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Sigh, this is what browsing the web in the EU looks like nowadays (2021)

mmazzarolo.com

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Re: Sigh, this is what browsing the web in the EU looks like nowadays (2021)

#91

Post by madeofpalk »

danudey wrote: post #86
nottorp wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All they have to do is stop tracking us and only use login cookies if i log in. Simple enough. Any other cookies are not "table stakes".

Website analytics can be incredibly useful for designers and developers; giving those up would be a huge hit to a lot of companies, large and small, so it's understandable that they're not going to do so. Random example from more than a decade ago: I worked at an online retailer, and we did a nice redesign of our cart page. Looked great, much more readable, but we started losing sales. Did people hate the redesign? I…

Analytics can be useful! They're not 'table stakes' though. The website will continue to work without them.

If you want analytics, just get consent for be tracked.

Re: Sigh, this is what browsing the web in the EU looks like nowadays (2021)

#92

Post by pjc50 »

It's a deeply stupid local minimum that the EU has ended up in because they were afraid to mandate details, and also afraid to just ban tracking for advertising purposes altogether. So you end up with a situation where:

- most people are tracked on almost all websites by a small number of US megacorps (e.g. google analytics could probably reproduce complete browser histories for most Europeans, and most likely does for some intelligence agency)

- AND most people have their time wasted by consent banners

- AND small companies worry about compliance costs (my least favourite aspect of EU law is it doesn't understand the need to exclude small companies from complex requirements)

It's non-confrontational to a fault and therefore ineffective.

Re: Sigh, this is what browsing the web in the EU looks like nowadays (2021)

#94

Post by danudey »

mmazzarolo wrote: post #70
menus wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is your post is titled to be a hit piece against the EU Ads, Reddit popup, bad cambridge.org design are experienced by non EU too A more accurate title like ""Sigh, this is what browsing the web looks like nowadays"" would not have gotten you criticism

Lol. It did, back in the day, with people saying "this is not accurate, since it's only a EU thing".

I'm in Canada and I get the cookie popups all the time as well. I'm glad for the opportunity to explicitly reject cookies, but it's still irritating.

Re: Sigh, this is what browsing the web in the EU looks like nowadays (2021)

#95

Post by pjc50 »

danudey wrote: post #86
nottorp wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All they have to do is stop tracking us and only use login cookies if i log in. Simple enough. Any other cookies are not "table stakes".

Website analytics can be incredibly useful for designers and developers; giving those up would be a huge hit to a lot of companies, large and small, so it's understandable that they're not going to do so. Random example from more than a decade ago: I worked at an online retailer, and we did a nice redesign of our cart page. Looked great, much more readable, but we started losing sales. Did people hate the redesign? I…

> Website analytics can be incredibly useful for designers and developers; giving those up would be a huge hit to a lot of companies, large and small, so it's understandable that they're not going to do so.

Yes, but the cost of doing that through GA is that a single US megacorp outside EU jurisdiction can reconstruct most users entire browsing history for whatever US intelligence wants to do with it.

Re: Sigh, this is what browsing the web in the EU looks like nowadays (2021)

#96

Post by jdietrich »

cameronh90 wrote: post #45
tester756 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, let's blame EU for websites spying on you If website uses cookies just for legit purposes (e.g auth, language choice), then it doesn't need to show cookie consent. Webmasters should get awarness on this or stop spying

Is there anyone who actually consents for any other reason than the consent button being either to click than more options? Would we accept this kind of behavioural tracking in real life? Of course not. Just ban tracking for advertising purposes entirely, or at the last least mandate that sites respect the do not track header and require browser manufacturers implement it as opt-in. The cookie pop-up is a dumb law.

>Is there anyone who actually consents for any other reason than the consent button being either to click than more options?

