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One more reason to use adblocker. The beauty of 3rd party scripts running on your website, hijacking people's passwords like it's no big deal. I've used Mixpan

by tekkk 9y ago

One more reason to use adblocker. The beauty of 3rd party scripts running on your website, hijacking people's passwords like it's no big deal. I've used Mixpanel as a developer and also been disturbed how they combine analytics data with the user profiles creating really detailed profiles what they do on their website. Even that wouldn't be such a big deal if it was obvious to the user but really there is no law stopping companies from doing it. I hope GDPR will clear this thing out in the future and companies can't operate without user's direct consent and opt-in becomes the standard instead of opt-out.

ryanwaggoner 9y ago
That seems crazy to me. It should be illegal for a website to track what you do on that site? We’re not talking about tracking activity across many sites, and you don’t need a third-party tool to do this at all. If it were illegal, a huge number of sites wouldn’t even function without fundamentally changing the way they work. You know that the HN database has records of all your votes, comments, etc, right? I get the outrage at being tracked by third parties across the web, but that’s different from making it illegal for any website to track any of your activity on their site.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  It should be illegal for a site to store your personal data without your consent, which is what the GDPR dictates for EU residents. What is considered personal data is for governments, regulators, and courts to decide; not website owners. The days of the Internet being the Wild West are coming to a close, and not a moment too soon. Side note: it’s disturbing it took Mixpanel nine months to notice they were ingesting sensitive data. Turn on All The Ad Blocking.
  - ryanwaggoner 9y ago
    I think your view of the GDPR is naive. 99% of people will just consent and that’ll be that. The second they want something the site offers and they have to register (the point at which they’re handing over PII), they’ll be forced to consent, and just like everyone does for cookies and TOS and privacy policy and whatever else, they’ll quickly be trained to consent and move on. I could be wrong, but that’s what I expect. The assymetry here is incredible. That data and the consent has a perceptual value of approximately zero to the consumer, and millions or billions in aggregate to these companies. They’ll figure out a way to get people to consent. Or most of the web just won’t be usable to you.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - toomuchtodo 9y ago
      I think you’re underestimating the intent of the EU and the aggressive enforcement available to them. If we have to break the web, we break the web. Digital rights supercede tech profits.
      - stryk 9y ago
        I have not much more than a cursory understanding of this new law, but holy shit do I hope somebody breaks the web. Fast. This is out of control with the tracking and the monitoring and every other website seems to pull in 14 or so different javascript analytics with who-knows how many 3rd party companies that you had no idea you were interacting with when you went to the original site. I still don't understand how they plan to enforce this law worldwide, though. The EU is powerful, sure, but if I was China I might just tell them to piss off when they come knocking.
        beojan 9y ago
        > The EU is powerful, sure, but if I was China I might just tell them to piss off when they come knocking. It's not really Chinese companies doing the tracking, it's American ones. The EU is simply too big a market for them to ignore.
        stryk 9y ago
        I don't disagree, but China was just an example of a country that could feasibly tell them to get bent. What would they do about it? Trade sanctions? Most of the shit in Europe is made in China, too.
        TeMPOraL 9y ago
        They won't go against China per se. They'll go against individual companies through whatever trade agreements connect Europe and China. Maybe Baidu or Alibaba would be strong enough to use Chinese government to turn this into a stalemate. But it probably wouldn't be worth the effort. I doubt they make that much money of wanton analytics abuse anyway. For every other company though, they either comply with GDPR or get out of the European market. (The trick depends in part on companies wanting access to EU more than EU wanting a particular company to sell to its people.)
- kangoo1707 9y ago
  How would startups gather BI information then?
  - tzahola 9y ago
    Not my problem.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    By asking politely?
  - templar_muse 9y ago
    Why do they need it and are they gathering purely for the sake of gathering?
bluesign 9y ago
‘One more reason to use adblocker. The beauty of 3rd party scripts running on your website, hijacking people's passwords like it's no big deal.’ Yeah but soon adblock and 3rd party adaptation will reach critical mass, we will start to see, 3rd party tools integrated as 1st party (with subdomains etc) then adblocks will be not much efficient
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  We can't win this war with technology alone. It's good the GDPR is coming on the data collection front, because the only way you can stop this fuckery is through out-of-band threat of legal problems.
- chopin 9y ago
  This could backfire badly. I don't use an explicit adblocker but NoScript, which blocks almost as efficient (and makes tracking more difficult). For the occasional site I allow 1st party script. If sites start to serve me malware this way, I will block them right away, too. I can't do business with you without Javascript enabled? I just move on to the next one. Or I go back to brick and mortar. As well, serving malware 1st party may have some legal consequences if got caught.

