Only 9% of visitors give GDPR consent to be tracked • Hacker News Board

Re: Only 9% of visitors give GDPR consent to be tracked

#21

Post by black_puppydog » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 9:15 AM UTC

beshrkayali wrote: post #14

shmageggy wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Verizon/Yahoo/Techcrunch is such a blatant offender, and especially noticable because they get posted here often. Their modal is a giant obfuscation dark-pattern, and far as I can tell, there is no way to opt out.

Which is why GDPR, although theoretically a good idea, is pretty much useless in practice. I'd like to see how many websites offer a reasonable consent widget that doesn't opt you in by default, keep nothing checking but a huge button to tick and accept, or the usual million-and-one checkboxes to untick, and many other cheap tricks that even the most vigilant of consumers will fall to at some point. I use everything…

More a problem of enforcement than the legislation IMO. It wouldn't take many cases to be properly litigated before publishers would understand this is a law that is to be obeyed like any other.

Re: Only 9% of visitors give GDPR consent to be tracked

#22

Post by amelius » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 9:15 AM UTC

davidweatherall wrote: post #2

The author's consent form is very simple and isn't using any shady UX tricks to get the user to consent. One action will opt you in, one action will opt you out. I wonder what results you would see for something like yahoo, the daily mail, reddit, or other sites that heavily rely on ad revenue, which attempt to force the user to accept the cookies through non-obvious no buttons, or long processes to opt out of cookie…

We should have GDPR settings in the browser.

Re: Only 9% of visitors give GDPR consent to be tracked

#23

Post by Fiveplus » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 9:15 AM UTC

The article says mobile users are more likely to engage with the banner. Rightly so, cause it takes up precious screen real estate. What are some ways I can protect myself more when browsing the web through my phone?

Re: Only 9% of visitors give GDPR consent to be tracked

#24

Post by VBprogrammer » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 9:15 AM UTC

fxtentacle wrote: post #7

davidweatherall wrote: post #2

The author's consent form is very simple and isn't using any shady UX tricks to get the user to consent. One action will opt you in, one action will opt you out. I wonder what results you would see for something like yahoo, the daily mail, reddit, or other sites that heavily rely on ad revenue, which attempt to force the user to accept the cookies through non-obvious no buttons, or long processes to opt out of cookie…

Thing is, if someone can show that they were tricked into giving consent when they were not willing to, then you're still in violation of GDPR. So those convoluted forms might not give those companies the legal protection they they hope for. And yes, I'd assume the "phony consent" rate to be much higher, because in some cases I also cannot find the no button and/or accidentally tap on the huge yes button on my phone…

I think those are just designed to show some attempt at compliance; muddying the waters of any future regulatory action. Perhaps because their business model is unsustainable without pervasive tracking.

Re: Only 9% of visitors give GDPR consent to be tracked

#25

Post by iamacyborg » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 9:15 AM UTC

davidweatherall wrote: post #2

The author's consent form is very simple and isn't using any shady UX tricks to get the user to consent. One action will opt you in, one action will opt you out. I wonder what results you would see for something like yahoo, the daily mail, reddit, or other sites that heavily rely on ad revenue, which attempt to force the user to accept the cookies through non-obvious no buttons, or long processes to opt out of cookie…

An interesting paper here on the influence of deliberate dark patterns in these consent boxes.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2001.02479.pdf

Re: Only 9% of visitors give GDPR consent to be tracked

#26

Post by lessname » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 9:15 AM UTC

Still, many web sites make it hard for their users to opt out tracking.

Re: Only 9% of visitors give GDPR consent to be tracked

#27

Post by dr_dshiv » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 9:16 AM UTC

GDPR opt-in questions train people to accept forms without reading or thinking. I think this will be dangerous.

And I'm really irritated that I can't access local news sites in America because they aren't compliant -- so they blanket ban European access. That's deeply problematic.

Re: Only 9% of visitors give GDPR consent to be tracked

#28

Post by PietdeVries » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 9:17 AM UTC

How cycnical - an article further down (Two young scientists built a $250M business using yeast to clean up wastewater) links to Forbes.com that indeed allows me to set my tracking preferences.However, anything other than 'accept' will result in a message stating 'we are processing the request this may take up to a few minutes'. So they can set hundreds (yeah - that is right, I have seen pages tell me they wanted 500+ cookies to set, some of them to last 20 years) of cookies in a second or so, but will take minutes of me waiting for the page to show while they 'process my preferences'?!?

Re: Only 9% of visitors give GDPR consent to be tracked

#29

Post by ginko » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 9:17 AM UTC

rocho wrote: post #19

davidweatherall wrote: post #2

The author's consent form is very simple and isn't using any shady UX tricks to get the user to consent. One action will opt you in, one action will opt you out. I wonder what results you would see for something like yahoo, the daily mail, reddit, or other sites that heavily rely on ad revenue, which attempt to force the user to accept the cookies through non-obvious no buttons, or long processes to opt out of cookie…

Yes, exactly. I hoped that he would repeat the experiment with a tricky one, like the horrendous forms served by Quantcast. In those, if you click "Reject all" nothing happens! How is that even allowed boggles my mind.

It isn't.

Re: Only 9% of visitors give GDPR consent to be tracked

#30

Post by chrisacky » Tue, Jul 07, 2020, 9:17 AM UTC

I signed up for a new account on a fitness website yesterday. They track health and food and diet you enter. anyway, during the sign up they had a opt out, I chose to do just that, however the opt out process then took over the screen with a modal window, which gave a loading bar and took about thirty seconds to complete... But guess what... There was a big CANCEL button. I couldn't perform any action during sign up and opt out.

This was one of the worst dark patterns I've seen. PS. The app was MyFitnessPal which i registered on recommendation but that felt so shady.