Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Spain begins disciplinary proceedings against site for violating Cookie Law

translate.google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 81 posts

Re: Spain begins disciplinary proceedings against site for violating Cookie Law

#51

Post by AJ007 »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #21

I am surprised - isn't this what we want? Instead of secrecy, governments warn everyone they are being tracked online. And we moan about it. It wrecks the UI, it is annoying. Folks - this is the Snowden debate, but without the security services. Yes they should have got into the RFC / IEEE debates (which are fast becoming laws of their own), yes they should be doing it better. Yes they should stop monitoring everyone…

Not even close. These solutions we have seen, both legal and from the browser level, are the equivalent of walking around nude in a busy city with a sign hanging around your neck saying "Please no photos." (I gave a slightly different analogy in another comment.)

A browser "do not track" request presents absolutely no true privacy, nor does fining forcing all web sites to implement custom pop ups which block site usage if the visitor doesn't agree.

These solutions are stupid, the things they claim to accomplish are already possible by the user's own choice, if someone could be bothered to tell them how to do it.

If these political entities really cared about privacy here are some of the things they would be doing:

a) blocking foreign intelligence agencies from openly monitoring all internet traffic in their country (and I don't just mean the NSA)

b) pass laws radically reducing or eliminating ISP logs rather than increasingly them

c) investigate private companies engaged in mass-surveillance that also use cookie-less tracking techniques. (Facebook mass facial recognition, several nameless companies claiming to prevent ecommerce fraud, etc)

e) spend money educating the public about simple, free, existing techniques to ensure their personal privacy

What you are witnessing in regards to cookies is a hoax, meant only to distract from the real issues.

Re: Spain begins disciplinary proceedings against site for violating Cookie Law

#52

Post by pgeorgi »

notok22 wrote: post #40
pgeorgi wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some pages (eg. all that use the consent.truste.com script) use localStorage to store the decision. That way the decision remains client-side and can still be persistent by hiding the question via javascript.

This law applies to any kind of "data" stored on the client, so using localStorage to store the user's answer would be breaking the law. http://www.cookiepedia.co.uk/eu-cookie-law

I don't remember the specifics. They could add a checkbox "store this decision locally", which would allow storing this single information - and localStorage is the best place to put it (unlike cookies).

Re: Spain begins disciplinary proceedings against site for violating Cookie Law

#53

Post by DerpObvious »

albertoperdomo wrote: post #25
martinml wrote: post #2

Sorry for submitting a Google Translate link. It's not doing a perfect job on a legal text but I didn't find any source in English. This is a blogpost of the lawyer taking this case, and the client name is unknown yet. Here's my summary of some facts (IANAL!): - The cookies being investigated are from Google Analytics, Google Maps, YouTube, Adsense and WordPress. - The website was setting the cookies in the browser a…

Please also note that according to the post if the sites are hosted in third party platforms like Facebook, Tumblr, that install tracking cookies the owner of the site can still be sued, even if it's without his control. In practical terms this means that any individual or business hosting having a Facebook profile page or blog on Tumblr could be sued. This is just Spanish law at it's best (I'm Spanish, too)

> In practical terms this means that any individual or business hosting having a Facebook profile page or blog on Tumblr could be sued.

This just says that they're responsible for the effects of the services they contract, in addition to acts they undertake directly.

Should a person building a bridge get out of the liability because they contracted out parts of the work? No.

Neither should the operator of a website because they opted to use services provided from a third party for part (or all) of their web services.

Re: Spain begins disciplinary proceedings against site for violating Cookie Law

#54

Post by claudius »

malandrew wrote: post #45
ealexhudson wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the most stupid and anti-user laws on the books. Worse, it's probably the only law I've ever seen have an instant and devastating effect on the UX of a swathe of websites. Hopefully they are going to start suing people regularly (unlike the inaction being taken in the UK) so that business wakes up to this stupid law and finally gets it repealed, the sooner the better.

The best balance would be to present the user with a page that lists all the things the site would like to track and let the user opt out of anything they don't want tracked. Some people may value a "degraded" experience over being tracked. I put "degraded" in quotes because it's often a degraded experience for the company's profits not the end-user. Please, give us some examples of how this is "devastating" for the…

> The best balance would be to present the user with a page that lists all the things the site would like to track and let the user opt in to any way in which they would like to be tracked.

