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Dear Email Industry, We’ve Got a GDPR Problem

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Re: Dear Email Industry, We’ve Got a GDPR Problem

#51

Post by amelius »

pteraspidomorph wrote: post #35
FeepingCreature wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been very satisfied to the extent to which these popups allow you to not opt in to everything and still use the site. I think the previous popups have trained us to assume that the popups are meaningless and we just have to click yes on everything. This is not so!

As an european who rejects ad trackers on every website, I can confirm that a good 95% of them are correctly implemented and will let you keep browsing. Some of them (usually americans with a poor understanding of why they even implemented that) will kick you out or ask you again on every page load until you accept. We need a standard for managing these controls on the browser side, which major browsers can then impl…

> We need a standard for managing these controls on the browser side, which major browsers can then implement.

Like the "Do Not Track" header field?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Track

Perhaps it will work if introduced as a GDPR header field.

Re: Dear Email Industry, We’ve Got a GDPR Problem

#52

Post by CrLf »

jmarbach wrote: post #10

Browsing the web in Europe is like experiencing the rebirth of the pop-up ads era. It has lead to compulsory acceptance. This too shall pass. There is a reasonable expectation that when you submit your email to a company in exchange for their service, they will email you communications relating to their products and services.

> Browsing the web in Europe is like experiencing the rebirth of the pop-up ads era.

And this by itself says a lot, but not what people usually think it says.

In fact, you don't need any kind of cookie popups _unless_ they're tracking cookies. Any reasonable use of cookies for site-specific reasons (authentication, session, csrf, load-balancing, settings) is already allowed with no need to opt-in[1].

The reason why cookie popups are so widespread is two-fold:

1. Because indeed most sites track you to death, and are unwilling to back off even if it costs them visits (many people just close the tab upon being presented with all but the least obnoxious popups). In this perspective, the GDPR is working as intended;

2. General ignorance about the cookie exceptions. You can hardly blame the regulators for that. In fact, AFAIK the GDPR clarified a few things that were ambiguous WRT cookies. That backfired horribly, but just beacause ignorance is rampant.

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/ipg/basics/legal/cookies/index_en.htm

Re: Dear Email Industry, We’ve Got a GDPR Problem

#54

Post by addicted »

srbby wrote: post #45
addicted wrote: post #5

Since the headline misled me, this is about the email marketing industry and their use of tracking pixels, as opposed to issues with generic emails.

I don't think anybody would call generic emails "the email industry"

It’s only people who are in the email marketing industry who think that they are the email industry.

The email industry would comprise a lot more than just marketing.

You have email providers. You have email clients. You have non commercial newsletters. You have evites. You have e-cards. You have emails related to ticketing and reservations.

The email industry is far larger than email marketing, despite what the email marketeers would like us to believe.

Re: Dear Email Industry, We’ve Got a GDPR Problem

#55

Post by arkh »

dexen wrote: post #23
jmarbach wrote: post #10

Browsing the web in Europe is like experiencing the rebirth of the pop-up ads era. It has lead to compulsory acceptance. This too shall pass. There is a reasonable expectation that when you submit your email to a company in exchange for their service, they will email you communications relating to their products and services.

>Browsing the web in Europe is like experiencing the rebirth of the pop-up ads era. Very much so; the pop-ups interrupt and obstruct, breaking immersion. I sincerely hope a browser gets brave enough to start blocking those obstructions by default. It irks me how every "Cookies" banner is an unpaid advertising billboard saying, "Your privacy is valuable to us. Yours faithful, EU". >This too shall pass. For now, uBlock…

> the pop-ups interrupt and obstruct, breaking immersion.

Here is a trick for website owners: don't track your users. No need for any popup anymore.

Re: Dear Email Industry, We’ve Got a GDPR Problem

#56

Post by kretor »

pteraspidomorph wrote: post #35
FeepingCreature wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been very satisfied to the extent to which these popups allow you to not opt in to everything and still use the site. I think the previous popups have trained us to assume that the popups are meaningless and we just have to click yes on everything. This is not so!

As an european who rejects ad trackers on every website, I can confirm that a good 95% of them are correctly implemented and will let you keep browsing. Some of them (usually americans with a poor understanding of why they even implemented that) will kick you out or ask you again on every page load until you accept. We need a standard for managing these controls on the browser side, which major browsers can then impl…

There's a browser extension which clicks away the consent dialogues for you:

https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/

It lets you specify a global setting to what extent you want to be tracked, and communicates that to sites that support the extension's "standard".

Re: Dear Email Industry, We’ve Got a GDPR Problem

#57

Post by microcolonel »

isostatic wrote: post #6

"This stressed out a lot of email marketers, who quite rightly realised that the new regulations would have a significant effect on their ability to acquire and market to customers via their email address" "The overwhelming majority of commercial email sent today contains tracking pixels and tracking links, these are used to uniquely identify individuals so that opens and clicks can be correctly attributed to them" G…

What surprises me more is that tracking pixels even work anymore. What email clients don't bother to filter them out?

Re: Dear Email Industry, We’ve Got a GDPR Problem

#58

Post by itcrowd »

degski wrote: post #43
itcrowd wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was arguing against two points made above: 1) "GDPR is europe's problem" --> I'm saying it's an attempted solution, not a problem 2) "not of the entire 'email industry'" --> the whole 'email industry' is in fact, affected. Where you operate from isn't a factor. Only if you don't email EU citizens (which is quite unlikely), you don't have to worry about it. If you do (which is very likely), you should know and imple…

I misunderstood the fact that you don't see it a as a problem. I don't think the GDPR solves much or anything, iff you want to play on the internet, almost [there are good exceptions, where you can just choose to have a 'lesser' experience] all of the time you'll have to click "I agree".

The GDPR is much more than an EU regulation that forces a cookie wall. In fact, there is no cookie wall obligation anywhere. The fact that companies are so uncreative and can only come up with these silly solutions shows how broken the internet is and how widespread tracking is.

GDPR does solve some problems, in my view. For example, it allows EU citizens to ask companies to disclose what they know about them and how it is being used. You can ask companies (and they must comply) to delete your records. Data must be pseudonymized / anonymized in many cases. Those are all real effects. It offers transparency and gives more control to individuals.

If you want to learn more about what the GDPR does do, what protection and control it brings EU citizens, I refer you to the wikipedia page which has all of that and more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regula...

Re: Dear Email Industry, We’ve Got a GDPR Problem

#59

Post by gnud »

libertine wrote: post #47
addicted wrote: post #5

Since the headline misled me, this is about the email marketing industry and their use of tracking pixels, as opposed to issues with generic emails.

This isn't bound to email marketing, unless you put all commercial communication dealt via email as email marketing.

I think any email that uses tracking pixels could be classified as either spam or marketing, or possibly both.

If you use tracking pixels in your receipts, I think you're doing it wrong.

Re: Dear Email Industry, We’ve Got a GDPR Problem

#60

Post by deif »

buboard wrote: post #13
hjanssen wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a problem when you are targeting users from Europe, which you are doing almost certainly.

We already have more than enough cookie popups and "heads up" emails whenever a company changes a comma in their ToS. GDPR is a bureaucratic madness and not something to be imitated. Want to educate users about privacy? do it with extensive educational campaigns, not by ruining everyone's experience on the web

It's not GDPR's fault that websites have awful user experience. If they really cared about privacy then they wouldn't use popups that required multiple clicks to remove tracking cookies.
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