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Kill The Cookie Banner

killthecookiebanner.eu

241–250 of 621 posts

Re: Kill The Cookie Banner

#241

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…

I don’t see how we could possibly prove that the person who clicked “I agree” is still the person using the computer. Or that any actual human is aware that an agreement was made (since an AI can find a checkbox nowadays or software can be configured to bypass it). One way to add balance could be to require people asking for contracts to actually treat them like real serious legal documents, show up for the signing,…

That doesn’t matter. If you authorize an agent—human or mechanical—to enter into agreements on your behalf (even by mistake), and the agent presents itself as operating on your behalf, the agent’s decisions will be treated as though they were your own.

Prinicipal-agent law predates computers by a very long time.

Re: Kill The Cookie Banner

#242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it’s well-understood that very few people actually read those things, they just want to get them out of the way. This is a jaw-drop moment for me every single time I observe someone else using the web and quickly clicking "accept" on every single cookie banners that pops up, without ever wasting a second even reading what they're accepting. It's mind boggling to me. Sure, I'm in IT, so surely I'm more aware of data…

> But in many cases, you could just click "reject" and the banner would also disappear... Oftentimes the reject flow is substantially more annoying than the accept flow. I click reject myself when it's an option, but I can absolutely understand how people might get conditioned to click accept when clicking reject might result in more popups.

A lot of UK sites (Reach local news stuff) now explicitly say take cookies or pay, which tbh I always thought was illegal.

Re: Kill The Cookie Banner

#243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would personally be shocked if the EU voids click-wrap agreements for unconscionableness based on the process alone. I’m not super familiar with EU law; is that what it truly says? I rather doubt it because I do business in the EU and have been asked to agree to terms as a condition of making purchases online there.

Online retailers in the nordics occasionally try to post terms and conditions that contradict consumer protection laws, for instance retailers being on the hook for warrantying product(ion) defects for 5 years after purchases of products that ought to be durable, like electronics. The retailers win out on a substantial amount of the population not contesting it, but if you as a consumer go through the process the fin…

Right. But those are substantively unconscionable terms, not about the agreement process itself.

Re: Kill The Cookie Banner

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it’s well-understood that very few people actually read those things, they just want to get them out of the way. This is a jaw-drop moment for me every single time I observe someone else using the web and quickly clicking "accept" on every single cookie banners that pops up, without ever wasting a second even reading what they're accepting. It's mind boggling to me. Sure, I'm in IT, so surely I'm more aware of data…

Agreeing to terms and contracts without reading or at least skimming them is not responsible adult behavior and should not be used as a model for legislation, no matter how many people do it. I agree that we do have a culture where private law is not taken very seriously, and that's very unfortunate. People do not have a right (morally speaking, not legally) to access or use a service (or a website) etc without havin…

Try to get anything done then, there's so many places these days where you have to approve 300 page legal documents to e.g. record day care times, pick up packages and so forth. There is literally not enough time in the day. The option for me would be to not put my kid in daycare (I lose the spot if I don't put in the daycare times, and the only way to do that is a 3rd party service) and not pick up packages (have to agree to the EULA to get the app that I need to unlock the pickup locker) and dozens of other places.

We really need to stop companies from putting up these insanely complicated legal texts to use basic services when they could all be behind standard contracts.

Re: Kill The Cookie Banner

#245

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…

> it’s well-understood that very few people actually read those things, they just want to get them out of the way. This is a jaw-drop moment for me every single time I observe someone else using the web and quickly clicking "accept" on every single cookie banners that pops up, without ever wasting a second even reading what they're accepting. It's mind boggling to me. Sure, I'm in IT, so surely I'm more aware of data…

Because 90% don't even do anything? It turns out it's actually one of those really annoying problems to delay cookies which were supposed to be sent already in the HTTP request response until a user interaction has happened. And on a lot of pages, non technical people embed random 3rd party resources. And these 3rd party resources might claim to use only "technically necessary" cookies, but of course that's nonsense; I'm not visiting the 3rd party.

Re: Kill The Cookie Banner

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a general rule I believe many online terms of use, eulas and similar online contracts are examples of procedural unconscionability, in that length is often too long that one can be expected to read it in the day to day action of "surfing the web", I believe this is also the opinion of the EU and many of its member states, hence the limitations found on enforcement of such contracts. Aside from that many of these c…

I would personally be shocked if the EU voids click-wrap agreements for unconscionableness based on the process alone. I’m not super familiar with EU law; is that what it truly says? I rather doubt it because I do business in the EU and have been asked to agree to terms as a condition of making purchases online there.

The council directive on unfair terms in consumer contracts puts every pre-canned contract in scope, and unfair provisions on a contract are rule non-binding (if the contract can keep existing after the unfair bits are taken out).

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...

Re: Kill The Cookie Banner

#248
post #22

> Tired of misleading cookie banners? The EU Commission has finally proposed a solution: set your privacy preferences in the browser once, and never see another banner. So lawmakers do know how to make legally binding preferences based on device settings? What a crazy innovation.. now if only parents were given these options to indicate their child is using a device.. we could do away with all this Online Safety Act…

That's exactly what the California's Digital Age Assurance Act does but that wasn't well-received either.

Re: Kill The Cookie Banner

#249
post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps I am overly optimistic in thinking this is just incompetence.

Yes, you are. The legislative process around EPD/EPR fully anticipated the malicious compliance and it became a back-and-forth political football long before anything was passed. The legislators were never dumb and the corporations were always greedy+powerful.

I had one of the providers recommending us that we leave the "Decline All" button out of Europe, since it's not widely prosecuted, buy recommended that we add it to California, since chances are slimmer.

Naturally in a camera meeting with a "don't tell anyone we said that" appended right before.

The marketing people in the meeting were very angry that California was "doing it to them".

Re: Kill The Cookie Banner

#250

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…

Good grief no. Using websites in the UK and the EU is an exercise in pain. Every single one of them has the doorway effect where you follow a link to them and you’re faced with some Subway sandwich grade range of choices to be made and you’ve forgotten why you were there in the first place.

As it stands I just hit Accept on literally everything and that’s fine for me.

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