Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Kill The Cookie Banner

killthecookiebanner.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 621 posts

Re: Kill The Cookie Banner

#131

Post by victorbjorklund »

otterley wrote: post #76
chrismorgan wrote: post #60

The other approach to killing the cookie banner is simply to declare that such a thing cannot constitute “informed consent”. (Perhaps: “ticking a checkbox and/or clicking a button cannot constitute informed consent”; and see what they try next.) From a factual perspective, I honestly think that shouldn’t be controversial: it’s well-understood that very few people actually read those things, they just want to get them…

> From a factual perspective, I honestly think that shouldn’t be controversial: it’s well-understood that very few people actually read those things, they just want to get them out of the way There’s no way this would fly. “I didn’t read it” can’t possibly be an excuse to avoid being bound by an agreement. Every party to an agreement that flaunted its terms, even though they took advantage of the benefits granted by…

It can and has been in many cases in many legal systems. For example, let’s say you walk into my store to buy a dish washer. I say ”here is an extended warranty that I will give you. Just sign” you sign it instead of reading 15 pages of boilerplate. In the end of the document it says you now owe me 10 billion dollars. Doubt I will be able to enforce it in most legal systems.

Re: Kill The Cookie Banner

#133

Post by JoshTriplett »

Retr0id wrote: post #123

I think this would be a net benefit, but I can see an issue. A lot of news sites today do "accept tracking, or pay us, or you can't access the page". The orgs doing this are reputable-ish so I assume it's considered legal, on some level at least. So now they'd have a new popup that says "reconfigure your browser to accept tracking, or pay us, or you can't access the page". Which isn't really an improvement.

"accept tracking or pay" has already been ruled against, it just hasn't been universally enforced yet because enforcement takes time.

Re: Kill The Cookie Banner

#134

Post by tgma »

I am old enough to remember Do Not Track and its failure and problems associated with it. What's new here? Why wasn't it adopted in the first place for GDPR?

Re: Kill The Cookie Banner

#135

Post by otterley »

victorbjorklund wrote: post #131
otterley wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From a factual perspective, I honestly think that shouldn’t be controversial: it’s well-understood that very few people actually read those things, they just want to get them out of the way There’s no way this would fly. “I didn’t read it” can’t possibly be an excuse to avoid being bound by an agreement. Every party to an agreement that flaunted its terms, even though they took advantage of the benefits granted by…

It can and has been in many cases in many legal systems. For example, let’s say you walk into my store to buy a dish washer. I say ”here is an extended warranty that I will give you. Just sign” you sign it instead of reading 15 pages of boilerplate. In the end of the document it says you now owe me 10 billion dollars. Doubt I will be able to enforce it in most legal systems.

That’s not an “I didn’t read it” defense. That’s a “term is this contract is unconscionable” defense. They’re not the same thing. I was speaking strictly of the former.

Also, striking an unconscionable term typically does not void the whole contract. Just the term in question.

Re: Kill The Cookie Banner

#136

Post by otterley »

deaton wrote: post #128
otterley wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From a factual perspective, I honestly think that shouldn’t be controversial: it’s well-understood that very few people actually read those things, they just want to get them out of the way There’s no way this would fly. “I didn’t read it” can’t possibly be an excuse to avoid being bound by an agreement. Every party to an agreement that flaunted its terms, even though they took advantage of the benefits granted by…

But "its specifically engineered to ensure that nobody reads it" is a real argument

Where has this ever been adjudicated?

Re: Kill The Cookie Banner

#138

Post by JoshTriplett »

reorder9695 wrote: post #48
alt227 wrote: post #34

I still don't get why every website has a cookie banner by default. I am data controller for several companies and have lots of exposure to GDPR. All my websites have no cookie banner, as they are not required. I guess that most companies just chuck it up there as a default so they dont have to read the law, or maybe they are all actually harvesting and selling personal data and therefore require cookies? Who knows.

Don't underestimate the argument of "just to be on the safe side". Someone running a business who doesn't know a lot about cookies will often just put a banner on as an easy arse covering mechanism even when not required.

Perhaps someone could publish a clear A/B test on how many views/conversions you lose by having a cookie banner?

Re: Kill The Cookie Banner

#139

Post by JoshTriplett »

maccard wrote: post #38
alt227 wrote: post #34

I still don't get why every website has a cookie banner by default. I am data controller for several companies and have lots of exposure to GDPR. All my websites have no cookie banner, as they are not required. I guess that most companies just chuck it up there as a default so they dont have to read the law, or maybe they are all actually harvesting and selling personal data and therefore require cookies? Who knows.

I’ve made a few sites for work that aren’t our primary focus. The sites used cookies for login and for “required purposes” (storing in progress state). We did all the tracking on the backend, no cookies or client side trackers. On our go-live form there’s a question “do you use cookies” and it’s yes/no. If you say yes legal block the site from going live without the pre approved cookie banner…

Sounds like your legal department is broken. You should fix that.

I mean that both in the sense of "you, plural" (your company should fix that) and "you, personally" (because diffusion of responsibility is a real issue, and someone needs to actually do it).

Re: Kill The Cookie Banner

#140

Post by doodlebugging »

No need to kill the cookie banner. Just change the system so that everyone in every organization who supports cookies and other forms of user tracking and engagement will have every detail of their own existence and their family's existence broadcast in real time globally 24/7/365. Anyone who tries to opt out is jailed under 24 hour surveillance for a minimum of one year.

EDIT: It's obvious that people really hate this option. Maybe too many here have their incomes too closely tied to the metrics that cookies are designed to collect. It could also be that it is an unrealistic option for everything except the most extreme societal changes.

If you are old enough and look back far enough you may remember the time before all this bullshit like I do. Once marketing and advertising get involved and gain power in an organization, things tend to go to shit fast.

Post reply on HN