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Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of having the choice to not allow sites to save a truckload of cookies on your computer? If anything maybe we should encourage

Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of having the choice to not allow sites to save a truckload of cookies on your computer? If anything maybe we should encourage having a "master preference" set in the browser, something like DNT (but not so easily ignorable) that just tells all websites on the user's behalf to only allow the absolute minimum number of cookies needed for the site to function. A small message on the bottom of the page could give more details or allow manual changes.

Zamicol 6y ago
The choice is programmatic. You can disable cookies on your browser. You can delete cookies you don't want. Done.
- janoc 6y ago
  The thing is, this is not only about cookies, despite the cookies being the poster child for it. The regulation applies also to all sorts of analytics, fingerprinting, behavior tracking, user tracking, etc., which is far more prevalent and problematic than simple cookies. How do you "delete" that?
  - contravariant 6y ago
    We can still establish that cookies are fine and outright fingerprinting/tracking is not, this isn't even that difficult because on a technical level cookies are the optimal option privacy-wise, in the sense that users have full control over what data is being stored, and to whom it is sent. The problem is that not everyone is aware of this choice and most browsers don't provide safe defaults.
CommanderData 6y ago
Some web admins have no choice if their CMS sets cookies. Theres plenty of content management systems that do just this. OctoberCMS for example sets a cookie for every user and there's no way of turning this off, and lots of WordPress plugins just don't care with no option to disable this behaviour . So most banners are just a notification rather than a choice. e.g. Continue to use the site and you automatically opt in. Which is not the intended goal for the law.
- kd5bjo 6y ago
  > Some web admins have no choice... Of course they do, or one of their superiors does. Computers are physical devices that do what their operators tell them to do; it’s entirely reasonable to hold the operator responsible for what the computer does at their request. That includes the overt behavior of any software they choose to run, and they always have the option to choose different software or, in the extreme case, unplug the server and discontinue service.
- M2Ys4U 6y ago
  >Some web admins have no choice if their CMS sets cookies. Then the solution is simple: Stop using those CMSes. >So most banners are just a notification rather than a choice. e.g. Continue to use the site and you automatically opt in. Which is not the intended goal for the law. That is breaking the law. Generally, people should not do that.
CuriousSkeptic 6y ago
What’s wrong with DNT? Just need some judge to determine that DNT means there is no consent given.
- close04 6y ago
  The problem is that ticking the DNT box will probably have absolutely no effect. At this point we can safely consider it dead. It barely ever saw any adoption, it was easily and "legally" ignored anyway, Apple dropped support for it more than one year ago, and even the W3C DNT working group was dissolved. Now we have GDPR which is legally enforceable (officially) so we could use the technical implementation that can automate applying it.

Zamicol 6y ago

The choice is programmatic. You can disable cookies on your browser. You can delete cookies you don't want. Done.

janoc 6y ago
The thing is, this is not only about cookies, despite the cookies being the poster child for it. The regulation applies also to all sorts of analytics, fingerprinting, behavior tracking, user tracking, etc., which is far more prevalent and problematic than simple cookies. How do you "delete" that?
- contravariant 6y ago
  We can still establish that cookies are fine and outright fingerprinting/tracking is not, this isn't even that difficult because on a technical level cookies are the optimal option privacy-wise, in the sense that users have full control over what data is being stored, and to whom it is sent. The problem is that not everyone is aware of this choice and most browsers don't provide safe defaults.

CommanderData 6y ago

Some web admins have no choice if their CMS sets cookies. Theres plenty of content management systems that do just this. OctoberCMS for example sets a cookie for every user and there's no way of turning this off, and lots of WordPress plugins just don't care with no option to disable this behaviour . So most banners are just a notification rather than a choice. e.g. Continue to use the site and you automatically opt in. Which is not the intended goal for the law.

kd5bjo 6y ago
> Some web admins have no choice... Of course they do, or one of their superiors does. Computers are physical devices that do what their operators tell them to do; it’s entirely reasonable to hold the operator responsible for what the computer does at their request. That includes the overt behavior of any software they choose to run, and they always have the option to choose different software or, in the extreme case, unplug the server and discontinue service.
M2Ys4U 6y ago
>Some web admins have no choice if their CMS sets cookies. Then the solution is simple: Stop using those CMSes. >So most banners are just a notification rather than a choice. e.g. Continue to use the site and you automatically opt in. Which is not the intended goal for the law. That is breaking the law. Generally, people should not do that.

CuriousSkeptic 6y ago

What’s wrong with DNT? Just need some judge to determine that DNT means there is no consent given.

close04 6y ago
The problem is that ticking the DNT box will probably have absolutely no effect. At this point we can safely consider it dead. It barely ever saw any adoption, it was easily and "legally" ignored anyway, Apple dropped support for it more than one year ago, and even the W3C DNT working group was dissolved. Now we have GDPR which is legally enforceable (officially) so we could use the technical implementation that can automate applying it.