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Comment by max_ | Hacker News Reader

GDPR was useless it just gave us horrible pop-ups. And legal overhead for software developers.

Despite widespread belief, the cookie pop-ups are not related to GDPR, but to a law passed several years earlier, ePrivacy:

https://gdpr.eu/cookies/

Also, the popups are designed to be annoying in a way that you click through blindly. Companies can easily comply with these laws without being as obtrusive, e.g. using gradual permissions, using less jarring ui elements, or simply reducing the scope of their cookies in the first place.

It’s adding billions a year to the EU budget so useless is entirely in the eye of the beholder.

And enforcing our rights to privacy. Every data leak should be a reminder of the importance of these laws.

GDPR was created to legitimise trade of personal data. It was done in a two step approach. First there was a cookie law, to train people to give consent to anything that pops up without reading, then GDPR where people give consent to data processing without even thinking about it.

Then big corporations have a legal basis for trade of such data where before GDPR it was a grey area. Now they can say - users have consented for us to slice, dice and sell all the data related to them.

GDPR was never about protection or to benefit citizens. One of the greatest deceptions.

Nice conspiracy lmao. As if users needed training to click away popups.

The point is, users are accustomed to clicking whatever without reading for it to go away as quickly as they can.

They were trained on benign cookie banners and GDPR consent popups look very much the same but are more consequential. Most people don't even understand the difference.

It's not a conspiracy. States never work for benefit of the general public, but for big corporations that "lobby" for the policies that suit them.

I understood your point. I’m saying it’s silly and you’re a conspiracist. Clicking things away without reading is an innate behavior of every normie and people who don’t read well, even when they first start using computers.

  > First there was a cookie law, to train people to give consent to anything that pops up without reading

People sitting in front of computers have been blindly clicking Yes to get work done for decades. I remember decades ago watching dumbfounded as people would click through Windows' orgasmic install dialogs (Yes, Yes, Yes, Finish) without ever reading or understanding what they were doing.

That's not the same. Most GDPR consent pop ups are exactly the same as "benign" cookie banners people are trained to mindlessly click to go away, actual giving consent for their data to be repackaged and sold.

This is not my experience with GDPR. The short-term response of the ad tech industry has been to not change their ways, but to address this issue with disclaimers. This is where the cookie pop-ups and thoughtless consent interaction patterns come from.

GDPR was never about these pop-ups. It is about getting actual consent.

"By clicking on the button below, you consent with us and our 381 partners to do whatever the hell they want" may be legally acceptable in the US, but in the EU it isn't.

I know for a fact that lawyers and activists are currently challenging these patterns.

Using disclaimers to address GDPR is the short-term solution that was shaped by a US-led ad tech industry to address an EU law. I'd be surprised if 5 years from now these pop-ups are still the norm.

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