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Only 9% of visitors give GDPR consent to be tracked

markosaric.com

371–380 of 457 posts

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

#371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To the point where it's not worth giving companies money at all. Stockholders aren't involved in day-to-day ops, anyway, so you're placing the blame at the wrong place. It should be placed on the C-suite.

The problem with modern capitalism is that people can get all the benefits but avoid the bulk of the risk

The alternative seems like a strange land where we imprison waste management workers for their pension funds being invested in companies they have literally have no control over and no ability to discover the behavior of.

Or should we restrict the stock market only to the rich and powerful?

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

#372

Fundamentally, the browser is the user's agent. Storing cookies, running tracking scripts, etc. should be controlled by the browser. Some browsers may take a strict "block everything" approach, some may be relaxed, and some may harass the user with prompts. Users are free to choose the appropriate browser. Depending on websites to limit tracking by on their own is very difficult, since it is inherently against many w…

This is nice in theory, except the amount of fragmentation in 2020 is huge. The average user simply cannot switch browsers. The likelihood of encountering a website that breaks even switching from Chrome to Firefox is too much for any normal user to want to bother for just these purposes. They'll switch back the minute they find a website that doesn't work in their new browser, if they even get that far. So unless yo…

To be fair to chrome it's actually incredibly easy to clear cookies and to specifically block them.

Just click the lock next to the url in the url bar.

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

#373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't take someone's lifeline away and act surprised when they try to get around it. Of course websites will do what they can to remain viable.

There is many people that will change their business model once it's unlawful. Not everybody is willing to break the law. But, there is people that does not care for their customers nor the law. From safety food violations to illegal pollution of air or rivers. That's why we need more strict law enforcement for companies.

Right now, most places are dragging their feet, because there is at least plausible uncertainty. They're waiting for enforcement actions to see what the limits really are, and then they'll likely comply (or cut off access to EU ips, which doesn't strictly comply, but is more effective than asking people if they are EU persons and then denying service)

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

#374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The standard popups are 100% against the GDPR. In the GDPR, all consent must be explicit, uncoerced, and opt-in. If I recall correctly, there can be a request displayed to the user, but the "No tracking" option must be the default, and must not require any more user interaction than the "Yes tracking" option. If there is a "Yes tracking" button that immediately closes the banner and continues, then even having a "are…

Usually the "no tracking" option requires no action. Simply don't press anything in the banner.

Then you get nowhere. The actually compliant popups (maybe about 1/3?) have a really hard to see "reject" button somewhere, while the others make it impossible or force you to click "learn more" (of course customzation options are behind that, very logical yes) and deselct everything manually.

Asshole design ("dark patterns") should be illegal generally, but in this case it already clearly is. Can we have some enforcement, already? Ideally for both buyers and sellers of the terrible stuff.

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

#375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't work on Yahoo sites which redirect to a different URL for the consent.

Temporary Containers: you can set all the cookies you want, but 15 minutes after I close the tab they are erased. Oh and default no js means that I typically don't see those pubups in the first place.

I'm not going to do this because I'd still have to click the "I consent" button, which I do not.

Archive.is, it is.

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

#376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DockerHub uses a company/product called "TrustArc: TRUSTe" and they have _exactly_ this method. The slowdown is intentional. People who come up with sort of tactics and those who implement them should go to jail. It's beyond infuriating. I've decided to not upload my images to dockerhub because of this. Edit: jail time is not for anger obviously, but for intentionally swindling people. It'll be handled on a case by c…

Since your edit seems to be taking the jail suggestion seriously: I think the data-money analogy isn't unreasonable, but you're overloading "swindle" pretty heavily here, in a way that defeats your point. Companies and people "swindle" others out of money all the time with dark patterns, and this predates computing by ten thousand years. Caveat emptor exists for a reason: the legal system is just too inflexible a too…

I agree. I’m certainly taking it from my own point of view, and I might be overloading “swindle”. It’s probably a bad choice of a word here. It would have to be on case by case basis anyway, but even with the inflexibility of the system and the impossibility of jail time for every theft case, I think it would have to be at least an option when the intent on scamming for the purpose of selling the data (like those mailing lists) is clear.