FTFY.

Re: Spain begins disciplinary proceedings against site for violating Cookie Law

#55

Post by freehunter »

corin_ wrote: post #47
crististm wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of the children man... I wondered how long until I see this argument

In some limited cases it's a perfectly valid argument. I'm against most of the current internet legislation, and hate seeing children used as a reason for it, but that doesn't mean there aren't any good laws. Take my specific example. If someone hosts a childporn.com that is exactly like any legal porn website but with children, should that be legal or illegal?

It should be illegal. And it is illegal. The point is that there doesn't need to be laws specifically designed for "... but on the Internet", because those laws already apply. The person putting content on that site is already breaking the law in his country, and if he's not breaking the law in his country then he's just not breaking the law.

"... but on the Internet" is becoming a digital version of the USA's "interstate commerce" clause [1]. Yes, the Internet crosses national borders, but as we see from Megaupload, it can be used by one nation to enforce their laws in another nation that may not have the same laws. Just because activity X is illegal in the US but legal in Germany does not mean there should be a law banning activity X ... but on the Internet. In areas where this should be enforcable, it's already illegal.

[1] Generally the Interstate Commerce Clause is used to regulate economic activity that affects trade between US states. Trade that stays in one US state is regulated at the state level, not the national level. Sometimes this clause can be used/abused to enforce laws the federal government wants enacted just by the government going out of their way to find a reason that an activity is affecting interstate commerce, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn

Re: Spain begins disciplinary proceedings against site for violating Cookie Law

#56

Post by crististm »

corin_ wrote: post #47
crististm wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of the children man... I wondered how long until I see this argument

In some limited cases it's a perfectly valid argument. I'm against most of the current internet legislation, and hate seeing children used as a reason for it, but that doesn't mean there aren't any good laws. Take my specific example. If someone hosts a childporn.com that is exactly like any legal porn website but with children, should that be legal or illegal?

It's a perfectly valid argument. However it is being abused to the point where it is considered the root for every explanation. Yes, our children is the very first thing that we should protect but if you want it as a good argument, "think of the children" should start the discussion not end it.

For example, you want to tape everybody and then explain this away with "think of the children: we can catch child molesters this way". This argumentation works only for those who don't know any better. You take them for fools and thus you are not a good partner: you must have some ulterior motives.

Re: Spain begins disciplinary proceedings against site for violating Cookie Law

#57

Post by gcb0 »

mistercow wrote: post #16
martinml wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it clear in the law that no cookies shall be set until the user has accepted the warning, or is that an open interpretation in this particular case? This is a very liberal translation of the relevant part of the law[0]: "Those who provide services will be allowed to use storage devices in remote computers, provided that the owners have given their consentment AFTER [my emphasis] they have been informed clearly a…

That sounds like technically the consent has to come after being informed, not the storage.

"provided" means a condition.

so in parsed order: 1. informed. 2. consent. 3. storage.

Re: Spain begins disciplinary proceedings against site for violating Cookie Law

#58

Post by gcb0 »

nolanl wrote: post #50

The last place I worked was a Swiss organization that built web sites for the European Commission. Dealing with the EU cookies directive was an amazing waste of brain cells for everyone on the team. For instance, were we allowed to ignore it because we were Swiss (non-EU)? If not, which version of the law were we required to comply with? For instance, the UK implementation of the law says that you can assume "implied…

> Plus, we needed a cookie just to store whether or not the user clicked "yes" or "no," so in effect we were forced to break the law no matter what we did.

this means you didnt' waste too much brain cells after all.

if user clicks no, you either show it everytime, or set a session cookie, which is not supposed to be saved on disk per the specs. if the browser decide to save it on disk, it's their problem.

But if you set a no cookie. then it's the typical governemnt contractor. Going the extra mile to bill for the law, but completely ignoring the law purpose and benefits.

Re: Spain begins disciplinary proceedings against site for violating Cookie Law

#60

Post by mistercow »

gcb0 wrote: post #57
mistercow wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like technically the consent has to come after being informed, not the storage.

"provided" means a condition. so in parsed order: 1. informed. 2. consent. 3. storage.

"Provided that" as a condition does not imply any temporal order (in English at least).
Post reply on HN