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Comment by dt2m | Hacker News Reader

This is going to work out just as well as when the EU banned tracking cookies!

I know this is an unpopular take, but for sites (like Stackoverflow) that give me options (if they don't, some times I just skip), I will select "strict" and continue. This is probably an improvement from previous status-quo for me.

If they were competent, they would have worked with web browser developers, and made it browser side like other permission dialogs.

Imagine what could have been: a standardised prompt that is always the same, persists when clearing cookies, etc. Instead we have full screen modal popups that render 5 seconds after page load and move around while loading.

You mean "do not track"? Good luck with that, even the EU was smart enough to know that that's not an option.

"Do not track" isn't even close to what I'm talking about. The only difference would be that the cookie banner is presented by the browser in a standardised way, similar to e.g. the webcam permissions dialogue. It would have the same (non-existent) legal enforcability as now but the browser could enforce it by blocking cookies and sites would be more usable, with fewer dark patterns.

Ah so a new Web API ?

That could work, yes.

Yes, what people really need when they browse the internet is to be asked every ten seconds what kind of cookies they want, every time a different form with different options that loads so many third-party scripts that my browser chokes...and then you have to fill out the form.

I can see why bureaucrats like this system though, try to inflict the horror of their jobs onto everyone else.

And ofc, this makes no difference for tracking at all. Most people just click whatever option is the default, they have no idea what cookies are, they have no idea how the cookies are being used because the forms don't tell you...what is the decision that is supposedly been improved here? People are still being tracked, but we showed them a totally baffling form and they clicked "Yes"...society has been preserved.

Oh, and you have now split the internet into different regions...it was all worth it, no ragrats.

I see that point, but the problem I have is the sites that offer the option (and respect it) are probably the sites that were the least offensive with tracking to begin with.

Sound like a good rule of thumb on how much to trust a website

I'm mostly pro-EU but the cookie thing is just a display of unbelievable incompetence. It's ridiculous that they still haven't fixed the highly annoying popup problem.

Exactly, I block all cookies (except for a whitelist of sites I need to log into) and that ironically prevents the fucking popups from tracking that they have been clicked away or agreed to.

I use uBlock origin and various CSS injection to get rid of the popups but they don't catch every single one of them.

I wish the US would institute law making unsolicited (i.e. not triggered by a user click, like clicking on "Login") popups illegal, arrest the CEOs of companies that violate this, put them in a CEO jail for a week, make them wear an "I suck" T-shirt and dunce cap, and live stream their faces the entire time.

>arrest the CEOs of companies that violate this, put them in a CEO jail for a week, and live stream their faces the entire time.

I was with you until this point. Then it just turned into vengeance porn.

You are blocking a legitimate use of the web platform.

It is as if you set a dns to the other side of the globe, disabled browser cache and then complained that pages now take longer to load.

Tracking is bad, scary, and with worring consequences in how much ML can predict statical human behaviour, but the solution is not "cookies bad" or "ads bad".

If a website as any kind of first-onboarding interaction (be it a video, some marketing crap, asking for permissions, or whatever) and you disable _any_ form of tracking how are they supposed to know it is not your first visit?

Many of those website do not need to track you, many do so with malicious intent, but the concept of the consent modal itself serves a useful purpose

> I'm mostly pro-EU but the cookie thing is just a display of unbelievable incompetence.

this is an example of you knowing the area they're legislating in better than they do

they're just as bad in pretty much every other area too

What do you want them to do about that? The vast majority of those popups are already illegal according to GDPR. More legislation wouldn't fix that, I think.

When did the EU ban tracking cookies?

The EU regulates tracking cookies. They're not banned, but the requirements for their use are rather strict, due to the interactions between the ePrivacy Directive (2002) and the GDPR (2016).

To GP's broader point, "what about GDPR?" the GDPR basically steps back when other laws apply. Processing personal data requires a legal basis, and one option for legal basis is "Legal Requirement," so if another law says it's required, GDPR says it's OK. And furthermore several provisions (like erasure) don't necessarily apply. GDPR would impose some restrictions like access and notice. The biggest issue is going to be "who is the Controller?", i.e. who 'owns' the data and who is in control of the processing?

Instead of making meaningful change, the EU proceeded to make almost every European website 10x worse with egregious cookie nag screens filled with dark patterns.

They trained users to accept all advertising cookies, while being massive hypocrites (a lot of EU bureaucratic websites ship user data to Google via GA or GTM).

The EU is one of the biggest threats to online freedom. Threatening to ban memes, egregious copyright laws to serve Hollywood interests, cookie nag screens and US media excluding EU IPs altogether because EU law is insane.

Access to media within the EU has never been worse. A significant portion of US news media exclude all EU traffic due to regulation.

> Instead of making meaningful change,

Meaningful change: the ways that web sites track you are now disclosed and require your explicit consent.

> the EU proceeded to make almost every European website 10x worse with egregious cookie nag screens filled with dark patterns.

It is the web sites that have chosen to make your experience worse. The blame lies with them.

Does that not make you wonder what it is that they want to track which is so incompatible with those regulations that they'd rather ban the traffic?

Tracking is a choice. uBlock Origin is a free download. Geoblocking is not a choice.

EU citizens are worse off only having access to insular media with one viewpoint. If you're German and a significant amount of foreign media is either blocked or scorned, you end up enabling giant frauds like Wirecard.

Germany's homegrown DW had fawning coverage of the fraud, calling it remarkable and a "weapon against poverty". [1] [2]

[1] https://www.dw.com/en/whats-behind-the-remarkable-rise-of-ge...

[2] https://www.dw.com/en/is-fintech-the-latest-weapon-in-the-fi...

For what it's worth DW is not allowed to broadcast in Germany and therefore relatively unknown amongst Germans.

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