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

#377
20 years ago we had popups, popunders, etc... nowadays we have this crap. I don't care about GDPR, I don't care about cookies... I just want the content. That's why I use a browser extension called "I don't care about cookies" which removes these things from websites.

Accepting to GDPR / Cookies: This should be some kind of a web standard , built inside a browser so user can accept it once, ignore or whatever, but seeing this on every website drives (drived) me nuts.

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

#378
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run a blog. It has Google Analytics. I could probably host my own analytics solution, but that's not easy. I'll get to it eventually, but content benefits my users more. I need analytics because this blog pays the bills. I need to see what works and what doesn't. When building partnerships, I'm usually expected to share some numbers with them. It also lets me spot issues with the website.

Thank you, I understand convenience for author / inconvenience for reader. I do not use Google Analytics but it looks like it is possible to disable Cookies [1], anonymize IPs, disable data sharing with google [2]. Effectively making it almost third party server logs analytics (no consent required). Would remaining functionality be sufficient for you? [1] https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/36105/can-usage-of-g..…

Yes, that would be far more than I need. That's the problem, actually. I could track a fraction of that and be really happy.

I tried Plausible today, but their event handling is completely insufficient for my needs. It's basically a key-based counter. The keys have to be created in advance, and can't be categorised. This means I couldn't track outbound clicks without first creating a new event for every known URL on my website. It just doesn't work.

It's a shame, because I loved every other aspect of Plausible.

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

#379
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For many services there is simply no (online, i.e. practically relevant) alternative, because none of the market players have an incentive to be privacy preserving (think major news outlets) or because the service is not interchangable due to network effects (facebook, twitter etc). But here's the big question: would these services have even existed in the first place if these laws had been in place? The internet h…

Most services existed before, with a variety of models. E.g. Both subscription and ad revenue based free news papers existed long before the internet. Somehow they managed, without the need to track ones every move. Would the internet look the same, with the same players and behaviours if these laws existed? No probably not. But I also don't think the internet is in a very desirable state. Maybe, we would have had mo…

>Most services existed before, with a variety of models. E.g. Both subscription and ad revenue based free news papers existed long before the internet.

Yes, but aren't most of those newspapers essentially partisan politics? Every free newspaper I've seen IRL has been backed by somebody trying to push for politics. From my experience they also tend to not be that informative.

>Maybe, we would have had more invention and uaee acceptance in different ways to pay and consume services instead of this race to the bottom of cheap ads.

The problem is that there is no price equilibrium that will work. People from poor countries can't afford to pay what is a reasonable price for people from rich countries. Poor people in general can't afford to pay. Kids/teenagers can't afford to pay. And this gets complicated even more by the fact that we don't even have payment methods available to everyone. Even if you could afford it, you couldn't pay. Ie I've never owned a credit card in my life and as far as I know I'm not eligible for one. They have a minimum income limit that I fall under.

I'm saying that the ad model is what made the internet so commonplace for a lot of information.

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

#380

Fundamentally, the browser is the user's agent. Storing cookies, running tracking scripts, etc. should be controlled by the browser. Some browsers may take a strict "block everything" approach, some may be relaxed, and some may harass the user with prompts. Users are free to choose the appropriate browser. Depending on websites to limit tracking by on their own is very difficult, since it is inherently against many w…

This is nice in theory, except the amount of fragmentation in 2020 is huge. The average user simply cannot switch browsers. The likelihood of encountering a website that breaks even switching from Chrome to Firefox is too much for any normal user to want to bother for just these purposes. They'll switch back the minute they find a website that doesn't work in their new browser, if they even get that far. So unless yo…

I agree that switching browsers is too much to ask. But forcing websites to act against their own interests is not going to work either. It's like forcing a tiger to treat a deer with love and compassion. It's just unnatural. Do you seriously think Facebook is ever going to genuinely give users a way to opt out of tracking? Or Google? Never. They will always try to weasel out of all the requirements, always adhere to the letter but go against the spirit of these regulations.

At least browsers don't have that inherent agenda against their own users. There will always be a Firefox which genuinely strives to serve its users, rather than exploit them.

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