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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

#131

Post by abellerose »

jcranmer wrote: post #55
calvinmorrison wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I highly doubt any young person would think that way. Maybe older than 40 would.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#132

Post by leesalminen »

newswasboring wrote: post #100
leesalminen wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Is there no open source effort to make this easy? Or is it one of those instances where people want to do it but don't want to take the legal stands (which is completely understandable). Edit: Also if you are not selling/using this data, why can't you remove everything but session cookies? Please note I'm not a web developer so the answer can just be because it's too much work.

For us, the issue wasn’t a technical one. It was a human one. Our lawyers said we had to appoint a “Data Protection Officer” who’s job it is to respond to requests from EU persons to delete their data. We were a small company and everyone had enough on their plate as it was. Adding more work to keep <1% of revenue wasn’t worth it.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#133

Post by jariel »

swagonomixxx wrote: post #61
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…

Out of curiosity, what are the European alternatives to GSuite?

There's nothing, not even close and it's obviously a problem.

The reason a lot of this antagonism exists is because the EU is not able to compete in a lot of these areas.

While there's a lot of good impetus is privacy legislation, there should be 10x more effort into gearing themselves to be more competitive.

Edit: Europe's inability to materially face this problem is by far the #1 issue. There definitely is an acceptance, on some level, behind closed doors certainly there is discussion and some action, but much more energy seems to be devoted to punishing foreign, successful companies.

It's a bad position to be in to try to legislate foreign behemoths than to have your own, and be worried about how foreign nations may be regulating your own behemoths.

Edit 2: I've made a similar comment a few times and it's guaranteed to be down-voted (again, that's fine, I don't mind it's not a personal issue I have no problem with votes) - but assuming that this is more than likely Europeans down-voting as a rough measure of disagreement, it's really quite a disturbing sentiment that at least popularly, there's difficulty in accepting the obvious lack of competitiveness in these areas. This is why I say it's the #1 challenge - until there is acceptance, there will no progress.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#134

Post by jariel »

bzb6 wrote: post #94
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…

It seems you don’t see the value in having one integrated provider for everything. Other people clearly do. Also if there were GOOD European alternatives to those google service people would use them, but there simply aren’t. Low salaries and terrible regulations are to blame.

I don't think regulations are holding people back.

Low salaries, yes, but that's a failure of leadership, but also a systematic problem of companies inability to make tons of money.

It's a long laundry list and it can't be boiled down just to a few things, they are so intertwined it's hard to separate the issues.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#135

Post by avianlyric »

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 law wasn’t designed to make your web experience better, or worse.

It was simply designed to make it easier to exercise your right to privacy, by forcing companies (and by extension their websites) to get informed consent before they invade your privacy.

There’s many reasons why we’re in our current mess, but I don’t think making companies get informed consent is “tech-hostile”. It’s privacy invading hostile, and if privacy invasions are now synonymous with the tech-industry, then as an industry we need to take a long hard look in the mirror and decide if we’re going to continue enabling this behaviour, or find other business models that don’t rely on trampling the rights of the ignorant or uninformed.

I honestly don’t understand why people take such an issue with the concept of informed consent. It’s one the foundations of a free and equal society.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#136

Post by MereInterest »

serhatozgel wrote: post #56
wickoff wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or just ignore/hide the banners, which by GDPR, may not be interpreted as consent.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#137

Post by jefftk »

qwertox wrote: post #105
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.

It's also interesting to see how Google has reacted to this. Them being the owner of Chrome, they could have implemented a new API in no time which would allow advertisers to use an alternative to cookies. An API where I as a user can define my preferences regarding targeted advertising, and the site owner can query these preferences. An API where advertisers can also store advertising-ids and more site-specific, tra…

It sounds like you're describing https://github.com/WICG/turtledove, which Google is definitely working on.

(Disclosure: I work on ads at Google, including the seller-side of Turtledove. Speaking only for myself.)

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#138

Post by volgar1x »

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.

Or developers can stop using cookies on their website

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#139

Post by EtienneK »

iso1631 wrote: post #126
newswasboring wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best are ones which just give reject all cookies option (of course they still use strictly functional cookies). And I always thought that is how it should be, both extremes should be equally easy to choose.

The best ones are the ones that only use functional cookies until you do something active (like check "remember me" on a login page), thus negating any need for popups etc at all.

This is the correct answer. Non essential cookies should just be turned off by default and should only be enabled via normal navigation through a website. Your ‘remember me’ example is a good one. Thus, no banners are required, ever. This is the exact approach Github went with.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#140

Post by nyanpasu64 »

oh_sigh wrote: post #129
simias wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Wouldn't it be easier to just disable cookies in your browser then? And you can re-enable them on a per-site basis if you think you need them.

I'm using Enhanced Tracking Protection set to Strict, and I still get cookie banners. Is there any difference between saying "Allow All" and "Reject All"? Will "Reject All" reduce server-side tracking and sharing of information among data brokers?
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