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Comment by blantonl | Hacker News Reader

to also be fair, I just recently returned from Europe and I was shocked at how maddeningly frustrating it was to simply use the Web. Between shockingly obtrusive GDPR consent forms and outright blocks on Websites from EU consumers, it was a wild look at what Europeans have to go through under the guise of consumer protections.

Like, the pendulum swung WAY too far in the other direction.

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Not under the guise. They are consumer protections. As a European, I like them very much.

It surfaces which websites use stronger tactics to track you, and which allow consumer friendly opt-outs. There are even many websites that don’t need the notices as they don’t use cookies for tracking a natural person (their cookies are not associated with personally identifiable information).

So we can choose what we use because we are informed.

It surfaces which websites use stronger tactics to track you, and which allow consumer friendly opt-outs.

The problem is I didn't see a single web site that I visited where this was apparent. It was a mess of opt-in pop-ups and settings and whatnot that completely overwhelmed me with actionable things I had to do before I could interact with a site, and often many companies clearly just said F it and blocked anyone from Europe.

It becomes apparent after a while. Generally, the websites that have very intrusive pop-ups or no real way to opt-out of associating cookies with personally identifiable information (that is what the notice is for) present themselves as information abusers, and that is a very important signal. I have very low trust that they respect privacy or have it as a value in their business. So it's good to know I shouldn't use their services nor hand over any personal data.

Some websites have become region-locked, but I found that it's mostly those who cater to American audiences anyways. Perhaps if you travelled to Europe, this was more of a problem for you because you wanted to read the local news back home. For us, back home is here, so local American websites region-locking us out isn't a big inconvenience. They probably only do this if European audiences don't make up much of their readership anyways — they wouldn't want to lose significant ad revenue.

AFAIK many cookie consent banners are actually against the law. IIUC denying any non-essential cookies should always be as easy as accepting all cookies. This is something many cookie banners have not managed.

So to me this seems more like the tech-companies and websites being annoying at implementing an easy solution, in order to rebel against the laws and make people angry at it for the inconvenience, then the law itself being bad.

(https://measuredcollective.com/why-your-cookie-banner-is-pro...)

How about not allowing "1579 partners" to track every click on your website?

> Between shockingly obtrusive GDPR consent forms and outright blocks on Websites from EU consumers,

None of which are required by GDPR. In fact, those obtrusive "consent" forms are usually violations of GDPR.

As much as the idea of GDPR (and specifically cookie consent) is well intentioned, the actual laws themselves aren't great. Cookie consent is especially frustrating because it encourages the creators of the consent popups to use dark patterns to try and trick people into just accepting them.

Cookie consent only apply to non-necessary cookies.

The laws are great because every cookie consent form is essentially saying, "we as a company want you to accept a cookie that is unnecessary."

If you don't install unnecessary cookies, you don't need to have a consent form.

Do you think the official EU site uses unnecessary cookies? https://european-union.europa.eu/

1. Yes it does

2. It clearly explains which cookies it uses in the linked policy page

3. It has an opt-out that is as easy as the opt-in (as required by law)

Correct, but unfortunately that applies to the vast majority of websites. It wouldn't be so bad if the consent dialogs had an option to reject all optional cookies but unfortunately too many of them still try and trick or force you into accepting all cookies.

> It wouldn't be so bad if the consent dialogs had an option to reject all optional cookies

As is explicitly required by law

Yep, but there are still plenty out there which do not. The likelihood of them being forced to correct this is essentially nil though.

Yeah, that's the main issue I have: the enforcement of the law is lagging/lacking

> Cookie consent only apply to non-necessary cookies.

There’s a different issue here: lawyers and companies are often concerned that what they deem necessary will be deemed unnecessary when challenged. So, they require cookie consent preemptively to avoid liability in case they get it wrong.

There's no chance in hell those 2761 "partners" that ask for user data are ever necessary

Hell, a lot of the 3rd party companies who are contracted to build the cookie consent forms are even following the spirit of the law (barely) by including a one click "reject all" button or link in the pop ups. They are often somewhat downplayed, like being in a smaller font or slightly hidden, because fuck you, but are you really so damn lazy that clicking "reject all" once every hour is such an objectionable activity that you'd rather just dump any and all consumer protections of data?

> Between shockingly obtrusive GDPR consent forms

Imagine if companies didn't collect copious amounts of user data and didn't try to use every trick in the book and all known dark patterns to make you give up that data.

"We care about privacy by selling your data to 2765 'partners' and are blaming GDPR for this"

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