541–550 of 662 posts
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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.
have him register a new, anonymous HN account and go say that in one of our weekly "apple bad" threads
"Companies could easily avoid any cookie banner. Just don’t track." It seems like a point dear to the author's heart, given the way he highlights this and puts it in bold at the top of the article. But while it sounds good on the surface, it doesn't take much digging to show it's silly. If you store any kind of data about a visitor to make their life more convenient, is that tracking? Shopping carts? Notification pre…
> It's actually a bit ironic to ask visitors if it's ok to track them. If they say no, you have to track them to at least remember that choice. Not really - basic functionality like you describe does not require consent, AND any cookie specifying non-consent is in itself anonymous.
If you really make it anonymous, the downside then is that you have to keep asking the same visitor over and over again, each time they visit.
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> The setting would have to be either "I don't want to be tracked by anyone ever" or "I'm ok with being tracked by everyone all the time". The only alternative to that binary logic is cookie banners. So to be clear, you are advocating for cookie banners. The reality is that the overwhelming majority of people do legitimately want option 1, which makes cookie banners redundant. The only reason that cookie banners exis…
The point is that you'd still get cookie banners even with option 1, because a site can always ask you if you're willing to override your default preference.
So yeah, you can never compel a site designer to stop doing a thing without compelling them to stop do that thing. The only middle ground is a middle ground.
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The point is that you'd still get cookie banners even with option 1, because a site can always ask you if you're willing to override your default preference.
What you are describing is still option 3 (cookie banners). The only real option 1 would be for sites to give up on tracking users. So yeah, you can never compel a site designer to stop doing a thing without compelling them to stop do that thing. The only middle ground is a middle ground.
>The point is that you'd still get cookie banners even with option 1
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Probably the same way most laws end up. We see the unintended consequences, then revise the law to counter the consequences. Thus the cat/mouse game continues. An idea could be that the tracking has to be opt-in AND the webpage cannot stop critical use of the page as part of the opt-in process. Then another round of consequences.. rinse repeat...
> An idea could be that the tracking has to be opt-in Why would anyone opt-in? Tracking provides zero benefits to the site visitor.
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So the problem is that the legislator did not expect companies to be even worse assholes than they already were...? Laws are not borne in a perfect state; very much like programs, sometimes you need a few versions to see how the system actually works in practice and fix a few bugs. The fact that v1.0 has such bugs is not a good reason to just give up, nor it's an indication that the programmer is bad at programming.
> companies to be even worse assholes All companies? Every single company with a website even if without any trackers or ads?! All companies are evil and the single law that triggered their evil behaviour is good. Sure. Ever heard of Occam's razor?
> All companies are evil
No, but many, many companies are sociopathic assholes that exist just to make a buck. Otherwise we wouldn't need these laws.
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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.
Your right, the experience got worse.
But the underlying point is there two ways this could have gone. The GDPR simply mandated that if companies track you they have to get your informed consent. So one way it could have gone is companies didn't track anonymous users.
Notice this doesn't apply to non-anonymous users. By definition once you've logged in you've revealed who are and agreed to a far more onerous privacy statement. So one way companies could comply is just to make you log in to see some content (and track you that way), and not bug you otherwise.
But they didn't go that way. They insist on tracking you regardless. Perhaps you don't agree, but I find this even more annoying because I install tracking blocking extensions and that breaks some sites. To me the world would have been a much better place if they had just gone along with the intent of the damned law and not tracked people who are try to remain anonymous.
To be fair it's not so bad. Firefox dismisses the cookie banners for you [0], and I have extensions that block the worst of their effects. If you are using a browser from an ad company and are complaining about cookie banners (which almost to the man use a deceptive UI to encourage you to accept them all so the ads work better), then I don't have a lot of sympathy. Me rejecting as many cookies as I can then blocking their trackers the worst possible outcome for the web sites trying to garner some ad revenue of course, but shrug, the industry could have acted in good faith, and didn't.
[0] https://community.mozilla.org/en/campaigns/firefox-cookie-ba...
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So, I get your point. I can see how (1) can be aggravating. Can't really say anything to defend it, that's the Brussels effect for you. From the point of view of your own sovereignty, it's a bad thing, period. From the point of view of an effect on the lives of average people, I'm not so sure, it's so cut and dry. Now, point (2) is, unfortunately, in the same vein as smoking, pollution, seat belts etc. Uninformed peo…
I get it - what you're saying is a very common-sense regulation. Reasonable people can disagree about this. But different societies prefer a different balance here. Americans are used to a more caveat emptor situation. Europeans want more regulation. Which one to choose is a political choice. What's happening is that the political choice that the EU went with is being forced on the rest of us, whether we like it or n…
I'm personally glad someone is doing something for my privacy here. My own government, due to regulatory capture, is unlikely to act in my best interests here.
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I kinda hate saying this, but Microsoft (or at least github) got it right in a week. Some OSS publishers also got it right, like nexedi, and some i'm sightly upset with (gitlab) but it is true that for the commercial internet it seems to be invasive. I do not use the commercial internet much, and like any person with greasemonkey, i took a rainy afternoon to remove the most annoying banners (i think now i use a plugi…
The fact that you have to use a plugin or other thecnical remedies to fix the cookie banner situation is all the proof we need to see that the EU totally fucked up. It is easy to declare that you just need to install this or that to get a obstruction-free internet again. But it is also very very elitist. Not even 1% of the population is truly capable of handling that.
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> what a nightmare internet is in Europe I live in Europe; I don't experience this "nightmare". Would you care to expand?
Sure. The nightmare is that every single time you open the browser on a website you have to go through the data tracking preference for that website. It's a lot of work to avoid being tracked (companies are obviously using dark patterns there) and when you do it 20 times a day it gets frustrating quickly and collectively a big waste of human time. Now I am not saying the US doesn't have a problem. They just don't hav…
[0] https://community.mozilla.org/en/campaigns/firefox-cookie-ba...