Hacker News Reader

Comment by drcongo | Hacker News Reader

Many years ago I made TabClosedDidntRead.com - a collection of invasive overlays - to highlight this trend when it first started (and wrote it up [0] though much of that probably doesn't stand up so well now). I had to stop collecting them after a few months as it became most sites rather than some sites, and things have only gotten much worse since. It looks like TC;DR is no longer up, presumably I just lost hope at some point.

[0] https://andybeaumont.com/post/the-value-of-content/

Edit: It seems the Tumblr is still up, just not with the custom domain - https://tcdr.tumblr.com

View on HN

Yep, if I get interrupted before I've even had a chance to see what's on the site, I frequently just close the tab.

Lots of content out there. Very little I really have to read.

Ironically with a "We use cookies!" overlay making me instantly closing the tab

it shouldn't. It is your opportunity to actively decline the tracking of the website.

And if you actually do click the settings tab on some of them, you will see just how many trackers clickbait sites integrate and that will give you at least a choice to opt out.

The GDPR laws im europe are part of the healing process of the internet, therefore not at all compareable with the "please subscribe to my newsletter" popups.

Doesn't make them less annoying though.

Interesting take.

The publisher also could avoid tracking cookies.

I agree, though will add that the GDPR does not require active rejection of tracking. Rather, outside of some narrowly defined use cases, tracking is only permitted when there is explicit consent from the user. If you ignore the GDPR banner, or block it with a filter, the website does not have your explicit permission and is not legally allowed to track you under the GDPR.

see here is the loophole, if you block the banner altogether they will still track you under the disguise of "legitimate interest" vs when you actually deactivated the stuff or use the "reject all" button that the better providers provide, you will, at least for the bigger publishing houses, opt out.

That’s what they currently do, yes, but it’s not really a loophole, so much as willful misunderstanding. Legitimate interest covers things like IP logs for the purpose of network security, and certainly doesn’t cover user tracking for the purpose of targeted advertising.

while i completely agree with you, your information will still end up in some database unless you actually do click to opt out

Cookie banners with [Accept] [View settings] buttons are dark. But these are just HTML forms; even if there's a [Reject] button, I've no reason to suppose it has any different effect to [Accept]. And no - I'm not going to check the HTML source and parse all the Javascript, or crank up the network monitor to find out.

It only takes some people to accept the newsletter/messages to make it worth it, unfortunately. Probably the reason the practice could ever stop would be the marginal cost of the messages or newsletter to rise above engagement. That’s probably much higher for a newsletter than the push notifications.

Nice blog post although the call out to Medium has sadly not aged well!

Yeah, that part aged so poorly I had to move the post.

I love that Tumblr has an app banner and a cookie banner. Ironic.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com