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Comment by lifeisstillgood | Hacker News Reader

I am surprised - isn't this what we want? Instead of secrecy, governments warn everyone they are being tracked online. And we moan about it. It wrecks the UI, it is annoying. Folks - this is the Snowden debate, but without the security services.

Yes they should have got into the RFC / IEEE debates (which are fast becoming laws of their own), yes they should be doing it better. Yes they should stop monitoring everyone.

But they are at least starting the debate. And not on an obscure tech forum, or in dusty volumes of proceedings, but right there, in everyone's face.

And until we find a way to make privacy and surveillance and technology triggers in every politician's Skinner box, then its probably the best start we can get.

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Not even close. These solutions we have seen, both legal and from the browser level, are the equivalent of walking around nude in a busy city with a sign hanging around your neck saying "Please no photos." (I gave a slightly different analogy in another comment.)

A browser "do not track" request presents absolutely no true privacy, nor does fining forcing all web sites to implement custom pop ups which block site usage if the visitor doesn't agree.

These solutions are stupid, the things they claim to accomplish are already possible by the user's own choice, if someone could be bothered to tell them how to do it.

If these political entities really cared about privacy here are some of the things they would be doing:

a) blocking foreign intelligence agencies from openly monitoring all internet traffic in their country (and I don't just mean the NSA)

b) pass laws radically reducing or eliminating ISP logs rather than increasingly them

c) investigate private companies engaged in mass-surveillance that also use cookie-less tracking techniques. (Facebook mass facial recognition, several nameless companies claiming to prevent ecommerce fraud, etc)

e) spend money educating the public about simple, free, existing techniques to ensure their personal privacy

What you are witnessing in regards to cookies is a hoax, meant only to distract from the real issues.

> if someone could be bothered to tell them how to do it.

Its been clear and simple how to turn off cookies. But the silver haired old grandmother simply does not read those sort of instructions. That kind of knowledge comes from osmosis, from the surrounding culture.

We want to avoid 150 years of pollution before the digital equivalent of the EPA or the Clean Air Act. We want to get the surrounding culture focused on what is tracked and trackable. Snowden has massively moved this on, but putting a web page in front of everyone is also moving it on.

There are no reasonable regulatory fixes to NSA/GCHQ/Russia/China, that are not supported and demanded by a sizeable majority of people.

Not sure how to get there, but claiming this is a hoax is a little unfair

It's not the Snowden debate, not by a long distance. Some cookies (like ad trackers) can be annoying/slightly disturbing, but even before the cookie law they were pretty obviously there and in most cases pretty easily opted out of already if you knew what you were doing.

I don't remember seeing the "opt out of NSA surveillance" option anywhere in my browser or email client.

I agree that the one good thing this law has done is start a debate.

On the downside it is negatively affecting how you interact with websites. Often before I can even determine if I am on the right website I get a pop up message before I can continue.

Recently I was on a shopping site and I clicked no to the cookies thinking it would only stop tracking cookies. Was surprised when my cart wouldn't save. It is silly that this breaks the site's basic functionality.

If anything browser vendors should be doing more. I do not think this can be done via legislation though. I also think prosecuting websites is silly. If these cookies are so toxic the companies running the services should be showing messages.

For example. Analytics. Why is it that I need to "opt in" to this on every site with a pop up? Why can't I just click YES and be done with it when it comes to this service?

You could then have non-tracking cookies essential to the running of the service exempt from this law.

The problem is that there is no debate about how to deal this in pragmatic terms. Instead, they are just issuing fines on businesses that are probably already having a hard time keeping themselves alive.

The whole situation would be completely different it this would have been discussed in practical terms. They could have matured possible technical solutions for this and also made sure that big third party providers (Facebook, Tumblr, etc.) that host websites for EU businesses comply with this regulation, rather than making the business owner responsible.

If you get a fine of €30K I bet you wouldn't call that a debate, correct?

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