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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

#261

Post by randomdata »

pickledoyster wrote: post #254
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…

Yes. It's not the regulation but the misguided implementation that's to blame. Sites and cookie banner plugins could just accept DNT signals from browsers and no productivity would be lost.

DNT does not provide informed consent. It may, if set to not track, imply denial, but the reverse is not true. If DNT is accepting or unset, the site needs to fall back to the banner to get consent. And at that point you may as well prompt everyone with the banner instead of complicating the codebase with extra logic for a DNT edge case.

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

#262

Post by crote »

weberer wrote: post #246
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 informed and chose "No" each time. Why do EU lawmakers not allow me to automatically say no? All they have to do is add a line to the law enforcing companies to respect the DNT or GPC header. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Track

> Why do EU lawmakers not allow me to automatically say no?

What do you mean? There is no law banning companies from honoring a DNT header, companies just choose not to do so. The law already allows it, it just doesn't mandate it.

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

#263

Post by weinzierl »

mpeg wrote: post #232
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 Al…

One way to see it is that it's their way of passive-aggressive protest against a law they don't want. Maybe the aim was never to abide by the law, just to pretend and annoy people enough to draw them on your side.

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

#264

Post by dominicrose »

weinzierl wrote: post #263
mpeg wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Al…

One way to see it is that it's their way of passive-aggressive protest against a law they don't want. Maybe the aim was never to abide by the law, just to pretend and annoy people enough to draw them on your side.

A clear example of passive-aggressive protest was from Google, the removal of links to Google maps from the search results. Instead of providing a choice of multiple map providers, they just completely removed the links. To clarify: I'm in Europe (France).

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

#265

Post by doublerabbit »

IshKebab wrote: post #219
doublerabbit wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

D: Drink in pubs till 10pm including no alcohol purchases after 10. That's the law here in Scotland. As annoying as it is, the same law doesn't apply in the rest of the UK but it's reasonable.

Sure, and that's a perfectly reasonable law. There's no "oh you actually can sell alcohol after 10pm as long as your customers fill in a 5 page form, which is what the EU has caused.

If you're using third party cookies you have to display a "please consent" button.

If you're not, then all you need is a privacy policy somewhere stating that you use cookies and that they are all first party.

That seems fair to me. I like to know if cookies are used or not regardless if they are site or third party only.

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

#266

Post by ben_w »

randomdata wrote: post #261
pickledoyster wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It's not the regulation but the misguided implementation that's to blame. Sites and cookie banner plugins could just accept DNT signals from browsers and no productivity would be lost.

DNT does not provide informed consent. It may, if set to not track, imply denial, but the reverse is not true. If DNT is accepting or unset, the site needs to fall back to the banner to get consent. And at that point you may as well prompt everyone with the banner instead of complicating the codebase with extra logic for a DNT edge case.

Mm.

For existing privacy options — location, microphone, camera — Safari on iOS has the options of "ask"/"deny"/"allow".

I wouldn't be surprised by legislation for a Do Not Track option in DMA designed Gatekeepers' browsers, defaulting to "ask", where all three options must be handled accordingly by websites.

"Ask" would also have to be the default behaviour when no preference is transmitted.

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

#267

Post by ben_w »

Kubuxu wrote: post #252
randunel wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is quite ironic to get a cookie banner on tat page.

And disappointing.

Hopefully that doesn't mean my blog, currently hosted on github, is getting them again — those popups were one reason I moved away from Wordpress (well before the latest drama).

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

#268

Post by randomdata »

GJim wrote: post #257
teruakohatu wrote: post #3

I am about as far from Europe as you can get, and I think my fellow kiwis also spent an inordinate about of time clicking EU mandated cookie banners. Cookies should be enforced in the browser. I think all the major browsers block third party cookies now. Bad actors can use other fingerprints to do tracking.

You The Point No "cookie banner" is required UNLESS you are using cookies to track me or personally idetify me.... in which case, you must ask my explicit consent to do so. Blame the parasitic adtech industry wanting trade your personal data. Not the EU for providing you with consumer protection.

> Blame the parasitic adtech industry wanting trade your personal data.

Blame them for what? We all understand that personal information is the currency that pays for these services. While we may not love that we have to pay (who does?), we accept it as a fair trade. Until governments get their ass in gear to make paying with more favourable currencies viable, that is going to remain, now just with extra clicks.

> Not the EU for providing you with consumer protection.

I guess a bandaid is better than nothing, but we'd be better off if the EU would tackle the real issue. Going there would ruffle some real feathers, though, so good luck. But if there is blame to go around, it is on the EU for being too afraid to ruffle them.

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

#269

Post by libertine »

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.

> It's a prime example of the EU being utterly useless

That's a bold statement to claim that the largest trade block in the world is utterly useless, but I'll bite it.

What was the underlying issue they didn't understand?

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

#270

Post by egorfine »

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…

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

Good luck explaining alternative technology to the lawyers and then to the lawyers of the other party in court should the need arise, and then to the judge. While you are technically 100% right, I believe you will have a truly hard time implementing anything other than the cookie banners.

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