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Comment by cyral | Hacker News Reader

I see they are also annoyed at cookie banners:

> SEC. 210. UNIFIED OPT-OUT MECHANISMS. For the rights established under sections 204(b) and (c), and section 206(c)(3)(D) not later than 18 months after the date of enactment of this Act, the Commission shall establish one or more acceptable privacy protective, centralized mechanisms, including global privacy signals such as browser or device privacy settings, for individuals to exercise all such rights through a single interface for a covered entity to utilize to allow an individual to make such opt out designations with respect to covered data related to such individual.

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Was scanning for this thanks for pointing it out. Some of these banners are infuriating, and if I use firefox containers sometimes I see them over and over, especially if I'm clearing my cookies. It is insane to me that this isn't already a standard.

Standardization was attempted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Track

the tl;dr for that story is that it wasn't mandated to be honored, the industry didn't voluntarily adopt it widely, and when IE 10 tried to turn it on by default and the standard's lead supporter responded by submitting a patch to Apache web server to ignore the DNT signal coming from IE 10 because "does not protect anyone's privacy unless the recipients believe it was set by a real human being, with a real preference for privacy over personalization," that situation pretty much killed it in the crib.

The problem is technologically simple to solve; all the challenges are social and legal.

It's kind of hilarious that of all the datapoints websites will gorge upon, DNT is the one thing they all toss out.

I believe DNT was used for better browser fingerprinting.

I wonder if a browser plugin that utilizes AI would work as a sidestep to a standardized cookie dialog. Granted someone would have to build such a tool and standardization seems inevitable at some point. Shouldn't be too difficult to build something like that.

There's a browser plugin called uMatrix that lets you block cookies and javascript on a per-site basis. I just have it blocking all cookies by default unless its a site I need to log in to.

There is a standard that has some recognition and uptake (though needs more) - Global Privacy Control. It’s been adopted by some browsers and publishers, and IIRC is a requirement for CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) compliance. https://globalprivacycontrol.org/

They'll just make it so complicated where you have to use an embed from Google or something to implement it properly, similar to CCPA.

In the end Google ends up in a script on the page somehow in the name of privacy.

uBlock Origins has "annoyances" blocklists that takes care of most of those banners.

They need to specify that this has to work in an anonymous, per device way (like DNT).

Otherwise, google could claim its current policies are compliant. ("Just log in if you want to be 'anonymous'...")

Google does not rely on a user being logged in. Go to adsettings.google.com in a logged out state, for example. I'm not sure what you're referring to.

That's only for ad personalization. If you want to turn off web and app activity, you have to be logged in.

The ad industry has had these opt-outs for a while, but you have to set opt-out cookies on about 500 sites, so it's not practical. DNT solves that problem, but the industry won't voluntarily adopt any solution that has any realistic chance of making a difference.

I went to the site. (They misspelled the DNS name "adssettings.google.com)

I opted out.

I pressed the trash can button in Firefox Focus.

I reopened the site. It said I was opted in.

Their "disable tracking" button simply does not work.

I'm not enabling cookies so I can opt out and they can just buy my tracking information from some other ad network. There is a reason I disable persistent cookies and want DNT headers to be legally binding.

halle-fuckin-lujah please don't make it some bullshit centralized service where you have to have a specific cookie from a random website to actually use it. please just expand DNT.

In the sick world we live in, ad companies would love a more granular DNT response from your browser so they can use it to fingerprint you.

More likely it will be GPC (https://globalprivacycontrol.org).

Sigh. I have my cookies enabled because I want to use them. If I didn't, I wouldn't enable them. I wish there were a "fuck GDPR, I agree to whatever terms" browser setting.

GDPR doesn't disallow cookies, it disallows tracking cookies, afaik. Tracking data is not yours too see, so how could you use them? Do you mean that you want personalized ads?

I want to use the site without getting a banner. Some require me to agree to cookies. I don't care what they do with the cookies. Almost nobody does.

Principle of least privilege. If websites ask for camera permission they should have a good reason, and you should be able to disable it in the browser. Unfortunately, you can't enforce what cookies will be used for technically, so it's done legally instead. But the preference could still be in the browser, where it belongs. I'd be fine being denied service if I don't allow tracking cookies.

Another option would be to spoof/containerize/pollute/sabotage the cookies through the browser or an extension, and opt back in for sites that you need persistence with.

Principle of least privilege is for things the client can control, like sending the cookies in the first place. There has already been a "do not track" option since 2010. It got basically deprecated because nobody respected it. And even if they tried to enforce it, and I actually cared about being tracked, I wouldn't trust it.

I sure care. I never agree to any cookies, and instead, I use an ad blocker to hide the banner. I can't speak for most people but of you care about your privacy, tracking cookies should become an opt-in mechanism.

Yeah, you care, but most people probably just click accept. I want an "I don't care" option. Ad-blocking the banner only goes so far and is harder on mobile.

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