Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop • Hacker News Board

Re: Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop

#321

Post by tripzilch » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 10:03 PM UTC

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #236

DavideNL wrote: post #128

In The Netherlands the Data Protection Authority announced this month that websites are no longer allowed to block access when people click "NO" in the cookie warning; Clicking 'no' should still allow people to view the website, but without placing any tracking cookies. Source (in Dutch): https://autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl/nl/nieuws/websites-moe...

Does that affect the use of the session & local storage?

No it's about tracking cookies. Session cookies for keeping login state or shopping carts, etc, are allowed.

Re: Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop

#322

Post by wsy » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 10:03 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #257

nothal wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? It's relatively common for governments to prohibit businesses and services from discriminating against certain types of users, why do you think it's ridiculous in this specific case?

Whether we like it or not, tracking data used for ads is the currency of the free internet. It is how things are paid for. This is like a government saying to a restaurant "You can't discriminate against people who don't want to pay you money for the food. You can ask them if they are willing to give you money for the sandwich, but if they say no, you still have to give them the sandwich"

I think a better example would be: you can only get food if you give us your address and consent that all other restaurants in the vicinity send marketing mail to you. You also consent that we and they exchange information about when and what you ordered.

To me it sounds very sensible to make such a business practice illegal.

Re: Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop

#323

Post by 4ec0755f5522 » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 10:03 PM UTC

scrollaway wrote: post #146

soheil wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know how to explain it any other way: These things are fucking important. I think many people specially on HN understand the implications of using cookies and also understand the privacy concerns by 3rd parties taking their data. What I don't understand is why there are people who assume almost everyone has absolutely no idea or concern about any of these things and therefore advocate for pushing horrible a…

GDPR is neither horrible nor half baked. The word you're looking for is flawed . I don't know why you expected it to be perfect from the get-go when it's such a complex subject in the first place. What it is however is a major step up from before. It's an excellent start . You won't do any better by scrapping the whole thing and starting over. You can improve it. Explain to me why you're better off without it.

I don't get the hate either. I was AMAZED the first time I saw how easily I could opt-out to literally HUNDREDS of ad/tracking companies. And without breaking my browser, as I have to do sometimes (disable js or block all cookies-- see how long you can go without running into a completely broken website).

GPDR is both imperfect and awesome.

Re: Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop

#324

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 10:04 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #265

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you allowed to sell your kidney in the US? (No, you aren't.) This means that a site operator can't offer you access to a super awesome news site in exchange for your kidney. They can't get away by saying "but you can choose not to use the site". Well, Europe does the same thing for your personal data.

Trading a kidney for access to a news site would obviously be insane, and we should have laws to prevent insane people from harming themselves. On the other hand, if a person of sound mind decided they would rather have $1,000,000 than both of their kidneys, why shouldn't they be able to sell one, logically? The idea of selling one's organs sets off the human involuntary disgust/outrage reaction ("of COURSE it should…

The news site was an obviously over-the-top example, but the more realistic $1,000,000 offer would be just as illegal.

The rational reason for that is that in the real world, not all choices are made by perfectly rational, superhumanely intelligent actors that have and consider all the information.

Also, not all decisions on a free market are truly freely made. If all standard housing/mortgage contracts contain that you have to sign away your kidney as a security deposit in case you can't pay your rent/mortgage rates, do you really have a choice?

With data on web sites, it's the same. Almost every web site collects data. You don't realistically have the option of going to a different news site if you don't like that deal.

Re: Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop

#325

Post by tripzilch » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 10:09 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #148

DavideNL wrote: post #128

In The Netherlands the Data Protection Authority announced this month that websites are no longer allowed to block access when people click "NO" in the cookie warning; Clicking 'no' should still allow people to view the website, but without placing any tracking cookies. Source (in Dutch): https://autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl/nl/nieuws/websites-moe...

