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Sigh, this is what browsing the web in the EU looks like nowadays (2021)

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Re: Sigh, this is what browsing the web in the EU looks like nowadays (2021)

#161

Post by PrimeMcFly »

tester756 wrote: post #7
deadeye wrote: post #2

What could you possibly mean? Government made it so much better. How else would you know that the cookies (you're going to consent to anyway) are being put on your computer?

Yea, let's blame EU for websites spying on you If website uses cookies just for legit purposes (e.g auth, language choice), then it doesn't need to show cookie consent. Webmasters should get awarness on this or stop spying

> Yea, let's blame EU for websites spying on you

No, but let's blame them for coming up with an asinine 'solution' to that problem.

Re: Sigh, this is what browsing the web in the EU looks like nowadays (2021)

#162

Post by turquoisevar »

slotrans wrote: post #155
Kovah wrote: post #21

Instead of hating the EU, how about directing your hate towards the bad players of the web? Cookie banners are not the fault of the EU, but the fault of companies disrespecting privacy rights and pushing data collection, ads and all possible shady growth hacking strategies towards the user. I am glad that a government body actually made this possible and made visible how horrible the internet is.

Cookie banners are absolutely the fault of the EU. Users have always been in control of whether they accept cookies. There have been settings in your browser since (at least) Netscape 3.0. It's only because of dumb EU laws that cookie control has been pushed up into "user space" with these idiotic banners that no one reads.

Really?

Did Netscape 3.0 have per-site options to enable cookies and specifically allow/block third party cookies?

If so, that’s impressive.

Re: Sigh, this is what browsing the web in the EU looks like nowadays (2021)

#163

Post by mcphage »

foobarian wrote: post #103
Kovah wrote: post #21

Instead of hating the EU, how about directing your hate towards the bad players of the web? Cookie banners are not the fault of the EU, but the fault of companies disrespecting privacy rights and pushing data collection, ads and all possible shady growth hacking strategies towards the user. I am glad that a government body actually made this possible and made visible how horrible the internet is.

> how about directing your hate towards the bad players of the web? That's like hating a rock for rolling downhill. Regulation is the only way.

Rocks aren't made up of people; companies are.

Re: Sigh, this is what browsing the web in the EU looks like nowadays (2021)

#164

Post by lkbm »

turquoisevar wrote: post #162
slotrans wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cookie banners are absolutely the fault of the EU. Users have always been in control of whether they accept cookies. There have been settings in your browser since (at least) Netscape 3.0. It's only because of dumb EU laws that cookie control has been pushed up into "user space" with these idiotic banners that no one reads.

Really? Did Netscape 3.0 have per-site options to enable cookies and specifically allow/block third party cookies? If so, that’s impressive.

IIRC, no, it wasn't per-site, but disallowing third-party cookies overall was a setting in 3.x.

The more relevant aspect, I think, is that there's an essential/non-essential distinction in the law, which differs from 1st-party/3rd-party.

Re: Sigh, this is what browsing the web in the EU looks like nowadays (2021)

#165

Post by PrimeMcFly »

jacquesm wrote: post #31

That's what the companies make browsing the web in the EU look like nowadays. It's their decision to abuse us - and the law - and it is on them to fix it. If you check the enforcement tracker you can get an idea of what the tip of the iceberg looks like, the data that's lost/sold/leaked. Then take into account that just like with a real iceberg the bulk of the leaks and breaches goes unreported (and probably a large…

> That's what the companies make browsing the web in the EU look like nowadays. It's their decision to abuse us - and the law - and it is on them to fix it.

No, it's the EU that mandated those popups - an asinine solution to the tracking problem. The EU gets the blame.

Re: Sigh, this is what browsing the web in the EU looks like nowadays (2021)

#166

Post by PrimeMcFly »

senttoschool wrote: post #34

I don’t live in the EU and I have the same experience. This is my beef with the EU exporting their legislations.

They can't really export it, it's just most big companies have a presence in the EU and don't want to risk it. Plenty of other websites just blacklisted EU IP address space.

Re: Sigh, this is what browsing the web in the EU looks like nowadays (2021)

#167

Post by rsynnott »

Remember the horse meat scandal, when horse meat showed up unexpectedly in food in Europe? The ceo of one British supermarket chain blamed the Irish food safety authority, who’d detected the contamination due to routine DNA testing (the British FSA had at the time recently ended such testing due to Tories, iirc). His logic was more or less that the FSAI, by detecting the problem, had created the problem; if no-one had known there would be no problem. Pretty much everyone at the time thought this was a bizarre take.

I find it interesting that, in the cookie case, people blame the EU for making the problem visible, rather than blaming the people who created the problem. The cookies are the horseburger, in this instance.

Re: Sigh, this is what browsing the web in the EU looks like nowadays (2021)

#168

Post by chankstein38 »

rsynnott wrote: post #167

Remember the horse meat scandal, when horse meat showed up unexpectedly in food in Europe? The ceo of one British supermarket chain blamed the Irish food safety authority, who’d detected the contamination due to routine DNA testing (the British FSA had at the time recently ended such testing due to Tories, iirc). His logic was more or less that the FSAI, by detecting the problem, had created the problem; if no-one ha…

It just ended up feeling like a half measure that did nothing but make the internet more tedious for something most people who know anything about the web already knew was a problem. Now it just adds this group of people who have no idea what the popup means who likely just click on the "Accept All" without having any idea what it means.

If they really wanted to do something successful they should've been more strict on the situation. "Accept or Decline front and center" "No tracking cookies without specific UNFORCED opt in" "No annoying popups"

Like I don't know what they added to my experience. I already knew cookies existed and what they were used for. I guess now I can at least opt out in some cases. But who knows what is classified as a "strictly necessary cookie" which is the lowest amount of cookie tracking you can get on most of those sites.

Re: Sigh, this is what browsing the web in the EU looks like nowadays (2021)

#169

Post by euroderf »

itronitron wrote: post #123
probably_wrong wrote: post #41

Disclaimer: I actually click through the "do not consent" procedure, which tells a lot about what I'm about to say. When the EU regulation came up, I was shocked that a single article was being shared with 100+ "partners". I knew it was bad, but I didn't know it was that bad. At least now I get the choice to opt-out. Sidenote: Google got fined for that pop-up because it should have a "do not accept" option [1]. Compa…

Exactly, I always click the 'do not accept/consent' or 'manage my preferences' button. There are a surprising number of sites that use dark patterns. Whoever made the initial video must be a shill for the tracking companies because they didn't click on the 'do not accept' options, otherwise people would see how pervasive and thoroughly ridiculous the trackers are.

And when you get one that has a whole series of sliders in the left position and and all lit up green or blue, and no "Reject All" button at the top or bottom, close the tab.

Re: Sigh, this is what browsing the web in the EU looks like nowadays (2021)

#170

Post by mrweasel »

fleventynine wrote: post #30

To align incentives, maybe it's time we start paying for the web content we consume with money.

That's a pretty good point. If you want to be critical of the cookie/GDPR popup that's really the route to take. HN, Wikipedia and Github doesn't have any of this non-sense, because they have no incentive to track their users.

I do question the incentive of a number of sites. Reddit technically don't need to track you, they know all they need to based on which subreddit you're currently on. It's mainly sites that have no context to your activities that really need the tracking to attempt to provide ads that makes sense. Maybe having these sites should be financed differently?

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