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Comment by moring | Hacker News Reader

Ironically, the exact same site greets users with a cookie warning, training them towards the behavior they were surprised about.

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Brexit can provide them a way to remove that nonsense. I mean they will be free to adjust their local laws away from EU regulations where needed.

Many sites outside EU jurisdiction still abide by EU privacy/cookie laws. Not all for sure. It is typically easier for a developer to target the most demanding laws for all users vs different experiences and more code paths to dynamically offer based on region. I don’t expect anything to change in this regard.

The bigger problem about these nag screens is the poor UX. I often just accept the defaults because it is far, far quicker than trying to find the Opt out option. I especially hate sites that then take you to a config screen to pick and choose from providers. All I want is a binary Yes or No, with each option getting equal equivalence in the UI.

> I often just accept the defaults because it is far, far quicker than trying to find the Opt out option.

That is why opt-out is illegal.

Agreed. I guess the sites I'm complaining about are technically opt-in by legal terms, although opt-out in usability terms (making the no tracking option far more hassle than the yes tracking option)

The legal definition of "opt-out" is exactly the same as the "usability" definition: if you need to click anything other than "OK" in order to opt out of being tracked, then it's opt-in.

Which means that

> Many sites outside EU jurisdiction still abide by EU privacy/cookie laws.

is completely wrong. I would not be surprised if those popups put many sites out of compliance because they mean that the site is targeted at EU citizens.

Or just not track people [with cookies] when it's not essential?

Sure, and get 350 mln a week to fund NHS.

The UK weakening privacy laws when they can do so actually sounds very plausible.

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