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A lot sites moved on to merge their privacy policies with their cookie policies, and they disallow access if you don't accept all of their tracking methods. How

A lot sites moved on to merge their privacy policies with their cookie policies, and they disallow access if you don't accept all of their tracking methods. How do you judge those examples? I'm not referring to those hiding the options to opt-out deep within their policies, sometimes even with text links, but those with absolute consent, i.e., either accept or move on.

Zealotux 8y ago
My wording was indeed inappropriate (I'm not a native speaker), "dark patterns" are subjective but I'd say: - the less privacy-friendly option is a big shiny button, while privacy controls are behind a small greyed link - hiding the privacy options behind many interactions, basically making it as frustrating as possible to find the opt-out, I always find that amusing to read "We value your privacy" while I spend so much time looking for actual control over my privacy - all of the "partners" checked by default (non GDPR compliant), with no easy way to deselect all ("select all" is, however, usually an option) - bait and switch: when you go to partners' settings, checking the checkbox is actually requesting to opt-out, but to know that you need to read a long, grey paragraph with a small font size at the very end of the list - punishing the user by making it unnecessarily slow to opt-out, most of them are legitimate from my finding, but I've noticed a few fake loadings (zero requests in the network tab), it may simply be due to poor engineering though (Hanlon's razor) - redirecting the user from the original content after he opted-out, also feels like an intended punishment to me (but same as before: can be explained by poor engineering) The list is non-exhaustive, but I wish I had better writing abilities to share my observations in a Medium article or something like that.
- chrismorgan 8y ago
  (Meta: please don’t use code formatting for lists; just use a paragraph for each list item, that way it’s readable. You can even use U+2022 BULLET • as the marker instead of - if the fancy takes you!)
  - Zealotux 8y ago
    Thanks a lot, I was wondering how to format it!

Zealotux 8y ago

My wording was indeed inappropriate (I'm not a native speaker), "dark patterns" are subjective but I'd say: - the less privacy-friendly option is a big shiny button, while privacy controls are behind a small greyed link - hiding the privacy options behind many interactions, basically making it as frustrating as possible to find the opt-out, I always find that amusing to read "We value your privacy" while I spend so much time looking for actual control over my privacy - all of the "partners" checked by default (non GDPR compliant), with no easy way to deselect all ("select all" is, however, usually an option) - bait and switch: when you go to partners' settings, checking the checkbox is actually requesting to opt-out, but to know that you need to read a long, grey paragraph with a small font size at the very end of the list - punishing the user by making it unnecessarily slow to opt-out, most of them are legitimate from my finding, but I've noticed a few fake loadings (zero requests in the network tab), it may simply be due to poor engineering though (Hanlon's razor) - redirecting the user from the original content after he opted-out, also feels like an intended punishment to me (but same as before: can be explained by poor engineering) The list is non-exhaustive, but I wish I had better writing abilities to share my observations in a Medium article or something like that.

chrismorgan 8y ago
(Meta: please don’t use code formatting for lists; just use a paragraph for each list item, that way it’s readable. You can even use U+2022 BULLET • as the marker instead of - if the fancy takes you!)
- Zealotux 8y ago
  Thanks a lot, I was wondering how to format it!