No Cookie for You • Hacker News Board

Re: No Cookie for You

#371

Post by BlueTemplar » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 8:58 PM UTC

mh- wrote: post #142

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How can Plausible Analytics count unique visitors without cookies? > So if you don’t use cookies how do you count the number of website visitors and report on metrics such as the number of unique users? > Instead of tagging users with cookies, we count the number of unique IP addresses that accessed your website. Counting IP addresses is an old-school method that was used before the modern age of JavaScript snippet…

This would be woefully inaccurate for websites with a large amount of mobile traffic (because of CGNAT), or university traffic, or etc.

According to Google, IPv6 traffic is up to 30% these days.

Re: No Cookie for You

#372

Post by BlueTemplar » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 9:02 PM UTC

asimops wrote: post #106

louhike wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another solution is to do all the tracking in the backend. I'm not saying it's a good solution.

To my understanding of the GDPR, as soon as you track any identifier that makes those data non-anonymous you still need consent for that. It is not about the cookies per se.

Would that mean that you need consent for storing IP addresses in logs?

Re: No Cookie for You

#373

Post by BlueTemplar » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 9:05 PM UTC

jwr wrote: post #174

dry_soup wrote: post #3

A lot of people have the misconception that the EU cookie law applies to all cookies, but as the blog post correctly points out, that just isn't the case.

Yes! If you use cookies for essential functionality (like keeping track of logged in status), you don't have to do anything. No banners, no annoyance for your users. I dropped all third-party crap from my site way back and haven't ever needed a cookie banner.

How long can you keep people logged in before it becomes the bad kind of tracking?

Re: No Cookie for You

#374

Post by Veen » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 9:10 PM UTC

soheil wrote: post #365

apexalpha wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No EU lawmaker has ever said GDPR will be enforced worldwide. It's Github's and other sites' own choice to enforce it worldwide. They could also build two seperate websites. The fact that this laws' reach is almost global is something called the Brussels Effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect But there is also the other way: simply not show a website in Europe at all. I see this sometimes when I click…

> No EU lawmaker has ever said GDPR will be enforced worldwide It literally takes 3 seconds to analyze the game theoretical effect of such a law to recognize its reach is well beyond Europe and therefore also clearly understood it to be such when passed.

Curiously, the EU cares more about the privacy of EU residents than it does annoying people who live elsewhere. Additionally, it "literally takes 3 seconds" to realize that the solution is to remove tracking cookies or block people from the EU if you don't want their business.

Re: No Cookie for You

#375

Post by BlueTemplar » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 9:11 PM UTC

dathinab wrote: post #69

dheera wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, it only applies in the EU. You don't need to display any banners outside the EU. Not that I am pro-privacy invasion, I'm not, but I'm definitely anti-annoying-popups.

Except that if the sites don't do annoying things there is no need for annoying popups. The EU law: - doesn't require opt-in permission for essential cookies and similar. So basic non-personalized website usage statistics (analytics) do not need a opt-in only if it's tracking people in any way are such opt-ins needed - if you login you are known to have accepted the terms of service and as such after login no opt-in…

Might not some websites need to store connection logs with IP addresses for anti-DDoS protection?

Re: No Cookie for You

#376

Post by colesantiago » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 9:11 PM UTC

GitHub, please remove server side / backend tracking as well, I did not consent to be tracked by your backend systems.

Re: No Cookie for You

#377

Post by jinzo » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 9:13 PM UTC

I know this will probably get buried, but from what I read and understand you still need to notify your users that you are using essential cookies and provide a list of what cookies are essential, why they are essential and what's the TTL? You do not need consent or button click, but there has to be a notification?

Re: No Cookie for You

#378

Post by hydroxideOH- » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 9:14 PM UTC

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #147

geek_at wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. Also even if you do track your visitors you can use privacy friendly (and ideally selfhostable) Analytics like Plausible https://plausible.io/ so you won't need the banners either. Just don't include facebook like buttons or any of these widgets

Does anyone happen to know of a service like this that is free (not self hosted) for non-commercial, low-traffic sites? Or which costs less than ~$10 per year. I have a basic Github Pages site, and I currently don't know whether anyone is looking at it, beyond the very few who take the time to email me. I don't need (or want) to know anything about my visitors, but it would be nice to know that I'm not simply tossing…

Netlify Analytics is $9/mo

Re: No Cookie for You

#379

Post by soheil » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 9:14 PM UTC

Veen wrote: post #374

soheil wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No EU lawmaker has ever said GDPR will be enforced worldwide It literally takes 3 seconds to analyze the game theoretical effect of such a law to recognize its reach is well beyond Europe and therefore also clearly understood it to be such when passed.

Curiously, the EU cares more about the privacy of EU residents than it does annoying people who live elsewhere. Additionally, it "literally takes 3 seconds" to realize that the solution is to remove tracking cookies or block people from the EU if you don't want their business.

I think you're missing the point, I don't have that choice as the user of websites. When I'm googling for an answer I cannot choose which website I visit based on the sophistication of their cookie banner before I visit it.

Re: No Cookie for You

#380

Post by pantalaimon » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 9:15 PM UTC

Teams has so many bugs and crashes, I'm flabbergasted how Microsoft can deliver something like that.

Especially given that they have shown that they are capable of delivering a good experience based on the Electron platform with VSCode.

My only explanation would be that it was cobbled together by interns, never meant for public release, then some project manager discovered it and said "Ship it!".