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I don't care about cookies

i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu

181–190 of 193 posts

Re: I don't care about cookies

#181
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speculating here, we could call the checbox "Do Not Track", and make it a browser setting. HN would probably love this. Oh, wait...

Or you know, people could just disable cookies IN THE BROWSER SETTINGS if they don't like them. Which is the only place technical measures against cookies can be enforced anyways. And stop bothering the rest of us with these pointless popups.

The setting they asked for was "Do Not Track", not "Do Not Store Data on my Computer".

You can track without setting cookies and you can set cookies without tracking.

Re: I don't care about cookies

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDPR is sooo easy to follow as a startup. Just gather the data you need and not everything else,and ask for consent. If anything, it was the big players getting work to do. Thousands of people on mailing lists with no control of how they got there. Asked and kept insane amounts of not necessary data. Data floating in hundreds of database tables spread over various services and third party vendors and data centers wit…

GDPR is sooo easy to follow as a startup. Just gather the data you need and not everything else,and ask for consent. Clearly we're not going to ask for consent to track someone who is systematically probing our site for vulnerabilities, or someone who is attempting to use us to validate presumably stolen credit card details, or a group who are obviously sharing a password to gain unauthorised access in violation of o…

I don't recall having ever seen a mailing list following that best practice. It's always a

[] keep me informed about products

checkbox hidden somewhere in a purchase form, often pre-checked even though that's illegal. Recently I was somehow added to the mailing list of a car dealership after getting my car checked up there, and can't even unsubscribe without creating an account on their website.

I'm sure there are some legitimate mailing lists out there, but there are so many others that are scummy and in flagrant violation of the law. It's hard to shake the feeling that making things harder for mailing lists in general is going to be a net win for consumers.

Re: I don't care about cookies

#183
post #172
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried going through these new popups? If they are trustworthy then the current ones allow you to disable some cookies and give you an idea of who is doing the tracking. Even though there are far better ways to manage cookies with browser settings and extensions: the options are sometimes quite limited (e.g. Chrome on Android) and many people would simply be unaware of cookies without these popups. Those peop…

The idea that people will go through these popup menus for every site they visit is just insane. It goes to show how governments and standards bodies really have no clue. When opening a hyperlink, you aren't meant to establish a relationship with this new website (at least not most of the time). It's supposed to be fast, possibly just to read a small part of that page and go back to the previous website.

And yet for many years it was the default that the new website behind the hyperlink would build a profile about you and sell this to its hundreds of 'partners'. You don't mean to establish a relationship with them, but they sure want one with you, and they want to know all about you.

If you were to quickly visit a shop and an employee would follow you around with a camera, make notes, and measure your height and your shoe size while you were waiting in line to pay, would you think that was okay and a normal experience? At least with the GDPR the stalkers have to ask your consent first, although ideally they wouldn't exist at all.

Re: I don't care about cookies

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law forced the companies to be explicit about what they do, and ask for consent. The user experience is made shit by the companies doing shady things. If they didn't do shady shit, they wouldn't have to display any banner. I'd rather be informed, at least I can make a decision that way. Why shoot the messenger? The part that is missing is making rejecting as easy as accepting. So far there are a lot of dark patte…

How is something like having Google Analytics on your site "shady shit"? I would think counting unique visitors is a legitimate business interest for most businesses. And there is no way to do that without a cookie, or without storing IP address (which is considered personally identifiable info). The law could have been much better if it simply asked browser makers to provide a single place to configure your preferen…

there is a way to count unique visitors without cookies and storing ip addresses indeed. have you heard of hyperloglogs? it’s very limited but works.

Re: I don't care about cookies

#186
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDPR is sooo easy to follow as a startup. Just gather the data you need and not everything else,and ask for consent. Clearly we're not going to ask for consent to track someone who is systematically probing our site for vulnerabilities, or someone who is attempting to use us to validate presumably stolen credit card details, or a group who are obviously sharing a password to gain unauthorised access in violation of o…

I don't recall having ever seen a mailing list following that best practice. It's always a [] keep me informed about products checkbox hidden somewhere in a purchase form, often pre-checked even though that's illegal. Recently I was somehow added to the mailing list of a car dealership after getting my car checked up there, and can't even unsubscribe without creating an account on their website. I'm sure there are so…

Mailing list manager software operated that way almost universally for many years. You sent a mail to xyz-subscribe@example.com and then had to reply to a challenge message to confirm the subscription.

More recently, it's more about web forms and hosted services and so on, but typically you can't add subscribers on popular mailing list management services without either having the service run that kind of double opt-in check automatically or going through some kind of alternative process that involves explicitly confirming to the service that you have the required consent from somewhere else when adding the addresses directly.

There are loads of legitimate mailing lists, and the software and services running them have worked reasonably for decades, you just apparently haven't come across them. Not that I disagree with you that there are plenty of scummy ones as well, sadly.

Re: I don't care about cookies

#187

This extension is awesome. It wouldn’t be so necessary if all those websites asking for my permission to use cookies would actually use a cookie to store that permission / preference so they don’t ask again every damn time. This is really the reason why I use this extension - I didn’t mind so much reviewing the permissions once for each site, but having to do it constantly really became too much after a certain point…

but most do. I only have to redo my choice after I clean my browser data. Maybe you have your browser configured to automatically clean data after close?

Re: I don't care about cookies

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "But I want to track what users are doing!" - Well, then you have to show them a popup about that. I think most website owners don't care about that, but they do care about earning money to actually run the website. > The GDPR holds that data protection is a fundamental right. The GDPR says that if the user asks to use your service then you have to offer them the service regardless whether they're willing to pay fo…

I think you know charging for services is allowed. You say normal. Others say pernicious.

Sure, but then your users will flock to an alternative that doesn't charge them money. Maybe the alternative is propped up by government funding or funding by some giant corporation or maybe they're based outside of GDPR jurisdiction or maybe they just don't care about the laws. Whatever it is, you're getting outcompeted.

And if every alternative charges money, then that means you're shutting out a large portion of people. For example, I can't pay for anything online right now. It doesn't matter whether it costs $5 or just a single cent - I have no way to pay. It'll be sorted eventually, but even then paying for anything online for me will be a 5-10 minute process. Not exactly something I'm willing to do for almost anything. And a lot of people in the world are in a similar position - credit cards aren't as accessible in most of the world compared to the US. If services like paypal don't accept bank transfers from your country, then they don't help either.

Re: I don't care about cookies

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "But I want to track what users are doing!" - Well, then you have to show them a popup about that. I think most website owners don't care about that, but they do care about earning money to actually run the website. > The GDPR holds that data protection is a fundamental right. The GDPR says that if the user asks to use your service then you have to offer them the service regardless whether they're willing to pay fo…

> I think most website owners don't care about that, but they do care about earning money to actually run the website. Again -- the GDPR recognizes the right to data as a a fundamental right, and thus the ability to earn money with a website comes second to user's rights. Argumenting against this is a bit like Big Tobacco complaining that they're not allowed to sell cigarettes to children. > The GDPR says that if the…

I'm not sure why you're downvoted, but (b) isn't allowed under GDPR. Consent has to be given freely. It means that you can't block content if the user is unwilling to have their information shared.

Re: I don't care about cookies

#190

Or, if you already use uBlock Origin and would rather use its performant, customizable, extensible filtering capabilities instead of adding (and trusting!) yet another addon, just check the "EasyList Cookie" list in your Filter Lists :) .

I don't care about cookies blocks more. In uBO you can add the I don't care about cookies list: https://www.i-dont-care-about-cookies.eu/abp/
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