites. But I was curious to see what amiun…

I think it's having problems right now. I don't use anything and it's slow, blank page, 500 errors, etc.

I am encountering the same issues. Hopefully it comes back up soon, I'm curious what it has to say about my browser setup.

Re: Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop

#299

Post by soheil »

scrollaway wrote: post #146
soheil wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know how to explain it any other way: These things are fucking important. I think many people specially on HN understand the implications of using cookies and also understand the privacy concerns by 3rd parties taking their data. What I don't understand is why there are people who assume almost everyone has absolutely no idea or concern about any of these things and therefore advocate for pushing horrible a…

GDPR is neither horrible nor half baked. The word you're looking for is flawed . I don't know why you expected it to be perfect from the get-go when it's such a complex subject in the first place. What it is however is a major step up from before. It's an excellent start . You won't do any better by scrapping the whole thing and starting over. You can improve it. Explain to me why you're better off without it.

Cookie warning is probably the biggest thing for me, I can see the web slowly dying before my eyes little by little with dumb things like banners blocking 5% of all websites. All you need is 20 more dumb rules and there won't be anything to see on any website you first visit ever again.

I'm not saying cookie warning is 100% the result of GDPR but it as sure as hell is a side effect. We must be careful about possible outcomes of our actions no matter how noble our intentions. Go ahead downvote!

Re: Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop

#300

Post by rdiddly »

plopz wrote: post #145
DavideNL wrote: post #128

In The Netherlands the Data Protection Authority announced this month that websites are no longer allowed to block access when people click "NO" in the cookie warning; Clicking 'no' should still allow people to view the website, but without placing any tracking cookies. Source (in Dutch): https://autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl/nl/nieuws/websites-moe...

So websites are supposed to just absorb the cost? That seems like a ridiculous stance.

If the cost is for hosting a bloated 14MB page, 30% of which is hostile JavaScript, let's talk about ridiculous. "But we need that JavaScript to scrape the data and run the ads to pay for hosting all that JavaScript!"

My stance is even more ridiculous: Deadbeats who can't afford hosting without begging, selling ads, or turning against their users, scale your site down to something that's cheap to host, or get the hell off the internet. Back to the amateur web of the 90s. It was fine.

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