Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop
troyhunt.com
Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop
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Re: Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop
#2To add insult to injury the big players with most trackers just refuse to show the cookie warnings at all. At least that's the situation Germany where most major news outlets are full of ads and trackers and handle all of it via opt-out(!) in the privacy policy. For a example see spiegel.de, the most widely read German-language news website.
It's mostly small and medium sized firms that show the cookie warning out of fear. That's completely the opposite of what I want as a consumer as well as a small-time webmaster.
EDIT: Just to be clear: spiegel.de never shows a cookie warning even if visit with a fresh browser. You can opt out by visiting their privacy page [1] (in English).
[1] http://m.spiegel.de/extra/what-we-do-with-your-data-a-121194...
Re: Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop
#3To add insult to injury the big players with most trackers just refuse to show the cookie warnings at all. At least that's the situation Germany where most major news outlets are full of ads and trackers and handle all of it via opt-out(!) in the privacy policy. For a example see spiegel.de, the most widely read German-language news website. It's mostly small and medium sized firms that show the cookie warning out of…
That's a lot of tracking, uBlock blocks 13 domains before even loading google tag manager.
Re: Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop
#4To add insult to injury the big players with most trackers just refuse to show the cookie warnings at all. At least that's the situation Germany where most major news outlets are full of ads and trackers and handle all of it via opt-out(!) in the privacy policy. For a example see spiegel.de, the most widely read German-language news website. It's mostly small and medium sized firms that show the cookie warning out of…
Popped in a complaint to your local data protection body?
Re: Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop
#5This is like a case study of well-intentioned, carefully designed regulation doing more harm than good. Honestly, I'd rather just have a browser addin that blocks the cookies I don't want. The market was working fine. Now every new website is a pain, and my organization has hired some amiable lady to be "GDPR expert". She doesn't appear to know anything about anything, but she sure seems nice.
Re: Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop
#6I find the clarification about cookie walls being out of compliance with GDPR to be a real headscratcher. Here's part of the Dutch authority's FAQs[0] thanks to Google Translate:
"At a cookie wall, website visitors have no real or free choice. It is true that they can refuse tracking cookies, but that is not possible without adverse consequences. Because refusing tracking cookies means that they cannot access the website. That is why cookie walls are prohibited under the AVG."
I find this fascinating. Is there really not a free choice to simply leave the website? A paywall is surely legal. But it is illegal for me to "pay" using something other than money.
Am I allowed to offer users additional functionality in exchange for access to their data?
[0] https://autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl/nl/onderwerpen/interne...
Re: Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop
#7Congratulations, there's now a pop-up added to every single website on the internet that isn't blocked by adblockers. It makes zero difference to me whether the pop-up is telling me about cookies or advertising "huge anime tiddy" it's still an obstruction and a delay.
Re: Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop
#8I find the clarification about cookie walls being out of compliance with GDPR to be a real headscratcher. Here's part of the Dutch authority's FAQs[0] thanks to Google Translate: "At a cookie wall, website visitors have no real or free choice. It is true that they can refuse tracking cookies, but that is not possible without adverse consequences. Because refusing tracking cookies means that they cannot access the web…
That's how the GDPR is designed. I'm not a lawyer or a GDPR expert, but I believe this means that unless your service actually requires a particular type of data collection to function, you're not allowed to make access to that service contingent on that data collection.
http://www.privacy-regulation.eu/en/r43.htm
> Consent is presumed not to be freely given if it does not allow separate consent to be given to different personal data processing operations despite it being appropriate in the individual case, or if the performance of a contract, including the provision of a service, is dependent on the consent despite such consent not being necessary for such performance.
In other words, people aren't allowed to sell their data in exchange for services. I suppose the argument is that people are really bad at valuing their own data. They don't know how it can be combined with other datasets and how it might be resold and repackaged and never go away. There are other things people can't legally sell, such as organs, votes and sex, so it's not an entirely brand new idea.
Re: Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop
#9This is like a case study of well-intentioned, carefully designed regulation doing more harm than good. Honestly, I'd rather just have a browser addin that blocks the cookies I don't want. The market was working fine. Now every new website is a pain, and my organization has hired some amiable lady to be "GDPR expert". She doesn't appear to know anything about anything, but she sure seems nice.
I wouldn't call GDPR "carefully designed" at all. It is ridiculously broad and vague, and so far all implementations (including the cookie warnings all over the internet) are best guesses.
Re: Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop
#10To add insult to injury the big players with most trackers just refuse to show the cookie warnings at all. At least that's the situation Germany where most major news outlets are full of ads and trackers and handle all of it via opt-out(!) in the privacy policy. For a example see spiegel.de, the most widely read German-language news website. It's mostly small and medium sized firms that show the cookie warning out of…
Anyone who didn't see this as the predictable end-result of requiring cookie awareness and consent was hopelessly naive about how large vs. small organizations respond to unfunded government mandates.
The money and time could have been a lot better spent on international awareness campaigns arming consumers with more privacy knowledge instead of expecting website owners to shoulder the informational burden (because those orgs in aggregate have no core incentive to treat user's privacy as an inherent good).