Could say Germany, decide differently? GDPR seems like it could evolve quite quickly, and sort of fork a bit here... Also makes me wonder, do they have to have access to the whole site? This feels like a war on cookies, and there are bad things done with cookies, but I'm not sure if they're fighting on the right front long term here. If people simply just say yes all the time / don't know, not sure we're making progr…

> This feels like a war on cookies, and there are bad things done with cookies, but I'm not sure if they're fighting on the right front long term here.

Problem is will-full misinformation. It's a war on tracking cookies, not session cookies for login state, etc. But all the cookie warning dialogs make it sound like it's a war on all cookies no matter what, so "just accept because otherwise this site won't work, also " (really, the amount of sites that use this dialog as a misinformation soapbox to vent against not being able to track their users...).

Re: Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop

#326

Post by systematical » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 10:10 PM UTC

Agreed. Not happy EU laws are affecting US business. We had to do a bunch of GDPR stuff even though we sell products only in the United States. I get if we are marketing to or selling in the EU, but we're not. What do I know though? I'm just some dude who lives in a terminal.

Re: Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop

#327

Post by emilfihlman » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 10:10 PM UTC

tripzilch wrote: post #316

danielfoster wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't read the full decision but I'm always surprised at how little regard European courts have for property rights. If it's my website, I should be able to decide who has access and under what terms. Don't like cookies? No one is forcing you to visit a particular website. I also feel like tech companies could adopt an open standard for cookie acceptance preferencesin web browsers, but they're afraid to lest they…

> If it's my website, I should be able to decide to decide whether to track your users? through third parties? for advertising purposes? Why? Why do you get to decide and not the users? I'd rather you didn't! It really honestly does surprise me the amount of crap Americans are willing to swallow when it comes to advertising methods, or even just profit in general. Your whole society is rife with abuse. There's robo-c…

As an European, it honestly surprises me how much crap people are willing to put up with to advance the nanny state, and even support and advocate for that shit.

I'll take freedom any day over someone telling me that they know better.

Re: Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop

#328

Post by FridgeSeal » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 10:11 PM UTC

jrochkind1 wrote: post #275

cameronh90 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Hmm, there are features that one literally can't provide without state (cookies)." Silent cookies aren't completely banned by the GDPR/cookie laws, only cookies that aren't necessary to provide the service requested by the user. That's sort of vague, but I think mostly obvious what is intended there. It's pretty easy to operate within the spirit and letter of the law: Shopping baskets, load balancer cookies and logi…

Meanwhile, even though the _only_ user-tracking we do where I work is Google Analytics (no advertising features) (and you say your lawyers say you don't need consent for that) -- the official word on high where I work is all our websites need the stupid "i consent to cookies" banner if we use cookies. So, yeah, it's a mess. These "extra" warnings are contributing to user fatigue, I agree with troy hunt that users are…

That’s more the fault of the higher ups for not understanding the law correctly, which really, is on them because the EU went to quite a bit of length to make the document readable and if execs/managers aren’t smart enough to know the difference between necessary and tracking cookies on their own site, then that’s really their own fault.

Re: Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop

#329

Post by danra » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 10:13 PM UTC

At my company’s site[1] we have a non-intrusive banner at the bottom which lets you agree or disagree to tracking cookies, or just ignore it and browse the site.

You don’t get served any tracking cookies until you agree.

This fulfills the explicit consent requirement of GDPR as well as the requirement for people to be able to use your site even if they don’t accept cookies.

We get much less analytics then we used to - many people just ignore the cookies bar, either knowingly or just because they don’t notice it. But it’s totally worth it.

I hope the EU starts fining non-compliant (i.e. 99% of) sites aggressively, specifically those that pretend to care about your privacy, but don’t really (“Agree” button only).

[1] https://www.soundradix.com/

Re: Cookie Warning Shenanigans Have Got to Stop

#330

Post by paxys » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 10:16 PM UTC

rcxdude wrote: post #185

paxys wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> consent must not be a condition of service So what do you do if your website literally cannot function without cookies?

Then you do not need to ask consent to use them. You only need consent for cookies or data collection if it is not necessary to the service (and 'necessary for tracking ads' does not count as necessary).

Why not, if that's how you are paying for the site to exist?