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Please stop putting cookie pop-ups on your website (2022)

olivergrimsley.com

111–120 of 211 posts

Re: Please stop putting cookie pop-ups on your website (2022)

#111
Hey, just some background from someone who took part in a couple of privacy compliance projects at large platforms in the past:

For companies doing this the right way, the banner was just the tip of the iceberg, loads of work went into ensuring compliance behind the scenes, so customer and employee data was not shared with 3rd parties unknowingly. In one case the list of 3rd parties went from +400 to about 70, this is in my opinion a win for privacy, the culture around sharing your data went from casual to cautious.

Secondly, the culture around trusting meta and google blindly with behaviour data changed drastically. Businesses became aware of how much valuable data they share with these platforms, which actually puts them at great risk, should you really give these platforms detailed data on what customers browse and buy on your site, so they can use the data to sell targeting for competitors, or direct users towards their own shopping platforms?

So, yes the law is not perfect, we all hate the banners, but at least what happened in those early implementation days when the banner became law, was a change in culture around how data was shared and a better understanding of the risk for the business of using 3rd parties.

Re: Please stop putting cookie pop-ups on your website (2022)

#112
post #98

Maybe stop doing stupid shit that will legally require you to inform users that you're about to sell/share everything you know about them to 3rd parties? I fail to understand companies that display page after page of cookies and tracking stuff for you to approve don't see the issue with their actions or the insanity of "allow us to share data with our 1500 partners". Does no one in these business look at this and go:…

What I always find funny about this, is that the popup is presented with "We value your privacy", followed by "allow us to share data with >500 partners". I wished that such statements had some value greater than nil.

but they DO put a measurable value on your privacy

Re: Please stop putting cookie pop-ups on your website (2022)

#113
post #18
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lawmakers regulated that a website should warn you, and then upgraded to ask for your consent, before collecting and storing privately identifiable information about you. The regulation doesn't mention cookie popups. The easiest way to comply is to not collect nor store any such information.

How do you manage login sessions without? If you're a site that has even basic analytics reporting requirements, how do you do any of that without? "Don't do these things" is a decent option for sole traders, microbusiness and hobby website operators, but good luck selling that to anyone "in a suit" (more likely $500 jeans or chinos nowadays).

I'm puzzled how one can remain so ignorant.

Once again, there is no law requiring cookie popups. Gathering data fairly and transparently (e.g. login credentials) is perfectly fine. However if you wish to pass my data to third parties to track me (advertisers take a bow) then you need my explicit opt-in permission to do so. And so you should.

This isn't difficult to understand and has been law in the UK and EU for quite some time now.

Explanation is here: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-re...

Re: Please stop putting cookie pop-ups on your website (2022)

#114
post #7

The cookie policy is a stupid value-signalling stunt with only negative real-life effects. The correct way of handling the problem would have been through request headers and browser settings, or simply, use the existing option of either allowing or disallowing cookies, and put this option on a per-site basis and a bit more into the users face..

? You now have a one click button to refuse most of tracking on compliant website and this include Google.

Fail to see how it’s value-signalling ...

Re: Please stop putting cookie pop-ups on your website (2022)

#116
post #6

The larger lesson here is this is what happens when governments try to regulate things they don't understand. Cookie popups just add friction, and it's not clear consumers see any real privacy benefit. What's even worse is people seem to not care that the policy isn't working, but they aren't telling lawmakers to fix it.

Could you perhaps muster up the courage to clearly substantiate what you're criticizing? These terms "government", "regulation", "lawmakers" come off as dogwhistles. It's not like evil Ursula von der Leyen walked up to the blue lectern and said websites now must present a dialog with one button before you can look at the content.

If you're talking about GDPR, then it regulates that businesses have to have reason to store and process PII. I don't see a reason to be unhappy about that.

Re: Please stop putting cookie pop-ups on your website (2022)

#118
post #19

Cookie banners are a great reason for expirations dates on new policies. If it works: Great, renew it! If it does not work, is not required anymore or was just plain stupid: Never talk about it again and it will run out. But who will actively admit that regulation failed and work to undo it?

Most of laws, at leas where I live, are amended. 'Never talk about it again' seems bit naive to me. If good faith have not helped with trackers then ban them outright.

Re: Please stop putting cookie pop-ups on your website (2022)

#119
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I always find funny about this, is that the popup is presented with "We value your privacy", followed by "allow us to share data with >500 partners". I wished that such statements had some value greater than nil.

but they DO put a measurable value on your privacy

Put another way, they monetize the erosion of your privacy.

Re: Please stop putting cookie pop-ups on your website (2022)

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Targeting advertising is sooo much more effective for small and medium sized businesses I'm starting to question that, but without any proof that just me rambling. Assuming that it works, I'd actually be fine with a site saying "Hey, just letting you know, we use Google Analytics to learn more about you, is that cool?". The 1500 partners and 50+ trackers aren't numbers I'm making up, those are numbers I frequently…

Anecdotally for the three ecom businesses I’ve run/worked at it’s been our only method of profitable marketing. As usual it’s the extreme ends of the spectrum that ruin for everyone.

I haven't been in that line of business for 10+ years, so my understand and reference is also a bit out of date.

Retargeting did very little. Ads helps in some cases, but rarely generic ads, it had to be extremely targeted, which was normally done by manually buying ad space with certain TV programs or in specific locations. The big ones for us was price comparison sites, if we could get on HotUKDeals we'd have a great week, but in particular Google Shopping did made a big difference.

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