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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

#491

Post by rglullis »

danaris wrote: post #473
rglullis wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The law is updated to say you are not allowed to charge the user a fee unless you tell him in advance. Why not a real regulation then to get rid of hidden fees and heavy fines/jail time for companies that are found to be doing it? PG's argument (I hope) is that there is no point in talking about "regulation" and "customer protection" if companies STILL get away with their ridiculous and hostile practices. There is…

I mean, that would be great , but I suspect that even just here on HN you'd get a lot of people strongly disagreeing with you. Because that would infringe upon the companies' "freedom" to profit in whatever way they see fit—and the people's "freedom" to let their data be vacuumed up and sold for massive profits.

Whether they agree or not is irrelevant. I think that PG's argument is that all the "regulation" and "strength of the EU" amounts to nothing. It's just people pretending to play power games, doing privacy theater and solving absolutely zero problems.

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

#492

Post by toyg »

kortilla wrote: post #370
rvense wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the companies that suck, and Paul Graham is (quite literally) invested in the suckage, wherefore this dumb tweet. Which, if one wanted to create an ad campaign for that eternal Upton Sinclair quote, couldn't have been done much better. (Thanks for the site though, Paul)

Paul is very unlikely to be invested in tracking unless he has some shares in Google/Facebook. Startups in tracking aren’t really a thing

I expect most startups "integrate" their regular revenues (if they have any) with some sort of adtech deal.

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

#493

Post by toyg »

63stack wrote: post #213
boxed wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law isn't that bad actually, just that the courts have been very slow. The dark UI patterns are actually illegal and have been judged so in court now. This realization just has to trickle down to the companies writing these cookie banners.

* There was an option of making this non-intrusive, by requiring it to be a browser setting, they chose not to * The law went into effect ~6 years ago * Companies still break the law by employing dark patterns My take is that it makes both the law, and the courts bad.

Neither the law or the court can start any enforcement proceeding.

Clearly, national prosecution authorities can't be arsed and we don't have enough citizen-activists filing strong lawsuits.

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

#494

Post by raydev »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #488
raydev wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How much corporate propaganda are people consuming that legislators are seen as wholly responsible for the bad behavior and malicious compliance actions of corporations Why do I need to be "consuming corporate propaganda" when I just hate that I need to dismiss banners on every news website, when I didn't have to before the regulation? I don't care about being tracked. But now that all websites need to cover their…

The experience you describe is the fault of websites which chose to make things that way. The article goes into more detail on this point: There Is No Cookie Banner Law. It's important to note that we didn't have to go through the banners after the law, either. We only had to go through them after website operators intentionally picked the most disruptive and annoying popup to serve us. We can blame them. They chose…

Again, from the perspective of users, the experience got worse post-regulation.

> The experience you describe is the fault of websites which chose to make things that way.

I don't disagree. But they were less annoying before. So make them go back to being less annoying.

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

#495

Post by account42 »

caskstrength wrote: post #375
denton-scratch wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How would you frame a "don't track people without consent" without unintended consequences? Drop the consent requirement? I.e. just don't track people. No third-party cookies, first-party only, and only for the correct operation of the site. It's not the cookies that people object to, it's the tracking. Tracking provides no benefits to visitors. If there were no tracking risk, there would be no need to require cons…

> It's not the cookies that people object to, it's the tracking. Tracking provides no benefits to visitors Sure it does. Visitors get to use all those great sites and apps without paying for the services directly.

"directly" does the heavy lifting here. Users (on average) still end up paying for the services in the end.

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

#496

Post by n4r9 »

edanm wrote: post #481
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.

Because the companies are getting what they want (data on users), but the regulation is not getting what it wants (no tracking or informed tracking). I don't know if this mini-competition between regulators and companies is truly zero-sum, there could be some way to get everyone something they want. But with the current regulation, it is zero-sum, and the companies are winning and the EU is losing. And the EU "works…

> the regulation is not getting what it wants (no tracking or informed tracking)

That's an overstatement of the purpose of the regulation IMO. The purpose is to give the user control over the tracking of their data.

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

#497

Post by Jensson »

stefanka wrote: post #413
madmoose wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The only way I can really object is to close the tab, so that's what I do. Isn't it too late by then?

Legally no, they can't store his data if he doesn't click yes.

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

#498

Post by n4r9 »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #461
n4r9 wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would regard it as a duty of government to ensure that using the internet is safe and respects user privacy, but not to ensure that the internet has a clean UI. To that extent, I'd argue that the EU is achieving good outcomes. Ensuring a clean UI and smooth user experience is one of those things that should manifest as a result of market economics, but does not manifest because markets don't really work that way.

I see absolutely no reason why clean UX should manifest as a result of market forces. Media consumers, on average, are clearly unwilling to pay for ad-free experiences.

I won't pursue that assertion as it's tangential. I shouldn't have brought it up. The main point is that clean UX is not the purpose of the EU's data laws.

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

#499

Post by edanm »

n4r9 wrote: post #496
edanm wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the companies are getting what they want (data on users), but the regulation is not getting what it wants (no tracking or informed tracking). I don't know if this mini-competition between regulators and companies is truly zero-sum, there could be some way to get everyone something they want. But with the current regulation, it is zero-sum, and the companies are winning and the EU is losing. And the EU "works…

> the regulation is not getting what it wants (no tracking or informed tracking) That's an overstatement of the purpose of the regulation IMO. The purpose is to give the user control over the tracking of their data.

OK, fair enough. pg's point still stands I think - I believe that most users have zero idea what that popup is and don't bother doing anything but clicking on it immediately even if they do have some idea.

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

#500

Post by foldr »

exitb wrote: post #368
foldr wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key difference with tracking is that it's based on intent. Technically there is no difference between a tracking cookie and any other cookie. It is just a question of its intended use.

Sure. If I'm asking a website to remember my user session, I expect and am happy to allow a cookie, even if it's a few extra clicks. When I visit a site I'm not a registered user of, no tracking is needed really.

The issue isn't cookies vs. no cookies; it's tracking cookies vs. other cookies. Session cookies in and of themselves do not require consent.
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