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Spain begins disciplinary proceedings against site for violating Cookie Law

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Re: Spain begins disciplinary proceedings against site for violating Cookie Law

#61

Post by bolder88 »

malandrew wrote: post #45
ealexhudson wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the most stupid and anti-user laws on the books. Worse, it's probably the only law I've ever seen have an instant and devastating effect on the UX of a swathe of websites. Hopefully they are going to start suing people regularly (unlike the inaction being taken in the UK) so that business wakes up to this stupid law and finally gets it repealed, the sooner the better.

The best balance would be to present the user with a page that lists all the things the site would like to track and let the user opt out of anything they don't want tracked. Some people may value a "degraded" experience over being tracked. I put "degraded" in quotes because it's often a degraded experience for the company's profits not the end-user. Please, give us some examples of how this is "devastating" for the…

Endless popups, pop downs, moving content around. The absolute worst is pages that create a 'popup' at the top and move the content down just as you're about to click something. So you end up clicking something else.

And for what!? To scare the user about cookies? We had the scare about cookies in the 90s when they were explained as "bits of code that websites can infect your machine with".

Cookies are ONE method websites can use to track you. If you click "don't use cookies", the website will just use another method to track you. It's absolutely trivial to bypass.

And it's trivial for any user to configure their browser to reject cookies for any website they wish to.

So what has been achieved by this idiotic law?

Absolutely nothing.

It's yet another fantastic demonstration why the EU is such a bad idea.

Re: Spain begins disciplinary proceedings against site for violating Cookie Law

#62

Post by walshemj »

kintamanimatt wrote: post #14
ealexhudson wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the most stupid and anti-user laws on the books. Worse, it's probably the only law I've ever seen have an instant and devastating effect on the UX of a swathe of websites. Hopefully they are going to start suing people regularly (unlike the inaction being taken in the UK) so that business wakes up to this stupid law and finally gets it repealed, the sooner the better.

Can it really be repealed by the Spanish government if they're required to enact such a law as a result of an EU Directive? They could take the UK's approach of turning a blind eye, but I tend to feel it's wrong for a country to pick and choose which laws to enforce.

Well this is the EU and countrys ignore or adjust EU directives to suit all the time - Spains implementation of TUPE is a total FY to the eu has no relation to the Spirit of the Directive.

Italy also does this a lot remember the you tube fiasco where they ignored EU law.

Re: Spain begins disciplinary proceedings against site for violating Cookie Law

#63

Post by velik_m »

bolder88 wrote: post #61
malandrew wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best balance would be to present the user with a page that lists all the things the site would like to track and let the user opt out of anything they don't want tracked. Some people may value a "degraded" experience over being tracked. I put "degraded" in quotes because it's often a degraded experience for the company's profits not the end-user. Please, give us some examples of how this is "devastating" for the…

Endless popups, pop downs, moving content around. The absolute worst is pages that create a 'popup' at the top and move the content down just as you're about to click something. So you end up clicking something else. And for what!? To scare the user about cookies? We had the scare about cookies in the 90s when they were explained as "bits of code that websites can infect your machine with". Cookies are ONE method web…

Cookies are just ONE method, that's why the law is not limited to cookies, but instead refers to all client side saving technologies (of which the cookies are the most common). Your post is yet another fantastic demonstration why criticizing the EU, without knowing what you're talking about, is such a bad idea.

Re: Spain begins disciplinary proceedings against site for violating Cookie Law

#64

Post by bolder88 »

velik_m wrote: post #63
bolder88 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Endless popups, pop downs, moving content around. The absolute worst is pages that create a 'popup' at the top and move the content down just as you're about to click something. So you end up clicking something else. And for what!? To scare the user about cookies? We had the scare about cookies in the 90s when they were explained as "bits of code that websites can infect your machine with". Cookies are ONE method web…

Cookies are just ONE method, that's why the law is not limited to cookies, but instead refers to all client side saving technologies (of which the cookies are the most common). Your post is yet another fantastic demonstration why criticizing the EU, without knowing what you're talking about, is such a bad idea.

