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Comment by bb101 | Hacker News Reader

The most egregious violation I've seen is weather.com's cookie process. Go to https://weather.com/en-GB/ and click "Proceed with required cookies only". It's almost theatrical: first a spinning loading wheel, then the message "We are processing your request, this could take up to a few minutes to process." Then wait for their "Processing 0%" countdown take a few minutes to reach 100%. Anyone would think they are trying to discourage people from choosing that option?

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Looking at the network requests when you hit that button it seems to be hitting a lot of tracking providers opt out API endpoints. Which is good I suppose, though better not to even include their scripts until you agree to it

So if I opt-out, it (basically) sends my ip address to lots of trackers?

Why? That sounds illegal.

Why doesn't it simply not load the trackers?

Ooops, erm, technical reasons I guess.

Well, it could have been really easier to implement the opt out it later by this design, but it is more likely, that the dataflow is intended.

Just the fact that it sends out-out HTTP calls to all those providers means that they now know that you are using that website. It's terrible design.

Pretty sure it's designed with that in mind...

The saying not to attribute to malice what could be explained by incompetance only works if the actor isn't generally malicious. AdTech definitely is.

Hilarious. While I was observing this I also noticed

> Weather.com - an IBM business

felt like it explained this design pattern perfectly

Wasn't it owned by Disney previously? I think that more accurately explains the tracking obsession.

Wasn't it owned by Disney previously? I think that more accurately explains the tracking obsession.

No, it wasn't. It was at one time partially owned by NBC. Perhaps that's what you remember.

It was created by Landmark, then offloaded in 2008 to NBCUniversal who still own it under Comcast.

There's another one of these things that's used on lots of sites, that takes three (3!) minutes, with no network requests or anything happening after the first couple of seconds. I forget the name of the company behind it, but it's a large one, one of the ones that sites proudly proclaim with a "protected by X" image.

It's beyond a dark pattern - it's plain fucking disgusting behaviour.

> It's beyond a dark pattern - it's plain fucking disgusting behaviour.

As I mentioned in my other comment, I suspect it's actually forbidden by the GDPR, but that doesn't stop anyone.

Someone should set up a Wall of Shame for these.

I do wonder if some of the "No" requests are being throttled. Seem to be a lot slower than "Yes" on a lot of sites.

> Anyone would think they are trying to discourage people from choosing that option?

I realise it's comically unenforced, but doesn't the GDPR forbid websites from doing that?

Obvious ugly workaround: use a Private Browsing session for that website.

Still getting a unique finger print when I open a "private" browsing window. Might as well skip hard hats and use paper bags instead, the effectiveness is similar.

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