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Europe's war on cookies

wired.co.uk

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Re: Europe's war on cookies

#21

Post by chalst »

Knacker_Hughes wrote: post #13

I see this also covers the use of Flash cookies, but I wonder about the use of Etags as a tracking mechanism. If I recall correctly, some of these sites use cookies, Flash cookies and also unique Etags on an object in the browser cache to try to work around people blocking cookies from their domains.

Any technology causes client machines to store information for later access are within the scope of the law.

The exact wording is a person shall not store or gain access to information stored, in the terminal equipment of a subscriber or user unless the requirements ... are met.

Re: Europe's war on cookies

#22

Post by codeup »

relix wrote: post #19
codeup wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could also ask: What's wrong with news and political information geared towards your political opinions?

This comparison is not apt.

Simply denying aptitude is not an argument. Also, your initial comment only relies on reference to fringe advertising that (probably) nobody here would want to see.

Re: Europe's war on cookies

#23

Post by LaGrange »

relix wrote: post #8
darklajid wrote: post #7

> Traditionally, the US and the UK have taken a more relaxed approach to privacy. But the legislative and interventionist tendencies of Europe -- and of France and Germany in particular Now, this is the first time in a decade that I couldn't avoid a smug face and tiny bit of affection formy home country.. Seriously: As others pointed out here, this is a targeted law against privacy breaches. If your company builds it…

What's wrong with advertising geared towards your interests? Or do you enjoy watching ads on penis enlargements, gambling, whitening teeth and How To Get Rich While Sleeping?

Wait, what, what's wrong with optimizing the brainwashing techniques applied to myself?

Yeah, I do prefer seeing ads for stuff I don't need and would never buy than ads for stuff I don't need but it's vaguely possible I might be brainwashed into buying. If I think I need something and I want to browse ads for that something, I will just find a relevant catalogue/industry magazine/whatever.

See, if someone finds a security bug that allows to change something in our computer's software, we freak out and go for patches. If someone finds a bug in our brains, we call that "ads custom-tailored for your needs."

Re: Europe's war on cookies

#24

Post by JonoW »

barrkel wrote: post #9
relix wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with advertising geared towards your interests? Or do you enjoy watching ads on penis enlargements, gambling, whitening teeth and How To Get Rich While Sleeping?

It implies that someone has built a profile describing your interests from your behaviour. Many people find that creepy, and not worth targeted advertising. It's reminiscent of secret police behaviour with their networks of informants, and is not a distant memory in much of Europe.

> It's reminiscent of secret police behaviour with their networks of informants

That's a bit of a stretch.

Also I don't believe the vast majority of people care about an organisation generating a profile of your interests, otherwise services like GMail and Facebook would have failed.

Re: Europe's war on cookies

#25

Post by mapleoin »

codeup wrote: post #22
relix wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comparison is not apt.

Simply denying aptitude is not an argument. Also, your initial comment only relies on reference to fringe advertising that (probably) nobody here would want to see.

Here are two arguments:

- news isn't targeted at a particular person (unless you're using your own RSS aggregator, but then you're not (usually) giving anyone else information about what you're aggregating).

- news is generally opt-in, meaning that I choose to read bbc instead of NYTimes

Re: Europe's war on cookies

#26

Post by darklajid »

relix wrote: post #8
darklajid wrote: post #7

> Traditionally, the US and the UK have taken a more relaxed approach to privacy. But the legislative and interventionist tendencies of Europe -- and of France and Germany in particular Now, this is the first time in a decade that I couldn't avoid a smug face and tiny bit of affection formy home country.. Seriously: As others pointed out here, this is a targeted law against privacy breaches. If your company builds it…

What's wrong with advertising geared towards your interests? Or do you enjoy watching ads on penis enlargements, gambling, whitening teeth and How To Get Rich While Sleeping?

"My interests" are hard to define without collecting far too much information about me.

Good example for "of interest" in my opinion:

If I shop with Amazon and bought Product A, B and C and your database of previous orders suggests that I'd like to buy the new Album of Justin Bieber: Fine, go ahead and suggest that to me.

In that case you used just the information that I sent to you and correlated that with a little bit of inventory/anonymous order history magic. I get recommendations from you because I am your customer already and provided you with a limited insight into "my interests".

Now - if you track me across sites, try to create a profile of me without my consent and my explicit knowledge and then try to sell this as being relevant, a good idea and targeting "my interests" I have some doubts that we're talking about the same thing.

Re: Europe's war on cookies

#27

Post by mooism2 »

hardik988 wrote: post #16

Do the regulations say anything about localstorage ? I guess one could use that in place of a cookie..

AIUI it's not specific to http cookies, but applies to anything being used as a cookie. So flash cookies, html5 local storage etc all count as cookies for the purposes of this rule.

Re: Europe's war on cookies

#28

Post by JonoW »

One thing I don't get is how a site-owner is meant to know what cookies a 3rd party may send. If I add a Facebook "like" button to my site, does FB send a cookie? What if they don't now but decide to later. And if FB does decide to use cookies down the line, how do they ask your opt-in?

You can send cookies with any HTTP reply, so how do you know if that image you are hot-linking from a 3rd party site doesn't send back a cookie?

There seem to be so many technical vagaries that make this so tricky to implement properly.

Re: Europe's war on cookies

#29

Post by codeup »

mapleoin wrote: post #25
codeup wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simply denying aptitude is not an argument. Also, your initial comment only relies on reference to fringe advertising that (probably) nobody here would want to see.

Here are two arguments: - news isn't targeted at a particular person (unless you're using your own RSS aggregator, but then you're not (usually) giving anyone else information about what you're aggregating). - news is generally opt-in, meaning that I choose to read bbc instead of NYTimes

To clarify: My "what's wrong" question meant to show what's wrong with the "what's wrong" question I replied to.

So I agree with your two points. In fact you can easily use interest profiles for serving advertising and news alike, my comparison is apt.

Re: Europe's war on cookies

#30

Post by darklajid »

JonoW wrote: post #24
barrkel wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It implies that someone has built a profile describing your interests from your behaviour. Many people find that creepy, and not worth targeted advertising. It's reminiscent of secret police behaviour with their networks of informants, and is not a distant memory in much of Europe.

> It's reminiscent of secret police behaviour with their networks of informants That's a bit of a stretch. Also I don't believe the vast majority of people care about an organisation generating a profile of your interests, otherwise services like GMail and Facebook would have failed.

Right, I agree that this 'secret police' comparison is off.

But your Facebook/GMail comparison is different as well: They are not useful/popular because of user tracking, they provide us with a free and (limited..?) useful service. I'd argue that's a bad thing as well, but I'd separate multiple levels of evil tracking:

1) You track me to sell my data and to profit from the ads. I gain nothing (you might be very lucky to guess that I want X and therefor save me from having to type "Where to buy X" into Google, but I'd not consider that useful in general).

2) You provide a free service that I'd gladly use. You track information about me to make a living, pay the costs etc.

1) is unacceptable for me, although it tends to be largely ignored in general and considered normal.

2) is on the edge and I'd like you to at least tell me about your tracking and make me aware of the general data you're collecting. It's up to me to opt-in (by using the service and agreeing to this tracking) or going elsewhere.

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