If the "reject all" button isn't as easy to click as the "accept all" button, then the popup is illegal. The big players have all been forced into compliance, but there's a long tail of publishers who are chancing their arm on the assumption that the regulators don't have the resources to deal with everyone. That's probably a reasonable assumption in the short term, but the EU are playing the long game.

Re: Sigh, this is what browsing the web in the EU looks like nowadays (2021)

#97

Post by loa_in_ »

whalesalad wrote: post #55
greybox wrote: post #25

A reminder that websites wouldn't need to do this if their intention wasn't to track you all over the internet. It's google, facebook etc that are trying to shove these things down your throat, not the EU.

That ship has sailed. It is now on the end user to protect themselves. These banners are just plain noise. No one is reading them. People will click whatever they need to click to dismiss the dialog. The general computing population does not give a shit, and the ones who do will use privacy-oriented browsers and platforms.

Nothing is written in stone or in stars. Nd there used not to be legislation. And now there's legislation that fights towards user consent, so I don't see how anything has sailed anywhere. It's just a bunch of company code that needs to change, with a quick solution of a multiple-deletion commit as an option in most instances.

Re: Sigh, this is what browsing the web in the EU looks like nowadays (2021)

#98

Post by hoorayimhelping »

Kovah wrote: post #21

Instead of hating the EU, how about directing your hate towards the bad players of the web? Cookie banners are not the fault of the EU, but the fault of companies disrespecting privacy rights and pushing data collection, ads and all possible shady growth hacking strategies towards the user. I am glad that a government body actually made this possible and made visible how horrible the internet is.

It's not like this is limited to "bad players." It's standard procedure for almost every website. Whether that's good or bad is a separate topic - the point it's not just nefarious people using cookies to watch user behavior. Normal people use this information to make their websites better and create more effective products for people. Which is exactly what people said when this legislation was introduced. So instead of actually fixing anything, they made it worse. Now we're being tracked _and_ we have annoying nags that block content show up on every website, exactly like people said would happen when this legislation was introduced.

It's the same tired nonsense as when regulators try to tax a business that's already operating on thin margins and act surprised when the business passes the cost to their customers instead of eating it.

I'm not upset with the intent of what they were trying to do, which was noble; the upsetting thing is that it was patently obvious their hamfisted implementation would lead to this outcome, and they did it anyway, knowing they could count on people to deflect blame away from them.

Re: Sigh, this is what browsing the web in the EU looks like nowadays (2021)

#99

Post by qeternity »

Kovah wrote: post #21

Instead of hating the EU, how about directing your hate towards the bad players of the web? Cookie banners are not the fault of the EU, but the fault of companies disrespecting privacy rights and pushing data collection, ads and all possible shady growth hacking strategies towards the user. I am glad that a government body actually made this possible and made visible how horrible the internet is.

> disrespecting privacy rights

It's not as if these companies are kicking in your door and violating your right to privacy. You're accessing their site with a device that is configured to transmit whatever you have it set to.

If you don't want cookies, disable cookies. If you want greater control, go and configure it yourself. Stop forcing your preferences on everyone.

The reality is that outside of a vocal contingent on HN, most people simply do not care. They won't pay a cent for their ad supported services. And I for one hate the endless consent popups and GDPR hoops I have to jump through. As an expat in London, I can't read many local news stories in the US because those sites simply block the traffic instead of trying to comply with a foreign law.

Re: Sigh, this is what browsing the web in the EU looks like nowadays (2021)

#100

Post by yomlica8 »

sshine wrote: post #40
itake wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a guess, but even people that don't want to be tracked choose the easy "accept everything" button than spending the time to customize the tracking. If companies DoNotTrack, they will have fewer people opting-in for tracking.

> even people that don't want to be tracked choose the easy "accept everything" button The design of these consent forms is often so obscure I end up in some menu system with too much information I didn't want, and no hotkeys to go back except leave the website.

I usually right click these and choose ublock origin's block element to make it go away. I actually don't know what that means as I never answered the question one way or the other.
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