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Dear Paul Graham, there is no cookie banner law

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Re: Dear Paul Graham, there is no cookie banner law

#251

Post by madmoose »

pera wrote: post #172
miracle2k wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On this issue in the group that complain about the cookie law there are some people who are very wrong on purpose because it's in their interest, and some people who are very wrong because they genuinely don't understand the position they're defending, complaining about being made aware of the fee, instead of the fees themselves or the fact that the companies hide them if not forced by law. The reality is that I (a…

The reality is that most people don't want to be tracked: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/07/facebook-adverti...

I've stopped going to Ars Technica exactly because their cookie pop-up lets me know that Condé Nast wants to share my data with at least (according to the popup) 159 partners.

They have so many "partners" that their cookie popup comes with a search bar.

56 of their "partners" want my precise geolocation data!

16 "partners" want to actively scan my device!

101 "partners" want to "match and combine data from other data sources" (I can't disable or object to this)

102 "partners" want to identify my device. I also can't object to this.

The only way I can really object is to close the tab, so that's what I do.

Re: Dear Paul Graham, there is no cookie banner law

#252

Post by FredPret »

polygamous_bat wrote: post #168
n4r9 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't that argument work both ways? If you interpret the EU's regulation with the "lens of game theory", it is an unintended consequence of aggressive corporate data collection. Not sure why it makes sense to complain about the EU and not the companies.

> Not sure why it makes sense to complain about the EU and not the companies. Unfortunately a non-negligible number of people in tech also have libertarian leanings, with a default “gubmint bad!” position, which makes them easy prey for adtech propaganda.

How arrogant to assume your position should be the default one, and people who don’t agree with you are - of course - easy prey for propaganda.

Re: Dear Paul Graham, there is no cookie banner law

#253

Post by denton-scratch »

pokot0 wrote: post #244
aurareturn wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using your analogy, I think what ends up happening is that even companies that don't collect hidden fees will put up a banner just in case. Not only that, I'm not an EU citizen and I'm not browsing websites based in EU but I'm still bombarded with cookie banners non-stop.

Just been in Europe last week (I live in US): you have no idea what a nightmare internet is in Europe. You are only seeing a side effect here.

> what a nightmare internet is in Europe

I live in Europe; I don't experience this "nightmare". Would you care to expand?

Re: Dear Paul Graham, there is no cookie banner law

#254

Post by Aeolun »

nolok wrote: post #17

Imagine a market in which companies charge a lot of hidden fees behind their customers' back, and users are not happy when they realize after the fact. The law is updated to say you are not allowed to charge the user a fee unless you tell him in advance. Companies with tons of hidden fees decide to keep them but force you to read all the fees on every page of the menu before you can see the rest of the text, in the m…

I don’t think this is strictly accurate. There’s nothing about cookies themselves that makes them a problem. It’s the way they are used. Needing to inform people you are using cookies for sessions is like needing to inform people you are using a fork to eat. The problem is that some people are using the fork to stab people, so now we require everyone to say how they’re going to use it in advance. Instead of just prohibiting stabbing people.

Re: Dear Paul Graham, there is no cookie banner law

#255

Post by paulryanrogers »

eterevsky wrote: post #194
pif wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are implying that strict anti-emission laws caused uncontrolled emissions by Volkswagen vehicles. But Volkswagen was very discreet about it, and when uncovered everybody was against them. Website are being obnoxious, instead, and people accuse the law. Go figure!

I don't see the relation to the story about VW and emissions. VW broke the law, while the websites are following it.

Arguably by your logic the emissions laws incentivize cheating, much as folks see the GDPR incentivizing annoying users -- to nag regulators to change the rules back in the company's favor.

It's a stretch though. I prefer more obvious analogies.

Re: Dear Paul Graham, there is no cookie banner law

#256

Post by boo-ga-ga »

poszlem wrote: post #68
leononame wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does it show that? Most people I know are annoyed by this and click on "reject" (if they can find it), but for a lot of non-technical people these banners are just a given because they don't even understand the problem. Doesn't mean they don't care

How many "normies" do you know that stopped visiting websites that track them? I don't know anybody who isn't in my tech bubble who cares, and very few normies who would rather pay money than to give access to their data.

Apple do not track alert resulted in many people saying they don't want it. And of course, had impact on Meta's business. So if websites presented cookie banners in a neutral way without dark patterns to make Reject difficult, "normies" would reject these, I'm sure.

Re: Dear Paul Graham, there is no cookie banner law

#257

Post by dahauns »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #192

Europe's parliament's site has cookie banner[1]. People saying you don't need cookie banner either haven't worked in companies or are purely driven by ideology. [1]: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/portal/en

The site also shows how simple it could be, though - it respects the DNT flag: no cookie banner, no tracking in this case.

Re: Dear Paul Graham, there is no cookie banner law

#258

Post by nojvek »

US does a really shitty job at regulating tech companies - esp privacy and abuse of data.

Perhaps because the big tech has captured the regulators with a lobby revolving door.

Look at how big a tantrum Apple is throwing regarding 3rd party app stores.

I’m glad EU is doing what it’s doing.

And the various data locality laws. Data is precious.

I wish US would impose stronger fines when data is misused or hacked into due to negligence.

Re: Dear Paul Graham, there is no cookie banner law

#259

Post by joenot443 »

isodev wrote: post #134
miracle2k wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On this issue in the group that complain about the cookie law there are some people who are very wrong on purpose because it's in their interest, and some people who are very wrong because they genuinely don't understand the position they're defending, complaining about being made aware of the fee, instead of the fees themselves or the fact that the companies hide them if not forced by law. The reality is that I (a…

"Number of visitors" does not constitute tracking. The tracking in question here is to discover who you are specifically and the absurd amount of detail about your online activities collected and shared with data brokers for aggregation and resale. A few of these cookie prompts during the day and they'd be able to tell everything from where your kids go to school to the kind of prn you prefer to watch on weekdays and…

> where your kids go to school

Is this something that's kept secret in European society?

If someone told me they knew where my kids went to school I wouldn't be surprised, it's sort of dependent on our address which is in the phone book.

Re: Dear Paul Graham, there is no cookie banner law

#260

Post by foldr »

throw10920 wrote: post #179
piva00 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law is not bypassed, the annoying banners with no simple option to reject are illegal . The issue is that enforcement is slow, not that the law is badly written. GDPR's Article 7 [0] is very clear: > 3. The data subject shall have the right to withdraw his or her consent at any time. The withdrawal of consent shall not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal. Prior to giving con…

> The issue is that enforcement is slow, not that the law is badly written. The enforcement/implementation of a law is so deeply entwined with the text that it's deceptive to separate them. If a law is written in a way so as to make enforcement hard, or if the government doesn't have the resources to quickly and consistently apply it, then it's a bad law because it enables weaponized targeted/selective enforcement of…

Essentially all laws are difficult to enforce. If someone really won't follow the law, then it takes a lot of time and money to prosecute them. Society relies on most people voluntarily following most laws most of the time.
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