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EU privacy agency urges more safeguards to curb U.S. tech giants

reuters.com

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Re: EU privacy agency urges more safeguards to curb U.S. tech giants

#11

Post by an_ko »

Jestar342 wrote: post #3
an_ko wrote: post #2

In what I imagine is a brilliant twist of irony (I can't read the article), all I see when I open this page is a consent form to be tracked, with a link buried in text to opt out, which brings me to a page that requires me to fill in all of my personal details in order to opt out. Apparently in order not to track me reading their web page, Reuters requires (among others) my full name, residency, date of birth, street…

I see the usual OneTrust modal, with a giant, very easy to locate "Reject All" button at the bottom of the modal. https://imgur.com/uZmlGlc

I see the same. Maybe I'm getting confused by the wording and layout.

I interpreted the "Reject All"/"Confirm My Choices" buttons at the bottom to belong only to the "Manage Consent Preferences" section. The "Information Our Partners Collect" part above it is a separate section, with a separate "Accept All" button, and an opt-out link in the text, so I figured the final "Reject All" might only reject the second section. Because why else would they have separate sections with separate buttons?

Either way, none of this inspires confidence that they have my interests in mind.

Re: EU privacy agency urges more safeguards to curb U.S. tech giants

#12

Post by petre »

jorge-d wrote: post #8
petre wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would the EU enforce such a ban? They actually need to prove company X was tracking its users if it goes to court.

By setting very high fines for those who don't comply?

Already done. It's up to 10% of turnover, not profits. Which the companies would happily go to court over. But how to actually prove in court that company X is tracking users if a leak doesn't occur? Subopenas? They need a court order for that. They need reasonable suspicion to get a court order.

Re: EU privacy agency urges more safeguards to curb U.S. tech giants

#14

Post by weinzierl »

Semaphor wrote: post #4
an_ko wrote: post #2

In what I imagine is a brilliant twist of irony (I can't read the article), all I see when I open this page is a consent form to be tracked, with a link buried in text to opt out, which brings me to a page that requires me to fill in all of my personal details in order to opt out. Apparently in order not to track me reading their web page, Reuters requires (among others) my full name, residency, date of birth, street…

For me (EU) the consent popup has "reject all" at the very bottom (though I only see it with blocking disabled). Pretty lame, but still better than most.

"For me (EU) [..]"

You are probably not the right person to ask then, but I always wondered: How prevalent are these consent popups outside of the EU?

Re: EU privacy agency urges more safeguards to curb U.S. tech giants

#16

Post by speedgoose »

petre wrote: post #12
jorge-d wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By setting very high fines for those who don't comply?

Already done. It's up to 10% of turnover, not profits. Which the companies would happily go to court over. But how to actually prove in court that company X is tracking users if a leak doesn't occur? Subopenas? They need a court order for that. They need reasonable suspicion to get a court order.

Right now it's very easy to see, the companies are not hiding it at all. They send the data to third-party trackers straight from their website or application.

Re: EU privacy agency urges more safeguards to curb U.S. tech giants

#17

Post by speedgoose »

apples_oranges wrote: post #15

People. Just. Delete. Your. Cookies. Regularly. I am baffled about the crazy amount of debate and technical solutions to a problem that was solved the moment Cookies were invented. In the 1990s I suppose.

People use Google chrome.

Re: EU privacy agency urges more safeguards to curb U.S. tech giants

#18

Post by kzrdude »

apples_oranges wrote: post #15

People. Just. Delete. Your. Cookies. Regularly. I am baffled about the crazy amount of debate and technical solutions to a problem that was solved the moment Cookies were invented. In the 1990s I suppose.

(Seriously) I don't want to be logged out.

Re: EU privacy agency urges more safeguards to curb U.S. tech giants

#20

Post by jka »

yulaow wrote: post #5

At this point honestly I just wish for a general ban on tracking ads of any kind. Just give me good old contextual ads and remove some MBs of js, with the only purpose of tracking me, from most websites of the internet.

Ads could be placed into a search engine, and user agents could choose to request relevant ads based on the page they are viewing (the context) and/or the current user's profile (if the user opts-in to their profile being included).

Advertisers would compete within that search engine to have the most relevant and accurate product and service offerings to match demand, and would pay the search engine provider for the hosting.

The search engine provider could attribute and send credit back to the websites from which advertising requests from the user agent originated. This could be attributed based on requests, clicks, purchases, etc.

Under this model, publisher websites would not need to design and manage their pages specifically to incorporate advertising slots, and users would not have to see any advertising at all unless they are genuinely interested in further commercial information related to the page they're on.

As a side-effect this could reduce the usage of advertising in various grey areas (spam, disinformation, and even the rare-but-feasible harassment of individuals by using targeted advertising).

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