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

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

#341

Post by scotty79 »

dspillett wrote: post #289
scotty79 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You cannot have an informed case-by-case decision without spending time. Forcing me to make an informed decision where I don't care about the result is the one of the major ways of wasting my time. If you wanted to create a good law about this you should make it so I only have to make a case-by-case decision if I care about my privacy (as it's currently exploited) and do nothing if I don't.

> Forcing me to make an informed decision where I don't care The laws do not force that. Informed consent before tracking could be implemented other ways, perhaps even more easily. The companies choose to force you to make the decision, rather than making it something you could choose to click or choose to ignore, because forcing that increases the chance that people who do care will accidentally opt-in and people wh…

Companies want to track me. I want companies to track me.

So what's the source of the friction if not law itself or its direct consequences?

I think other parties try to force me to care when I don't by introducing all that friction.

There's a talk about DNT. What's the reason no browser has "Please do track me and do whatever you wish with the data you manage to gather."?

I think it would be quite popular. So it's probably prevented by the law itself.

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

#342

Post by scotty79 »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #308
scotty79 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Laws are best when they are abstract ... Laws are only as good as their real world consequences.

There is a kernel of truth in that, but lets not forget, that laws alone don't have any consequences. It is the willingness to force people to comply with the law, that has the actual consequences. If our judges and governments and forces in general are not willing to pursue violations of the law, then we can have any law we want, it still won't matter. We do need more law enforcement on GDPR! A lot more.

> laws alone don't have any consequences

That's a very weird claim about something that the whole purpose of is to have at least some consequences.

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

#343

Post by ryandrake »

account42 wrote: post #302
legitster wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The elephant in the room is that almost no one wants to host website without at least some sort of website analytics service, which does not fall under legitimate use. So that's why even a small blog is going to have a cookie banner. There are some analytics companies out there that advertise cookieless analytics, but they are either a) too simple for enterprise or b) a much, much worse privacy and compliance risk.

Well, too bad. When it comes to processing other people's data you don't get to do whatever you want. Maybe try running a website without analytics before throwing a tantrum.

Yea, companies are so used to laissez faire that when they're finally told "too bad, so sad" they throw a tantrum, sue, cry, and eventually comply as maliciously as the possibly can, to show the world how upset they are that they can't simply do whatever they want.

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

#344

Post by uniqueuid »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #315
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…

>Laws are best when they are abstract, so that there is no need for frequent updates and they adapt to changing realities. Couldn't disagree more, people (and even companies) have a right to know if they're breaking the law. Broad laws just make everyone (potentially) guilty. It's ripe for abuse and corruption.

This is not what I meant. Laws are made concrete and understandable through either case law (harder for citizens to anticipate IMO) or through statutory interpretation in civic law traditions. Both (eventually) offer a clear understanding of the meaning and scope of a law.

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

#345

Post by marcosdumay »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #129
diggan wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe an analogy will make it click: If you have marijuana on you in a country where marijuana is illegal, then finding marijuana on you is illegal. If you don't have marijuana on you, you're not doing anything illegal. Replace marijuana with "personal data" and imagine it is about websites with visitors within EU. If they're not storing, processing and/or transmitting personal data, there is no compliance requiremen…

> If you have marijuana on you in a country where marijuana is illegal, then finding marijuana on you is illegal. If you don't have marijuana on you, you're not doing anything illegal This is a good analogy. By making the marijuana illegal, you also implicitly widen search powers. You can’t arrest someone you think smells like weed if weed is legal. (Or answer a neighbor’s complaint that they suspect they’re growing…

> By making the marijuana illegal, you also implicitly widen search powers.

Nope, you don't. Those are two different things.

There are plenty of things that are made illegal without giving the government the power to search for them.

> You can’t arrest someone you think smells like weed if weed is legal.

You can't arrest someone by smelling like weed in any democracy where it's illegal either.

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

#346

Post by TheCoelacanth »

GardenLetter27 wrote: post #338
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…

But you're the one saving and sending the cookies anyway - not the website. If you don't want to send some of them, then just configure your client not to do that. It's bizarre that the onus is put on the websites themselves to request consent before requesting that the client sets the cookies.

The law isn't about cookies; it's about tracking regardless of the technical means used to implement it.

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

#347

Post by TheCoelacanth »

GardenLetter27 wrote: post #335
vundercind wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tracking people with cookies is the part that requires consent. Setting cookies that aren’t used to track people, doesn’t require consent. The consent is for tracking that happens to use cookies, not for cookies themselves.

But you can configure all that client-side anyway. You choose what you save on your computer and send in responses, not the server sending you the HTML. The current situation is absurd, the EU just doesn't understand technology.

Tracking is not configurable client-side. Blocking cookies is not sufficient to prevent tracking. Is it the EU that doesn't understand technology or you?

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

#348

Post by immibis »

Alupis wrote: post #148
whstl wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does "for that analysis" refers to? Fraud prevention? If so, it is legitimate interest to do fraud prevention, so there's no need for a consent banner, first or third-party. Naturally you can't go and use this data for a purpose that has no basis under legitimate interest. Another example: Cloudflare is running DDoS prevention under our noses here at HN, for example, but there's no need to ask for consent, even…

> What does "for that analysis" To understand how customer's shop on my website. Heatmaps, view port, device type, screen resolution, frequency of browsing, where their mouse hovers the most, page dwell time, etc. These are impossible tasks for most website operators to do themselves. > For this you do need consent, if you transfer PII. If you don't want a banner you can replace it with a simple checkbox during the c…

> Heatmaps, view port, device type, screen resolution, frequency of browsing, where their mouse hovers the most, page dwell time, etc.

Sounds like information that is not personally identifying - if handled well.

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

#349

Post by uniqueuid »

brookst wrote: post #307
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 partly agree but feel you’ve conflated a few things: - Laws are best when abstract. This is true. Laws work best when they cover a class of behavior, not specific behaviors. - Requiring informed consent is good. This I disagree with with because it is a hard to measure outcome. Abstract, yes, but to the point where nobody knows what it means. The only way to meet this in spirit is to go so far overboard that nobody…

Sure I find it reasonable to disagree on these points.

I personally find informed consent to be a very desirable thing, because it aims at the goal of legislation, not at the means. If you think that citizens cannot, should not, or should not be required to profoundly understand what is happening to them in digital contexts, that's a specific point of view. From this you evaluate the trade-offs.

My personal (humanistic) perspective is that a profound understanding and practical control over our digital lives are the prerequisite for dignity, which is the ultimate goal of a state.

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

#350

Post by [deleted] »

XCSme wrote: post #298
ffsm8 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even this can be done without a banner, as long as these analytics do not contain any way to link them to individuals/specific users It's admittedly sound advice to create a banner for such a usecase however, as sanitizing all user data from these events is hard to guarantee, and you'd have to do just that to keep it legal

I think it's impossible to be 100% legal. Many times, the user IP, which is considered PII, is stored in various servers/routers log that you have no access to...

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