I know precisely what I'm talking about.

Still, I guess I should have been clearer - there are several "non client side" saving technologies which are outside the scope of this law, and make the law completely useless.

Further though, I would criticise the EU whatever the content of this law. We do not need a law to enforce rules about a specific technology of HTTP. What the hell business is it of the EU?

The EU is absolutely obsessed with writing up laws to invade into absolutely every area of our lives.

Re: Spain begins disciplinary proceedings against site for violating Cookie Law

#65

Post by lifeisstillgood »

AJ007 wrote: post #51
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #21

I am surprised - isn't this what we want? Instead of secrecy, governments warn everyone they are being tracked online. And we moan about it. It wrecks the UI, it is annoying. Folks - this is the Snowden debate, but without the security services. Yes they should have got into the RFC / IEEE debates (which are fast becoming laws of their own), yes they should be doing it better. Yes they should stop monitoring everyone…

Not even close. These solutions we have seen, both legal and from the browser level, are the equivalent of walking around nude in a busy city with a sign hanging around your neck saying "Please no photos." (I gave a slightly different analogy in another comment.) A browser "do not track" request presents absolutely no true privacy, nor does fining forcing all web sites to implement custom pop ups which block site usa…

> if someone could be bothered to tell them how to do it.

Its been clear and simple how to turn off cookies. But the silver haired old grandmother simply does not read those sort of instructions. That kind of knowledge comes from osmosis, from the surrounding culture.

We want to avoid 150 years of pollution before the digital equivalent of the EPA or the Clean Air Act. We want to get the surrounding culture focused on what is tracked and trackable. Snowden has massively moved this on, but putting a web page in front of everyone is also moving it on.

There are no reasonable regulatory fixes to NSA/GCHQ/Russia/China, that are not supported and demanded by a sizeable majority of people.

Not sure how to get there, but claiming this is a hoax is a little unfair

Re: Spain begins disciplinary proceedings against site for violating Cookie Law

#67

Post by jan_g »

velik_m wrote: post #63
bolder88 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Endless popups, pop downs, moving content around. The absolute worst is pages that create a 'popup' at the top and move the content down just as you're about to click something. So you end up clicking something else. And for what!? To scare the user about cookies? We had the scare about cookies in the 90s when they were explained as "bits of code that websites can infect your machine with". Cookies are ONE method web…

Cookies are just ONE method, that's why the law is not limited to cookies, but instead refers to all client side saving technologies (of which the cookies are the most common). Your post is yet another fantastic demonstration why criticizing the EU, without knowing what you're talking about, is such a bad idea.

I am by no means expert of particular EU laws, but as far as had been explained to me, the laws adopted in member states do not specifically point out cookies. They are more general. To simplify, they state that users should not be tracked without them consenting. The exact technology used is irrelevant.

Re: Spain begins disciplinary proceedings against site for violating Cookie Law

#69

Post by martinml »

mistercow wrote: post #60
gcb0 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"provided" means a condition. so in parsed order: 1. informed. 2. consent. 3. storage.

"Provided that" as a condition does not imply any temporal order (in English at least).

Don't rely too much in my bad translation :)

Re: Spain begins disciplinary proceedings against site for violating Cookie Law

#70

Post by dasil003 »

claudius wrote: post #54
malandrew wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best balance would be to present the user with a page that lists all the things the site would like to track and let the user opt out of anything they don't want tracked. Some people may value a "degraded" experience over being tracked. I put "degraded" in quotes because it's often a degraded experience for the company's profits not the end-user. Please, give us some examples of how this is "devastating" for the…

> The best balance would be to present the user with a page that lists all the things the site would like to track and let the user opt in to any way in which they would like to be tracked . FTFY.

That's not a balance. That makes the cookies effectively unusable since 99% of people stick with defaults, and even more so in this case because they'll see the boilerplate so often that a spinal reflex will kick in before they even see the box with their conscious brain. This will, in turn force all websites to force users to accept the tracking in order to use the service.
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