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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

#71

Post by dspillett »

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

If it were as hard to opt-in as it is to fully opt-out, or as easy to accidentally (and permanently) opt-out as it is to accidentally (and permanently) opt-in, then there might be a case for something other than the sites and/or their partners being the problem.

The legislation does not in any way force sites or their partners to make your browsing so inconvenient if you don't want to just click "accept all from all without or without lube". They could implement a small non-modal active-opt-in option, they instead chose to implement labyrinthine modal hunt-the-231st-opt-out adventure games.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#72

Post by avianlyric »

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…

> This is a poor law because it has to be done on every website.

The law doesn’t require this, it only requires informed consent.

> I think it may be better to have this as a decision the user chooses once within their browser, and the browser can then pass along the intention to the website. There can maybe also be a third option

This is would be an allowable approach under GDPR. Someone just needs to build it and make it happen. Unfortunately the “do-not-track” debacle shows that ad companies aren’t interested in playing ball. Hence our current mess.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#73

Post by ineedasername »

Nextgrid wrote: post #10
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.

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

Having to go through a menu of a few dozen items to see & choose what you'll allow to track you is annoying, but so long as sites are willing to track you in dozens of different ways there's really no way around it.

Sites win because exercising your privacy rights even under the GDPR is an inherently annoying thing to do.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#74

Post by majkinetor »

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?

There are more or less annoying prompts however. With the later kind I could coexist.

Instagram has the most annoying one ever, if I stumble upon it by accident I am so annoyed that I need to count to 10. And I am not even using it, its just random click

The far less annoying popups are barely noticeable and do not block/fade content or have missing options like "NO, I don't want cookies, let me in".

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#75

Post by raverbashing »

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.

With the cookie modal you start noticing which sites don't have it (and there are a couple)

And sites can still provide ads. Google still provides ads to me with customizations turned off.

So yeah, I'm pretty bothered by them as well but I know where the blame lies

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#76

Post by bzb6 »

piva00 wrote: post #68
bzb6 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 hav…

No, the legislators didn't want the pop-ups to be annoying. They didn't even require pop-ups. Who wants the pop-ups to be annoying and riddled with dark patterns are the ones implementing it, exactly to cause this kind of reaction on you so you start hating the law, not the ones who are trying their best to skirt around it, to find the loopholes and abuse them. To make your experience as poor as possible while being…

I know the law and how bloody stupid it is. Third party cookies and ad blockers are configurable in your browser, if you don’t configure them then it’s your fault.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#77

Post by Shivetya »

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.

ignoring the fact the vast majority of users never noticed , never cared, and still don't care but not robotic like click away the warnings.

I am not dismissing the need to let consumers know how their habits and information are used I am merely stating that many here overreact on behalf of people who really could care less, they just want their content

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#78

Post by speedgoose »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #7

I have always promised myself that if I become a billionare, I will simply stop providing services to municipalities or countries that create arbitrary laws that make it hard or difficult to do business in. Honestly Google should have just boycotted Europe for a week and seen how well everyone handles not having gmail, google, or anything. California is particularly onerous about all sorts of stuff like labelling eve…

I dream about the FAANG leaving the European market. It would be so many nice opportunities to finally develop our technologies locally like China or Russia are doing.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#79

Post by leesalminen »

hrktb wrote: post #63
weinzierl wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 don't know any better There is a ton of literature about how it should be done, there has been enough press for anyone to be aware that it's a serious subject that needs to be studied, and small companies will often consult with external legal advisors because they can't afford to get on the wrong side of the law on this aspect. I've participated to a ton of these discussions in small and big entities, basical…

> because they can't afford to get on the wrong side of the law on this aspect.

Conversely, some can't afford to get on the right side of the law on this aspect. In our case, we had ~15 customers in the EU (out of ~2000), totaling $2,000/mo MRR. After talking with our legal counsel, we decided to exit the EU market entirely. Our business model was a simple niche B2B SaaS. We never sold, shared, or traded any data of any kind.

When we fired our EU customers, they were very upset! They assumed we were doing something "shady", which wasn't the case at all. The regulatory burden simply wasn't worth the relatively small MRR. The quotes provided for a third-party DPO was higher than our revenue in the market, and the only other option was for me (an overworked founder) to take on that role, and I valued my time higher than that MRR.

Those customers lost out, because after we exited, so did every other player in our niche. Nobody wanted to deal with it.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#80

Post by sn_master »

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.

How so? Almost every single one uses cookies and I press I agree anyway because otherwise I'll be off more than half the internet.
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