I never understood why that EU regulation wasn't required at the browser level in the first place.
well, the regulation applies outside of the browser as a start.
French watchdog fines Google, Amazon for breaching cookies rules
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Re: French watchdog fines Google, Amazon for breaching cookies rules
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
I did set DNT but I'm still getting tracked. I do not want to disable all cookies, I'm perfectly happy to use credential cookies or a shopping cart, I do not want to disable everything indiscriminately. Also I shouldn't have to out out.
We're at the stage now where they can reasonably reliably track you without cookies. I think we need to focus more on restricting what companies can do with data than focusing on asking users permission for things. Popup-hell doesn't help anyone in my opinion.
AFAIK, this is exactly what GDPR is doing.
Re: French watchdog fines Google, Amazon for breaching cookies rules
#63I have mixed feelings.
On one hand, the data harvesting targeted by cookie laws and associated privacy stuff is important and legislators/regulators are right to target it.
OTOH, effectiveness is pretty marginal. There have been some (minor) gains on disclosure. Somewhat better progress on data selling/sharing/security. But, no real gains on consent, which is a big part of the regulatory effort and this specific case. Between dark patterns, take-it-or-leave it propositions and predatory defaults... I don't think most people have a more censenting relationship with amazon or google than before.
Regulators (also prosecutors, often) tend to focus enforceability on easy to prosecute, legible stuff. "Must contain small print" rules. This is how we end up with such meticulous small print norms for advertising pharmaceuticals, financial products and other regulated industries.
Fines themselves do not deter profitability monsters like this and the "fix" is going to be an update to the popup, small print, naming of buttons and other things that don't really matter much outside of a legalistic perspective.
I'm all for the goals of these efforts. Consent. Privacy. Non-abusive relationships with companies generally. That said, I'm worried that most of the regulatory enforcement efforts are focused on technicalities without reference to real world achievements.
Re: French watchdog fines Google, Amazon for breaching cookies rules
#64This cookie insanity has to stop. Instead of adding popups everywhere, users should’ve been trained to use the options of their browsers, which have existed for decades.
I did set DNT but I'm still getting tracked. I do not want to disable all cookies, I'm perfectly happy to use credential cookies or a shopping cart, I do not want to disable everything indiscriminately. Also I shouldn't have to out out.
>Also I shouldn't have to opt out
Actually, the law says the tracking cookies have to be opt in, which is why the pop ups are so aggressive and undismissable in the first place.
Re: French watchdog fines Google, Amazon for breaching cookies rules
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Companies would still have to be mandated to respect said options, as when the voluntary DNT was added, companies went "lalala can't hear you"
Then what is the reason that `robots.txt` is so widely followed even without a legal requirement to do so?
Server operators are more capable of blocking badly behaving bots than users are of blocking adtech companies. Consequently you follow the limits in robots.txt or you risk getting blocked.
On the other hand, if you follow the limits in DNT, you get nothing, and the consequences of not doing so are ... nothing, so companies did not follow that. (See also P3P for another previous attempt)
Re: French watchdog fines Google, Amazon for breaching cookies rules
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Companies would still have to be mandated to respect said options, as when the voluntary DNT was added, companies went "lalala can't hear you"
Then what is the reason that `robots.txt` is so widely followed even without a legal requirement to do so?
You can't just scrape websites and ignore robots.txt, you will get into infinite loops. That doesn't mean people don't do it anyway, but "first pass" scraping it is more efficient to respect robots.txt, and then you can come in with a human to figure out if anything behind robots.txt is surreptitiously possible to scrape. On the other hand, Google etc. do not care enough, they just respect robots.txt because they don't need to index your site if you don't want them to, it hurts you more than it hurts them.
DNT has no mutual benefit, the benefit is only to the end-user asking not to be tracked. The benefit is also not immediate, it's somewhere down the road. Ignoring robots.txt can immediately cause problems for both the client and server.
Re: French watchdog fines Google, Amazon for breaching cookies rules
#67Unfortunately, the CINL here is not protecting users. Nobody wants those annoying Cookie reminders. I believe this is just a form of taxation that they are not able to get in another way.
Re: French watchdog fines Google, Amazon for breaching cookies rules
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not quite sure if this is sarcasm ? The do not track header is about 10 years old, ans was promptly ignored by all websites DNT: 1 DNT: 0
DNT is too simple, there should be new better standard integrated in web browsers. The never ending popups with absolutely 0 constancy across sites is atrocious, moreover if I rejected a cookie for a domain on site A I will be prompted on site B if I want to reject it again. For every domain that wants to create cookies, I should be prompted by the browser (like I allow camera access) if I authorize it to do so, we c…
If you want to see an example of a more granular policy that the browsers (well, Internet Explorer, but it was the majority browser at the time) implemented also being ignored, see P3P: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P3P
Re: French watchdog fines Google, Amazon for breaching cookies rules
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn't about the technology used. The issue is that the tracking is not disclosed to the end-user at all.
That's the point GP is making. I think they're responding to some other comments in this thread (and threads like it), not to the article.
Yes it was a general observation.
The issue should not be phrased as "breaching cookie rules", as murdering someone with an automatic weapon is also not discussed as a "violation of human tissue guidelines".
Re: French watchdog fines Google, Amazon for breaching cookies rules
#70I never understood why that EU regulation wasn't required at the browser level in the first place.
The regulation applies equally to my handwritten, paper notes I take when interviewing people for a job, to the candidate's CV, and, well, to every source of personal data.