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I’ve always thought this should be a browser feature. It would be more useful than the DNT header, anyway...

• MithrilTuxedo 6y ago
  I think of websites as just programs that run on a platform, a browser, which has a much smaller API than an operating system but effectively is one. On the one hand, these notices are akin to EULAs some programs make you click through when you first run them. We're more desensitized to those now, but they were never mandatory. On the other, I can't remember the last time an app maker got in trouble for keeping track of what users do. I can see it making sense to know that a single entity has been tracking you through a diversity of websites, but you enabled cookies in your browser for a reason. The site I deliberately chose to download and run the code of shouldn't need my permission to save state for that site. Android prompts you when an app needs permissions. OSX has started promoting you for permission the first time an app wants to access the filesystem. Seems a bit arbitrary to make websites handle that.
• drdaeman 6y ago
  This is what happens if browser vendors don't solve the issue with technical measures, being too afraid to break things. (Not surprising, given that a the largest one, being or close to being a de-facto monopolist, has conflict of interests on the matter of user tracking and profiling.) We get a legal solution which is poorly understood, has weird unintended side effects (because it was made by non-experts) essentially breaking things (just... non-technically), and doesn't really prevent the bad actors from continuing what they did.
  • anoncake 6y ago
    This issue can't be solved purely with technical measures, unless you're willing to accept major loss of functionality. The GDPR is fine, enforcement is what's awful.