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New browser signal could make cookie banners obsolete

dataprotectioncontrol.org

51–60 of 269 posts

Re: New browser signal could make cookie banners obsolete

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example making the "Accept all cookies" button require less effort than only accepting necessary cookies, which almost every page does. Like those that make you uncheck 10 or 20 entries one by one.

Those are the worst. And calling them “legitimate interest” only adds insult to injury.

Also the providers that appear to offer a even choice of accept all/reject all, except you realise that they've classified a second "legitimate interest" option for everything which the reject all doesn't cover (because that would be objecting, not rejecting)

Re: New browser signal could make cookie banners obsolete

#52
Tinder, Google, Amazon, Twitter, Facebook and other plaftorms can reliably ban an account without knowing the name, surname, birthdate. Just from the broad fingerprint of the device, email, phone number, Wifi SSIDs, location, and other data they collect. Yet they are showing the cookie and "privacy" splashscreens and popups on every visit. Every. Freaking. Time. Google with Youtube in particular. Isn't it malicious compliance?

Re: New browser signal could make cookie banners obsolete

#53
post #7

Reminder that we've already had a spec for it. In the 90s! And it even has been implemented in the Internet Explorer: https://www.w3.org/P3P/ It did absolutely nothing for privacy. Google has been sending bogus P3P headers that broke IE's implementation and allowed all cookies. Adtech companies don't want users to have an easy opt-out. They didn't want P3P. They didn't want DNT. They will not want this new spec, unle…

> Adtech companies don't want users to have an easy opt-out. They didn't want P3P. They didn't want DNT. They will not want this new spec, unless the spec is so bad that most users will agree by accident.

Reminder that Internet advertising has a lot of actors with competing interests, and it is not usually the "adtech companies" who don't want users to have an easy-opt out, but publishers and to a lesser extent the advertisers. Many "adtech companies" would love to have clearer legal signals and simpler, industry-wide justification to collect less data.

Publishers have been very good at foisting all user frustration off on vague "adtech" (or alternately, adtech companies have been effective at reputation laundering for publishers/advertisers) but they're the ones that want to collect, share, and sell the data to be able to raise their rates.

Re: New browser signal could make cookie banners obsolete

#54

All this does is move the cookie banner from the website to the browser which still means I have to click approve every time I visit a new website. What I really would like to do is to get rid of these annoying cookie banners entirely and have something auto opt-in for me so I can get back to a decent web browsing experience a la pre-2017…

I think the only "safe" auto complete it could provide with this spec is reject all. Otherwise it could just save a list of consents with unique IDs and look at your rejection list for another fingerprinting avenue.

Re: New browser signal could make cookie banners obsolete

#55
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless regulators force companies to respect automated protocols.

The GDPR already explicitly forbids 95% of the cookie banners out there, but large companies decided to ignore it and simply face the fines if they in some hypothetical future will arrive. The rest of the industry followed. Until the law that defined informed consent actually get enforced, a new law can not really fix it unless the regulators start to add the threat of jail time to repeat offenders.

I mean, a good first step would be to start fining companies 2% of the revenue. Especially Google. And then maybe automate the GDPR fines, because it's definitely possible to identify that a site puts up a non-compliant banner.

No need to add the threat of jail time, _especially_ if it isn't enforced.

Re: New browser signal could make cookie banners obsolete

#56
post #7

Reminder that we've already had a spec for it. In the 90s! And it even has been implemented in the Internet Explorer: https://www.w3.org/P3P/ It did absolutely nothing for privacy. Google has been sending bogus P3P headers that broke IE's implementation and allowed all cookies. Adtech companies don't want users to have an easy opt-out. They didn't want P3P. They didn't want DNT. They will not want this new spec, unle…

Just use Super Agent. You choose your preferences once and that's it. And once iOS 15 is out, it will be available in mobile.

Re: New browser signal could make cookie banners obsolete

#57

All this does is move the cookie banner from the website to the browser which still means I have to click approve every time I visit a new website. What I really would like to do is to get rid of these annoying cookie banners entirely and have something auto opt-in for me so I can get back to a decent web browsing experience a la pre-2017…

This is exactly what we're trying to do at Super Agent - check it out https://www.super-agent.com . Choose your preferences once and our extension will automate opt-in/opt-out where possible :)

Off Topic: Your logo is blurred unless I allow scripts from static.parastorage.com ... that seems a weird thing.

Re: New browser signal could make cookie banners obsolete

#58
post #7

Reminder that we've already had a spec for it. In the 90s! And it even has been implemented in the Internet Explorer: https://www.w3.org/P3P/ It did absolutely nothing for privacy. Google has been sending bogus P3P headers that broke IE's implementation and allowed all cookies. Adtech companies don't want users to have an easy opt-out. They didn't want P3P. They didn't want DNT. They will not want this new spec, unle…

"the banners are malicious compliance."

I agree. But I don't think it's because adtech want you to think privacy is shit; I think it's because by compelling you to click, they can run Javascript in the context of a user gesture.

I want a plugin that automatically says "OK" to cookie banners. My browser already blocks 3rd-party cookies. It only allows session cookies. Cookie banners are like fire-hydrant CAPTCHAs - they masssively increase the friction that web users have to deal with.

They also legitimise other kinds of popup window that websites present. I've noticed more and more popups appearing on first visit to a site, inviting me to subscribe to a newsletter or whatever. You often see a cookie banner, followed by a newsletter popup, followed by a Google login popup. Who knows, maybe there's a traffic-lights CAPTCHA.

Then finally you're into the site, and it turns out to be Washpo or NYT, and you can't read the article anyway, because it's paywalled.

Can we have our open web back please, mister?

Re: New browser signal could make cookie banners obsolete

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what we're trying to do at Super Agent - check it out https://www.super-agent.com . Choose your preferences once and our extension will automate opt-in/opt-out where possible :)

Off Topic: Your logo is blurred unless I allow scripts from static.parastorage.com ... that seems a weird thing.

Thanks for letting me know! Looking into it - we've used Wix to build our landing page, I believe this URL may be from a CDN they use to speed up content delivery.

Re: New browser signal could make cookie banners obsolete

#60
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless regulators force companies to respect automated protocols.

It is time for the governments to take control back and start regulating BigTech: you can not easily opt-out from any data gathering from Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, ... If you try it and turn it off on mobile phone and desktop you will constantly have issues and be flooded with messages like "turn on location services", etc. Yesterday I learned that my private calendar on my phone was replicated to Google Ca…

How is this possible? Probably forgot you gave consent to Google calendar?
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