by tekkk 9y ago

ryanwaggoner 9y ago

That seems crazy to me. It should be illegal for a website to track what you do on that site? We’re not talking about tracking activity across many sites, and you don’t need a third-party tool to do this at all. If it were illegal, a huge number of sites wouldn’t even function without fundamentally changing the way they work. You know that the HN database has records of all your votes, comments, etc, right? I get the outrage at being tracked by third parties across the web, but that’s different from making it illegal for any website to track any of your activity on their site.

toomuchtodo 9y ago
It should be illegal for a site to store your personal data without your consent, which is what the GDPR dictates for EU residents. What is considered personal data is for governments, regulators, and courts to decide; not website owners. The days of the Internet being the Wild West are coming to a close, and not a moment too soon. Side note: it’s disturbing it took Mixpanel nine months to notice they were ingesting sensitive data. Turn on All The Ad Blocking.
- ryanwaggoner 9y ago
  I think your view of the GDPR is naive. 99% of people will just consent and that’ll be that. The second they want something the site offers and they have to register (the point at which they’re handing over PII), they’ll be forced to consent, and just like everyone does for cookies and TOS and privacy policy and whatever else, they’ll quickly be trained to consent and move on. I could be wrong, but that’s what I expect. The assymetry here is incredible. That data and the consent has a perceptual value of approximately zero to the consumer, and millions or billions in aggregate to these companies. They’ll figure out a way to get people to consent. Or most of the web just won’t be usable to you.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    I think you’re underestimating the intent of the EU and the aggressive enforcement available to them. If we have to break the web, we break the web. Digital rights supercede tech profits.
    - stryk 9y ago
      I have not much more than a cursory understanding of this new law, but holy shit do I hope somebody breaks the web. Fast. This is out of control with the tracking and the monitoring and every other website seems to pull in 14 or so different javascript analytics with who-knows how many 3rd party companies that you had no idea you were interacting with when you went to the original site. I still don't understand how they plan to enforce this law worldwide, though. The EU is powerful, sure, but if I was China I might just tell them to piss off when they come knocking.
      - beojan 9y ago
        > The EU is powerful, sure, but if I was China I might just tell them to piss off when they come knocking. It's not really Chinese companies doing the tracking, it's American ones. The EU is simply too big a market for them to ignore.
        stryk 9y ago
        I don't disagree, but China was just an example of a country that could feasibly tell them to get bent. What would they do about it? Trade sanctions? Most of the shit in Europe is made in China, too.
        TeMPOraL 9y ago
        They won't go against China per se. They'll go against individual companies through whatever trade agreements connect Europe and China. Maybe Baidu or Alibaba would be strong enough to use Chinese government to turn this into a stalemate. But it probably wouldn't be worth the effort. I doubt they make that much money of wanton analytics abuse anyway. For every other company though, they either comply with GDPR or get out of the European market. (The trick depends in part on companies wanting access to EU more than EU wanting a particular company to sell to its people.)
kangoo1707 9y ago
How would startups gather BI information then?
- tzahola 9y ago
  Not my problem.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  By asking politely?
- templar_muse 9y ago
  Why do they need it and are they gathering purely for the sake of gathering?

bluesign 9y ago

‘One more reason to use adblocker. The beauty of 3rd party scripts running on your website, hijacking people's passwords like it's no big deal.’ Yeah but soon adblock and 3rd party adaptation will reach critical mass, we will start to see, 3rd party tools integrated as 1st party (with subdomains etc) then adblocks will be not much efficient

TeMPOraL 9y ago
We can't win this war with technology alone. It's good the GDPR is coming on the data collection front, because the only way you can stop this fuckery is through out-of-band threat of legal problems.
chopin 9y ago
This could backfire badly. I don't use an explicit adblocker but NoScript, which blocks almost as efficient (and makes tracking more difficult). For the occasional site I allow 1st party script. If sites start to serve me malware this way, I will block them right away, too. I can't do business with you without Javascript enabled? I just move on to the next one. Or I go back to brick and mortar. As well, serving malware 1st party may have some legal consequences if got caught.