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Analysis of economic and productivity losses caused by cookie banners in Europe

legiscope.com

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Re: Analysis of economic and productivity losses caused by cookie banners in Europe

#231

Post by randunel »

snehk wrote: post #213

The whole law should have been forcing sites to not ignore DoNotTrack bworser settings. It's a prime example of the EU being utterly useless because they don't understand the underlying issue and then choose a "solution" that's as much in your face as possible but doesn't change anything about the original problem. It's the whole plastic straw thing in digital form.

No, it's not a prime example of the EU being utterly useless. It's a prime example of companies engaging in shady practises. This is what all the websites should have done: https://github.blog/news-insights/company-news/no-cookie-for...

Quote from the blog post:

> Well, EU law requires you to use cookie banners if your website contains cookies that are not required for it to work.

Re: Analysis of economic and productivity losses caused by cookie banners in Europe

#232

Post by mpeg »

uniqueuid wrote: post #226

I am kind of frustrated by the widespread misunderstandings in this thread. Laws are best when they are abstract, so that there is no need for frequent updates and they adapt to changing realities. The European "cookie law" does not mandate cookie banners, it mandates informed consent. Companies choose to implement that as a banner. There is no doubt that the goals set by the law are sensible. It is also not evident…

What I find funny about the whole thing is that the grand majority of companies with cookie banners are not implementing them correctly, and therefore are still in breach of the law.

I see constantly banners on sites that set tracking cookies by default, and delete them if you reject them in the banner (or even worse, not delete them at all!) – this is not compliant as the cookies were set before consent was given

Also see banners where there is only a big "OK" button, with no visible option to reject, this is also not compliant!

Re: Analysis of economic and productivity losses caused by cookie banners in Europe

#233

Post by oasisaimlessly »

yakcyll wrote: post #227

The title originally claimed 575M hours spent every year by Europeans on cookie banners. That's 12 seconds on average a day per person. Hardly anything to complain about.

An alternative interpretation:

"575M hours spent every year by Europeans" = 850 average human lifespans per year

Cookie banners in Europe have an effect vaguely comparable to "wasting" 850 human lives per year.

Re: Analysis of economic and productivity losses caused by cookie banners in Europe

#234

Post by sensanaty »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #163
ryandrake wrote: post #55

People blame the cookie banners themselves or the legislation that "made them necessary" but somehow never seem to blame the web companies for doing the naughty things on their websites that make them subject to the law. The "cookie banner problem" exists because it's primarily end users that are shouldering the burden of them, and not the companies. For the company, it's a one time JIRA ticket for a junior software…

I hope you'll be glad to know that this law already hits companies where it hurts, because many people will close the tab after the slightest annoyance. I hope you're happy that this law already encourages people to stay within a few big websites (where they've already clicked away the cookie banner) and not explore anything new (where they'd have to click away a cookie banner every time).

Or, crazy idea, don't have invasive user-tracking cookies? Github doesn't even have a cookie banner and they're one of the largest websites on the planet.

After seeing websites pull shit like "legitimate interest" where they share data with 9 trillion of their "partners", they can all rot for all I care.

Re: Analysis of economic and productivity losses caused by cookie banners in Europe

#235

Post by GJim »

class4behavior wrote: post #179

Misleading headline: It's productivity loss caused by non-essential data collection. The EU does not mandate banners, it's the businesses choosing to bully their customers into accepting all tracking and profiling.

Is the right answer.

It's stunning the number of people on HN (a tech news site!) who don't realise there is simply no requirement for "cookie banners" UNLESS you are using those cookies to track me or personally identify me (advertisers take a bow)..... In which case you need to ask my explicit permission to do so.

And so you should.

Re: Analysis of economic and productivity losses caused by cookie banners in Europe

#236

Post by bawolff »

uniqueuid wrote: post #226

I am kind of frustrated by the widespread misunderstandings in this thread. Laws are best when they are abstract, so that there is no need for frequent updates and they adapt to changing realities. The European "cookie law" does not mandate cookie banners, it mandates informed consent. Companies choose to implement that as a banner. There is no doubt that the goals set by the law are sensible. It is also not evident…

> The European "cookie law" does not mandate cookie banners, it mandates informed consent. Companies choose to implement that as a banner.

Would there exist any other method of implementing it that would be substantially different? Its hard to imagine. I suppose they could implement it by not having tracking cookies.

I think the ideal situation is that people could just set it as a browser preference and be done with it. Oh wait they already can.

Re: Analysis of economic and productivity losses caused by cookie banners in Europe

#237

Post by bawolff »

mpeg wrote: post #230
snehk wrote: post #213

The whole law should have been forcing sites to not ignore DoNotTrack bworser settings. It's a prime example of the EU being utterly useless because they don't understand the underlying issue and then choose a "solution" that's as much in your face as possible but doesn't change anything about the original problem. It's the whole plastic straw thing in digital form.

I don't think DNT settings were not considered – they were probably discarded as they hurt user privacy. Fingerprinting tools use the DNT setting as an extra flag to identify the user, so having it set to a non-default means you actually get tracked more, not less.

The cookie banners still have to be implemented somehow. I dont think there is a difference in the amount of tracking here.

Re: Analysis of economic and productivity losses caused by cookie banners in Europe

#239

Post by GJim »

uniqueuid wrote: post #226

I am kind of frustrated by the widespread misunderstandings in this thread. Laws are best when they are abstract, so that there is no need for frequent updates and they adapt to changing realities. The European "cookie law" does not mandate cookie banners, it mandates informed consent. Companies choose to implement that as a banner. There is no doubt that the goals set by the law are sensible. It is also not evident…

> I am kind of frustrated by the widespread misunderstandings in this thread.

SV and the advertising industry thrives on those misunderstandings.

Put simply, there is no need for "cookie banners" unless those cookies are being used to track or personally identify me (hello advertisers!), in which case, I need to give my opt-in informed consent to allow this; and so I should.

Hardly surprising SV and the advertising industry campaigns against "cookie banners", rather than their own unethical trading in personal data without consent.

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