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TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

reuters.com

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Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#51

Post by simias »

djohnston wrote: post #9

As I click my 10,000th cookie modal to read this article, I am forced to ask if this legislation has made my web experience better in any way, to which the answer is a resounding no. I understand the importance of it, but please prioritise revising its shortcomings rather than doubling down on being the most tech-hostile region in the developed world.

I see this mindset a lot but I don't really get it. You'd rather blame the legislation for forcing the websites to disclose all the tracking that they do instead of blaming the websites for tracking you in the first place?

I'm very happy that I can at least click "say no to all" when I get to a new website. Hopefully if enough people do that, they'll realize that the current approach is counterproductive and switch to a different model eventually.

I don't know if you've ever bothered to go through the list of "third parties" you can now opt-in to track you, but I'm frankly amazed by the sheer number of them. Literally hundreds. Before the GDPR I knew that I was tracked online, but honestly I underestimated the scale of it all. Apparently hundreds of companies around the world used to track my every step online. Good riddance.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#52

Post by Wowfunhappy »

kyrra wrote: post #20
Nextgrid wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't the legislation but its lack of enforcement. The legislation itself explicitly prohibits annoying/misleading consent prompts.

I disagree. Pop-up fatigue causes people to just click the button that will get them to their content the fastest. While some people might dive into trying to opt out, when you get these pop-ups on every other site, many people are going to click the easiest button to make it go away. This is a poor law because it has to be done on every website. I think it may be better to have this as a decision the user chooses on…

> Pop-up fatigue causes people to just click the button that will get them to their content the fastest.

And why is that button allowed to be the "Accept Everything" button? There should be two buttons, equally easy to find and press.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#53

Post by yholio »

tushar-r wrote: post #45
djohnston wrote: post #9

As I click my 10,000th cookie modal to read this article, I am forced to ask if this legislation has made my web experience better in any way, to which the answer is a resounding no. I understand the importance of it, but please prioritise revising its shortcomings rather than doubling down on being the most tech-hostile region in the developed world.

> I am forced to ask if this legislation has made my web experience better in any way, to which the answer is a resounding no. I actually find myself digging into the settings that are offered to click on "Reject All" where possible. I wish my region had the same data protections :-/

Reject third party cookies coupled with session only cookies works pretty well though.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#54

Post by serhatozgel »

Aardwolf wrote: post #44
Nextgrid wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't the legislation but its lack of enforcement. The legislation itself explicitly prohibits annoying/misleading consent prompts.

> The legislation itself explicitly prohibits annoying/misleading consent prompts. What does a non-annoying prompt look like?

A non-existing one, you go to your settings to enable it so they can track you.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#55

Post by jcranmer »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #47
DangerousPie wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Honestly Google should have just boycotted Europe for a week and seen how well everyone handles not having gmail, google, or anything. I think the EU would have loved that. There are perfectly viable alternatives to pretty much everything that Google offers, some of which created in Europe. They just never gain any traction because it's convenient to just use Google for everything. I still use Gmail and Google Cale…

> I think the EU would have loved that. "The EU" entirely depended on Google not doing that. And by that I mean the bureaucracy and other apparatjik - not the people. Had Google literally banned Europe the backlash would be large, large, large against 'the EU' from people who live there and were trying to live and do their day to day online activities. Yeah, it'd be Evil, but sometimes companies should really swing b…

I wouldn't be so sure. Google is an American company, and there could well be an element of nationalism in the response, i.e., a sentiment that "stupid imperialist Americans are trying to force us to change our national laws." Furthermore, a monopoly operator that objects to new regulation isn't the kind of entity that typically elicits a lot of sympathy.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#56

Post by serhatozgel »

wickoff wrote: post #21
Nextgrid wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't the legislation but its lack of enforcement. The legislation itself explicitly prohibits annoying/misleading consent prompts.

Legislation is problematic too. I can't be bothered to make a decision to make a decision about storing cookies every time I visit a website, so I click yes every time without reading.

If the legislation were to be enforced, you would click "no" every time without reading.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#57

Post by bzb6 »

tjoff wrote: post #17
djohnston wrote: post #9

As I click my 10,000th cookie modal to read this article, I am forced to ask if this legislation has made my web experience better in any way, to which the answer is a resounding no. I understand the importance of it, but please prioritise revising its shortcomings rather than doubling down on being the most tech-hostile region in the developed world.

As clear as can be yes. Now you know which websites are willing to absolutely ruin your experience just to abuse you. The implications can be seen pretty much everywhere in society, it is a momentous step in the right direction.

> Now you know which websites are willing to absolutely ruin your experience just to abuse you.

Which is absolutely all of them. I guess the legislators wanted the popups to be annoying so publishers would be forced not to import their party scripts. Turns out publishers can’t stay open without the ads that pay their bills which means popups are the new normal, to the point where when I see a website that doesn’t have popups I suppose they are just in violation of the law. Thanks EU!

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#58

Post by weinzierl »

tjoff wrote: post #17
djohnston wrote: post #9

As I click my 10,000th cookie modal to read this article, I am forced to ask if this legislation has made my web experience better in any way, to which the answer is a resounding no. I understand the importance of it, but please prioritise revising its shortcomings rather than doubling down on being the most tech-hostile region in the developed world.

As clear as can be yes. Now you know which websites are willing to absolutely ruin your experience just to abuse you. The implications can be seen pretty much everywhere in society, it is a momentous step in the right direction.

Many sites ruin your experience because they don't know any better. GDPR is perceived as a Sword of Damocles by many smaller and medium sized companies and they will annoy you with elaborate consent solution for which they are paying a ton of money even if they most probably wouldn't need to do it.

For the big players it is easy. They often don't annoy you with consent banners because:

- they have legal departments that understand GDPR and protect them (e.g. GitHub)

- they require your login and therefore have your consent anyway (e.g. Facebook)

- they can afford to skip Cookies because they have elaborate fingerprinting solutions

- they just ignore the law and risk be sued (e.g. Germany's Spiegel Online)

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#59

Post by ohgodplsno »

908B64B197 wrote: post #50
m12k wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love for Google to give the EU a solid reason to encourage homegrown (and tax-paying) alternatives to big US tech (much like China has managed to do with Baidu, WeChat and Alibaba). Breaking big tech monopolies is hard, so I can only pray for them to get the ball rolling with a massive mistake like that.

> I'd love for Google to give the EU a solid reason to encourage homegrown (and tax-paying) alternatives to big US tech Big tech pays it's taxes in Europe, via Luxemburg and Ireland in a 100% legal way. If Europeans countries are serious about collecting tax revenues they claim should be theirs, all they have to do is simply write it in the tax code. If Europe wants to compete, the first thing it has to do is fix it'…

The moment your argument for paying 0.01% taxes is "it's legal", you've fallen pretty low for the quality of your arguments.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#60

Post by frenchy »

weinzierl wrote: post #58
tjoff wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As clear as can be yes. Now you know which websites are willing to absolutely ruin your experience just to abuse you. The implications can be seen pretty much everywhere in society, it is a momentous step in the right direction.

Many sites ruin your experience because they don't know any better. GDPR is perceived as a Sword of Damocles by many smaller and medium sized companies and they will annoy you with elaborate consent solution for which they are paying a ton of money even if they most probably wouldn't need to do it. For the big players it is easy. They often don't annoy you with consent banners because: - they have legal departments t…

> - they can afford to skip Cookies because they have elaborate fingerprinting solutions

This is really just a special case of your last point. As far as I know, there is nothing cookie specific in the GDPR.

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