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I'm vacationing in Germany right now, and as a news aggregator junkie I'm amazed at how much content is just blocked, with nearly everything else having dark pa

by 13of40 8y ago

I'm vacationing in Germany right now, and as a news aggregator junkie I'm amazed at how much content is just blocked, with nearly everything else having dark patterned UI that either inconveniences or punishes you if you don't accept their tracking. It was really sad to see NPR's options: Either consent to everything or view plain HTML that would render correctly on Mozilla 1.0, with no images.

intrasight 8y ago
>view plain HTML Which is perfect, right?
- reaperducer 8y ago
  No more pesky switching to Lynx!
- isostatic 8y ago
  Pretty much, other than they break the deep link. Follow https://www.npr.org/2018/07/03/625544265/pentagon-questioned-over-war-zone-numbers-blackout https://www.npr.org/2018/07/03/625544265/pentagon-questioned... Redirect to https://choice.npr.org/index.html?origin=https://www.npr.org/2018/07/03/625544265/pentagon-questioned-over-war-zone-numbers-blackout https://choice.npr.org/index.html?origin=https://www.npr.org... Reject the sell-your-soul option and get dumped to https://text.npr.org/ https://text.npr.org/ You should instead be sent to https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=625544265 https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=625544265 There is no technical reason for these sites to not work without accepting cookies -- this is easily proven with curl. The sId is right there in the URL. (of course there's no technical reason the full featured site can't be served either without setting hundereds of external cookies to nameless numbers of companies)
  - bscphil 8y ago
    > You should instead be sent to https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=625544265 https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=625544265 My god that site's beautiful. Add a little CSS to limit the line width and it's perfect.
    - isostatic 8y ago
      Hit reader view https://i.imgur.com/3VSX3VP.png https://i.imgur.com/3VSX3VP.png
    - 13of40 8y ago
      The thing that galled me was that the link I was originally following was to an image. That's a little bit of a deal breaker.
jacobsenscott 8y ago
More likely their site was built on the assumption of a free and open internet, and it would be a massive effort to rebuild it to comply with new regulations. And even if they did it would be obsoleted by future regulations. At this point serving static html to the EU is the only safe choice. Welcome back geocities!
- vt100 8y ago
  Bring back frames!
- pluma 8y ago
  > At this point serving static html to the EU is the only safe choice. Technically even serving a blank page means you need to also serve a privacy policy because accessing the blank page requires the user to submit personal data for technical reasons and they have no way to know whether you'll store it. So, no, there is no "safe choice". Minimalise data use, use a generator to get a compliant privacy policy describing that use and treat your users with respect.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- sincerely 8y ago
  >At this point serving static html to the EU is the only safe choice. This seems like an improvement for probably 90% of the websites out there, so I'm fine with that.

by 13of40 8y ago

intrasight 8y ago

>view plain HTML Which is perfect, right?

reaperducer 8y ago
No more pesky switching to Lynx!
isostatic 8y ago
Pretty much, other than they break the deep link. Follow https://www.npr.org/2018/07/03/625544265/pentagon-questioned-over-war-zone-numbers-blackout https://www.npr.org/2018/07/03/625544265/pentagon-questioned... Redirect to https://choice.npr.org/index.html?origin=https://www.npr.org/2018/07/03/625544265/pentagon-questioned-over-war-zone-numbers-blackout https://choice.npr.org/index.html?origin=https://www.npr.org... Reject the sell-your-soul option and get dumped to https://text.npr.org/ https://text.npr.org/ You should instead be sent to https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=625544265 https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=625544265 There is no technical reason for these sites to not work without accepting cookies -- this is easily proven with curl. The sId is right there in the URL. (of course there's no technical reason the full featured site can't be served either without setting hundereds of external cookies to nameless numbers of companies)
- bscphil 8y ago
  > You should instead be sent to https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=625544265 https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=625544265 My god that site's beautiful. Add a little CSS to limit the line width and it's perfect.
  - isostatic 8y ago
    Hit reader view https://i.imgur.com/3VSX3VP.png https://i.imgur.com/3VSX3VP.png
  - 13of40 8y ago
    The thing that galled me was that the link I was originally following was to an image. That's a little bit of a deal breaker.

jacobsenscott 8y ago

More likely their site was built on the assumption of a free and open internet, and it would be a massive effort to rebuild it to comply with new regulations. And even if they did it would be obsoleted by future regulations. At this point serving static html to the EU is the only safe choice. Welcome back geocities!

vt100 8y ago
Bring back frames!
pluma 8y ago
> At this point serving static html to the EU is the only safe choice. Technically even serving a blank page means you need to also serve a privacy policy because accessing the blank page requires the user to submit personal data for technical reasons and they have no way to know whether you'll store it. So, no, there is no "safe choice". Minimalise data use, use a generator to get a compliant privacy policy describing that use and treat your users with respect.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
sincerely 8y ago
>At this point serving static html to the EU is the only safe choice. This seems like an improvement for probably 90% of the websites out there, so I'm fine with that.