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Who wants to be tracked?

quantable.com

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Re: Who wants to be tracked?

#161

Post by manicennui »

jobs_throwaway wrote: post #144
manicennui wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all bullshit. We literally did this sort of thing for years on the Internet before all of this tracking was common. Every company claims that they are doing this stuff to make things better for users, and it never is.

> We literally did this sort of thing for years on the Internet before all of this tracking was common. You mean back when your average website was hot garbage? The yearning for the days of static HTML pages is childish atavism

Who said anything about static HTML pages? Keep beating that strawman though.

Re: Who wants to be tracked?

#162

Post by sebastian_z »

As a successor of Do Not Track, there is Global Privacy Control (GPC) [1]. Sites must respect it by law in California. An increasing number of other states ---Colorado, Connecticut, Montana, and hopefully more soon --- also have provisions in their new privacy laws for privacy preference signals like GPC. You can check if a site respects GPC [2]. For example, lego.com and nfl.com are two bigger ones I recently came across.

Disclosure: I am a privacy researcher and co-founder of GPC.

[1] https://globalprivacycontrol.org/ [2] https://gpcsup.com/

Re: Who wants to be tracked?

#163

Post by layer8 »

Zealotux wrote: post #94

I don't understand why we still don't have a standard for a built-in tracking preferences system in browsers. We have that for the microphone, webcam, and location access... why do we let websites control tracking preferences with their own design they can make as obscure and manipulative as they wish?

Because there are legitimate uses for cookies etc. that do not require consent, like for example for shopping carts. But you can’t distinguish them from consent-requiring tracking in an automated fashion. In addition, there are finger-printing techniques that are virtually impossible to prevent, so websites would just start to rely more on those. It’s a bit like asking “why don’t we just block spam mails?”

Re: Who wants to be tracked?

#164

Post by jefftk »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #12

Better question here is, why is this not handled through the browser instead of relying on individual web apps to do it. Block third party cookies by default, delete other cookies on the last tab or window closed and prompt user to save cookies on a form submit ("do not delete cookies for this domain when leaving" type of prompt, for pages with logins, settings, etc). Also remove features that make easy fingerprintin…

1. Your proposal is not enough for EU privacy law, so you'd still see banners. First-party tracking is still tracking and you still need a banner if you're going to store any data on the client that is not "strictly necessary" for the user's request.

2. Your proposal gives a pretty crummy experience in cases where users do expect the site to store data on the client longer. For logins you're popping up a confusing banner, and for client-side only storage (shopping carts, preferences, work in progress) you're silently discarding people's work.

Re: Who wants to be tracked?

#165

Post by api_or_ipa »

Someone should do a talk a la "Birth and Death of Javascript"[0] on the topic of cookies. What started nearly 30 years ago as a crude means of storing state over a stateless protocol spawned an entire industrial ecosystem around systematically tracking and spying on internet users. Take a step back and it's an insane journey.

0 https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death...

Re: Who wants to be tracked?

#166

Post by layer8 »

arendtio wrote: post #125
tpxl wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mustn't reject service based on refusal of non-legitimate-reason data processing consent. Allowing paying to not have ads is orthogonal to the service being provided - in both cases the user gets the news, it's just flanked by ads in one case.

Well, I don't have a problem with the paid version. What I have have a problem with, is the refusal of service if I don't consent to being tracked. So if there would be three versions, like 'personalized ads with tracking', 'tracking-free/unpersonalized ads' and 'paid ad-free', that would be fine with me. What I don't understand, is that it is okay to refuse the service if you don't consent for the ad-supported track…

I believe it’s for the same reason that a pay-only service is legal.

Re: Who wants to be tracked?

#167

Post by manicennui »

jobs_throwaway wrote: post #144
manicennui wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all bullshit. We literally did this sort of thing for years on the Internet before all of this tracking was common. Every company claims that they are doing this stuff to make things better for users, and it never is.

> We literally did this sort of thing for years on the Internet before all of this tracking was common. You mean back when your average website was hot garbage? The yearning for the days of static HTML pages is childish atavism

You are literally using a website that was created by someone who started an online storefront app in 1995. Amazon started around the same time. Google a few years later.

Re: Who wants to be tracked?

#168

Post by AlexandrB »

jobs_throwaway wrote: post #144
manicennui wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all bullshit. We literally did this sort of thing for years on the Internet before all of this tracking was common. Every company claims that they are doing this stuff to make things better for users, and it never is.

> We literally did this sort of thing for years on the Internet before all of this tracking was common. You mean back when your average website was hot garbage? The yearning for the days of static HTML pages is childish atavism

The average site today is hot garbage. But now it requires several orders of magnitude more bandwidth and processing power to render. Not sure this is progress.

Re: Who wants to be tracked?

#169

Post by eimrine »

justsomehnguy wrote: post #126
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #12

Better question here is, why is this not handled through the browser instead of relying on individual web apps to do it. Block third party cookies by default, delete other cookies on the last tab or window closed and prompt user to save cookies on a form submit ("do not delete cookies for this domain when leaving" type of prompt, for pages with logins, settings, etc). Also remove features that make easy fingerprintin…

> why is this not handled through the browser Did you forgot what happened the last time 'the browser was handling it'? I would remind you: Internet Explorer, Do Not Track.

If the law has some stack overflows, can we really blame M$ for exploiting them? Dogs are never being controlled by their tales.

Re: Who wants to be tracked?

#170

Post by lloeki »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #27
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #12

Better question here is, why is this not handled through the browser instead of relying on individual web apps to do it. Block third party cookies by default, delete other cookies on the last tab or window closed and prompt user to save cookies on a form submit ("do not delete cookies for this domain when leaving" type of prompt, for pages with logins, settings, etc). Also remove features that make easy fingerprintin…

The last thing a browser wants to do is break experience for older sites. If a site relies on 3rd party cookies for log in, it will no longer work on your browser. It makes your browser look shit. Same reason we allow unclosed tags, crossed tags, etc.

Safari and Firefox block 3rd party cookies by default.
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