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Dear Paul Graham, there is no cookie banner law

amazingcto.com

161–170 of 662 posts

Re: Dear Paul Graham, there is no cookie banner law

#163
post #126
post #17

Imagine a market in which companies charge a lot of hidden fees behind their customers' back, and users are not happy when they realize after the fact. The law is updated to say you are not allowed to charge the user a fee unless you tell him in advance. Companies with tons of hidden fees decide to keep them but force you to read all the fees on every page of the menu before you can see the rest of the text, in the m…

Hidden fees are bad because of the specific combination - the hiding, and the fees. Since tracking isn't hidden and isn't a fee, the analogy doesn't help to justify the EUs law. People should have a default expectation that if they give their personal data to companies then it will be recorded. And if they don't want cookies then they should disable cookies. The EU's regulation hasn't revealed anything that is useful…

Tracking is certainly hidden if you're not a programmer, and is certainly a fee if you value your time. Not all people live in low-trust societies or desire to.

Re: Dear Paul Graham, there is no cookie banner law

#164
post #70

>, Paul Graham came up with the thought, that the EU forces companies to have cookie banners. There is no law for cookie banners. [...] Companies could easily avoid any cookie banner. Just don’t track. KingOfCoders/amazingcto, of course you are technically correct but Paul Graham wasn't talking about the letter of the law. Instead, you have to interpret his complaint with the lens of game theory . I.e. The Law of Uni…

Paul Graham focused on whining about regulation as he always does

Re: Dear Paul Graham, there is no cookie banner law

#166
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not only that, I'm not an EU citizen and I'm not browsing websites based in EU but I'm still bombarded with cookie banners non-stop. Again, that's the fault of the companies putting those up, they could make it opt-in to collect your data, they could just put a small notice on the footer with 2 simples links "Accept all/Reject all". But they chose, they decided to pester you with those banners as annoyingly as poss…

The fact that companies are doing that says more about the bad law than the companies which is exactly Paul Graham's point.

[flagged]

Re: Dear Paul Graham, there is no cookie banner law

#167
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not only that, I'm not an EU citizen and I'm not browsing websites based in EU but I'm still bombarded with cookie banners non-stop. Again, that's the fault of the companies putting those up, they could make it opt-in to collect your data, they could just put a small notice on the footer with 2 simples links "Accept all/Reject all". But they chose, they decided to pester you with those banners as annoyingly as poss…

The fact that companies are doing that says more about the bad law than the companies which is exactly Paul Graham's point.

The law is pretty crystal clear. In many cases the issue is that websites are outsourcing their tracking to ad companies, which in turn apply those banners indiscriminately because that's in their interest.

That being said, all the dark-pattern banners actually break the law. The problem, if anything, is lack of enforcement of the law.

Re: Dear Paul Graham, there is no cookie banner law

#168
post #107
post #70

>, Paul Graham came up with the thought, that the EU forces companies to have cookie banners. There is no law for cookie banners. [...] Companies could easily avoid any cookie banner. Just don’t track. KingOfCoders/amazingcto, of course you are technically correct but Paul Graham wasn't talking about the letter of the law. Instead, you have to interpret his complaint with the lens of game theory . I.e. The Law of Uni…

Doesn't that argument work both ways? If you interpret the EU's regulation with the "lens of game theory", it is an unintended consequence of aggressive corporate data collection. Not sure why it makes sense to complain about the EU and not the companies.

> Not sure why it makes sense to complain about the EU and not the companies.

Unfortunately a non-negligible number of people in tech also have libertarian leanings, with a default “gubmint bad!” position, which makes them easy prey for adtech propaganda.

Re: Dear Paul Graham, there is no cookie banner law

#169
post #70

>, Paul Graham came up with the thought, that the EU forces companies to have cookie banners. There is no law for cookie banners. [...] Companies could easily avoid any cookie banner. Just don’t track. KingOfCoders/amazingcto, of course you are technically correct but Paul Graham wasn't talking about the letter of the law. Instead, you have to interpret his complaint with the lens of game theory . I.e. The Law of Uni…

It’s unfortunate, if companies are okay not tracking you, that they care little enough about their user experience to use cookie banners.

Re: Dear Paul Graham, there is no cookie banner law

#170

There is a law, that does not mandate cookie banners, but that still causes them by creating incentives to show the banner. That's the point of criticism.

You are implying that strict anti-emission laws caused uncontrolled emissions by Volkswagen vehicles.

But Volkswagen was very discreet about it, and when uncovered everybody was against them. Website are being obnoxious, instead, and people accuse the law. Go figure!

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