French watchdog fines Google, Amazon for breaching cookies rules • Hacker News Board

Re: French watchdog fines Google, Amazon for breaching cookies rules

#121

Post by dalbasal » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 5:07 PM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #73

dalbasal wrote: post #63

I 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…

> no real gains on consent, which is a big part of the regulatory effort and this specific case Consent is regulated under the GDPR and the majority of consent banners/popups you see today are not compliant. For example, the regulation explicitly mandates that pre-ticked checkboxes are not compliant and that it must be as easy to accept than to decline. According to the article, this fine is for a breach of the ePriv…

Ultimately compliance is defined by precedent, and by example. Both are being established here, in this case. So, good point about the actual act their being charged under.

Either way though, the concept of consent is similar in the GDPR. It is notable that GDPR makes more effort to define consent better, and implicitly deals with the fact that choice and such are important.

How that translates into enforcement/compliance... I guess we'll see. I think we both agree that none of these recent legislative changes (also in the US and elsewhere) have given us much improvement on consent, so far. You just might be more optimistic than me on prospects.

I think the problem is a hard one, at least within our current normative frames. A regulator has very few nearby examples to draw on, for an enforceable model of consent. They need a binary, but a broader concept of consent isn't very amenable to that.

Re: French watchdog fines Google, Amazon for breaching cookies rules

#122

Post by aenario » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 5:11 PM UTC

bb101 wrote: post #111

Typical nature of doing business in Europe. Arbitrary laws, borne in good faith but implemented so badly and erratically that everyone is forced to ignore them. The same laws are then wielded as a baton against whomever the state wishes to punish at the time.

The GDPR is actually pretty simple : "say what you do, do what you say, let the user say no"

The clusterfuck comes from every single ad-based business toeing the line in a giant tug of war between PR, legal & revenue.

If google had simply written : " Hey, we have a tracker on almost every website in the world, which we will use to monitor all your browsing habits and share with [this list of 100 other business]. This tracking pay for the app you are about to use. [Continue Tracking] [No thanks] "

They would be fine (legally, not financially), instead they use some king of weird pop-up with no meaning, and they now have to pay the price.

Re: French watchdog fines Google, Amazon for breaching cookies rules

#123

Post by ocdtrekkie » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 5:30 PM UTC

msla wrote: post #116

hadrien01 wrote: post #2

Google is fined 100 millions because tracking cookies are saved on the device before opting-in AND after opting-out, and because the cookie modal isn't clear enough. [1] Amazon is fined 35 millions for similar reasons, but the amount is lower because they acknowledged and fixed the issues in September 2020. [2] [1] https://www.cnil.fr/en/cookies-financial-penalties-60-millio... [2] https://www.cnil.fr/en/cookies-fina…

Those amounts don't seem near enough to make it financially worthwhile for them to change their behavior.

If they don't comply within three months, they start getting another copy of this fine every day until they do.

Which is to say, the punitive fines are not enough for them to not play games with the rules... but once they're caught they do have to fall in.

This demonstrates the need for constant enforcement diligence by regulators: These companies can and will continue to flagrantly disregard the law unless regularly checked.

Re: French watchdog fines Google, Amazon for breaching cookies rules

#124

Post by mikem170 » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

Snoddas wrote: post #33

OT, but I feel people who care about this perhaps knows the answer. Is there a browser that pretends to accepts all cookies but never saves them?

>Is there a browser that pretends to accepts all cookies but never saves them?

I use the Temporary Containers extension in Firefox, and I think that comes pretty close. Every tab can hive its own cookies, separate from all other tabs, which disappear when the tab is closed.

I've got mine setup to delete cookies for a domain when the last tab for that domain is closed. I also run Ublock Origin, don't accept third party cookies, and have javascript turned off for all domains by default.

Re: French watchdog fines Google, Amazon for breaching cookies rules

#125

Post by dehrmann » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 5:51 PM UTC

pestaa wrote: post #34

Everybody is so focused on 'cookies' as if the technology itself was regulated. The web developers (or marketing agencies or whatever) are also slow to learn what proper data protection means, and slap popups and banners on everything, making the web disgusting and regulations seem misguided. A session cookie, especially after a login, may not require consent at all. Describe in your policy what personal data, if any…

What I find ironic is Google actually goes to extreme lengths to protect your data. Compare that to all the third-party trackers loaded by random-etailer.com.

Re: French watchdog fines Google, Amazon for breaching cookies rules

#126

Post by mancerayder » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

bb101 wrote: post #111

Typical nature of doing business in Europe. Arbitrary laws, borne in good faith but implemented so badly and erratically that everyone is forced to ignore them. The same laws are then wielded as a baton against whomever the state wishes to punish at the time.

...or don't collect user data against people's will. Apparently, that's too arbitrary and oppressive to comply with?

Sad world we live in if that's true.

Re: French watchdog fines Google, Amazon for breaching cookies rules

#127

Post by marcodave » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 6:08 PM UTC

Snoddas wrote: post #33

OT, but I feel people who care about this perhaps knows the answer. Is there a browser that pretends to accepts all cookies but never saves them?

I think you can configure Firefox to disable all cookies, with the catch, though, written out, that "might break certain sites". Soooo, shrugs

Re: French watchdog fines Google, Amazon for breaching cookies rules

#128

Post by sdflhasjd » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 6:24 PM UTC

Snoddas wrote: post #33

OT, but I feel people who care about this perhaps knows the answer. Is there a browser that pretends to accepts all cookies but never saves them?

I use Cookie AutoDelete, which automatically deletes cookies after you close the tabs.

Combined with blocking all third party cookies, this seems to be pretty good.

Obviously, the issue is now that Google now prompts you almost every time you visit.

Re: French watchdog fines Google, Amazon for breaching cookies rules

#129

Post by alwayseasy » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 6:24 PM UTC

jeanjogr wrote: post #56

matsemann wrote: post #41

> The CNIL rejected the companies’ arguments that it had no right to impose the sanctions because their respective European headquarters are in Ireland and Luxembourg So they are fine with taking French money, but want to be above their laws?

This is the whole point of having your headquarters in those countries: make money in country X but be taxed according to country Y laws. Why would they not want to be under country Y laws for things other than taxes?

Yes they do it for tax purposes and the tax laws do apply of course.

Re: French watchdog fines Google, Amazon for breaching cookies rules

#130

Post by alwayseasy » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 6:28 PM UTC

bb101 wrote: post #111

Typical nature of doing business in Europe. Arbitrary laws, borne in good faith but implemented so badly and erratically that everyone is forced to ignore them. The same laws are then wielded as a baton against whomever the state wishes to punish at the time.

European companies in the USA or Asia are exposed to the same arbitrary laws that favor local players. They only are wielded at major strategic actors rather than small startups though.