Live data from Hacker News

New browser signal could make cookie banners obsolete

dataprotectioncontrol.org

111–120 of 269 posts

Re: New browser signal could make cookie banners obsolete

#111
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in France, there's CNIL (Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés) that started going after the top non-compliant websites and sending love letters like "you have N days to become compliant". [1] https://www.cnil.fr/en/home

And then Europeans complain when the rest of the world geoblocks them.

Where are these fictional Europeans who want strong enforcement of privacy laws and complain about geoblocking?

The whole point is that either you follow our laws or you lose access to Europe. Geoblocking is just self-regulation.

Re: New browser signal could make cookie banners obsolete

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's EU, it varies by country. Each country takes the European GRPR law/guidelines and implements in on the national level. There may be slight differences. Your specific example where opting out must not cost more effort than opting in is specific to the UK GDPR implementation for instance.

No. The GDPR is an EU Regulation which is, by definition, a binding legislative act. It applies in its entirety across the EU - no exceptions, no opt-outs. EU Member States are allowed to interpret (to a greater or lesser degree) EU Directives when they translate them into national law[1] The EU GDPR no longer applies in the UK because the UK is no longer a member of the EU. The EU GDPR has been incorporated into UK…

'A "directive" is a legislative act that sets out a goal that all EU countries must achieve. However, it is up to the individual countries to devise their own laws on how to reach these goals.'

Re: New browser signal could make cookie banners obsolete

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Information is power. The more information about more people with more depth to the graph is amassed by Big Tech and 3-letter agencies, the more soft power is accrued over large groups of people, economies, processes and even nations. And this ability is currently asymmetric. While Big Tech and Big Govt knows nearly everything about everybody, ordinary citizens are denied data and transparency. And even if the data m…

> The more information about more people with more depth to the graph is amassed by Big Tech and 3-letter agencies, the more soft power is accrued over large groups of people, economies, processes and even nations. Is there any evidence that Big Tech and Big Government are actually controlling people by tagging them in some database (which no human actually inspects) as being interested in hiking gear and cookie reci…

Companies who track your information, including FAANG get regularly investigated and often fined for violating antitrust laws when they use the data they've gathered to limit or outright kill competition. I find it disingenuous to ask for evidence of some kind of vague "companies controlling people" when it's obvious that they do it on a larger scale all the time.

No, companies do not mind control people on an individual level, but what they do has all the traditional effects of monopolies/oligopolies that are not democratically controlled by the people affected but a handful of rich executives.

I'm not even going to go to the "advertising controls people" dialog tree. If it's not obvious why having the power of putting anything you want in front of billions of people is powerful, then I don't think there's a discussion worth having.

Re: New browser signal could make cookie banners obsolete

#114
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> but large companies decided to ignore it and simply face the fines if they in some hypothetical future will arrive. This is not the case. The fines are up to 2% of annual global turnover. This scares companies. Moreover, some of the worst offending cookie banners are slowly being replaced by better ones as more and more organizations (such as noyb) file official complaints and companies get fined.

It obviously doesn't scare them enough, even if it should in theory.

Re: New browser signal could make cookie banners obsolete

#115
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

2% of revenue while stalling the GDPR process and taking it to court for 10 years makes it only 0.2% ;)

That would be 2% each year for ten years of infringement though, and very expensive lawyers to pay for at least that duration.

Re: New browser signal could make cookie banners obsolete

#116
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…

Unless regulators force companies to respect automated protocols.

I thought this exactly. Kind of like US requiring pension plan options to be provided in a certain consistent layout etc., were this spec to be demanded by e.g. the EU, then it could see a really positive shift

Re: New browser signal could make cookie banners obsolete

#117
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in France, there's CNIL (Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés) that started going after the top non-compliant websites and sending love letters like "you have N days to become compliant". [1] https://www.cnil.fr/en/home

And then Europeans complain when the rest of the world geoblocks them.

No, we politely inform you that geoblocking is not actually required. But thanks for protecting us from your privacy-violating website anyway.

Re: New browser signal could make cookie banners obsolete

#118
post #24

The most frustrating thing about these cookie banners (more like cookie lightboxes) is that almost none of them are compliant with the rules. Unfortunately I don't have time to find the source right now, but I'm pretty sure I've read official EU guidance docs clearly stating that many "dark patterns" are simply illegal. For example making the "Accept all cookies" button require less effort than only accepting necessa…

Yup, this is absolutely the case. Consent in order to count as consent has to be clearly affirmative, freely given, specific, informed, unambiguous and can be withdrawn.

https://gdpr-info.eu/art-7-gdpr/

Re: New browser signal could make cookie banners obsolete

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The GDPR is an EU Regulation which is, by definition, a binding legislative act. It applies in its entirety across the EU - no exceptions, no opt-outs. EU Member States are allowed to interpret (to a greater or lesser degree) EU Directives when they translate them into national law[1] The EU GDPR no longer applies in the UK because the UK is no longer a member of the EU. The EU GDPR has been incorporated into UK…

'A "directive" is a legislative act that sets out a goal that all EU countries must achieve. However, it is up to the individual countries to devise their own laws on how to reach these goals.'

And the GDPR is not a directive.

Re: New browser signal could make cookie banners obsolete

#120
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> but large companies decided to ignore it and simply face the fines if they in some hypothetical future will arrive. This is not the case. The fines are up to 2% of annual global turnover. This scares companies. Moreover, some of the worst offending cookie banners are slowly being replaced by better ones as more and more organizations (such as noyb) file official complaints and companies get fined.

> This is not the case. The fines are up to 2% of annual global turnover. This scares companies.

You are wrong. The initial fine is much, much lower and companies have so long to dabble in wilful ignorance that it is at the moment not something that has teeth. Companies are like bullies, they don't respect threats - only harm.

Post reply on HN