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Which sounds a lot like the "DNT" (do not track) or Microsoft's "P3P" (Platform for Privacy Preferences Project) headers. Which both failed, because if companie

Which sounds a lot like the "DNT" (do not track) or Microsoft's "P3P" (Platform for Privacy Preferences Project) headers. Which both failed, because if companies were required to respect those standards, all advertising and tracking would be extremely easy for users to opt out across the board as a single global preference. The problem is that each site can choose its own text to display, which buttons/options it shows, and how those settings are supposedly enforced. This doesn't belong in the html of a site. This is exactly what a cross-browser preference should be doing. Which should probably be a modern–and most importantly standardized equivalent–of the P3P header. Every site should have a static set of options it can request, so users are used to accepting or declining the same set of permissions regardless of the site that is visited. Otherwise agreeing to the per-site cookie banner is just as convoluted as expecting users to read Terms and Conditions policies. I have never read the text in a cookie banner, and I never will. I click the OK/Accept button immediately, just like any T&C/ULA. Imagine if requesting webcam, microphone, notifications, or gps/location permissions were possible by a site including its own custom banner, and if you clicked OK/Accept, it immediately got access to those features. Of course browsers don't allow this, because sites would abuse it and trick users into granting permissions when not desired. Instead, your browser provides a standardized prompt for requesting such permissions. There is no reason for tracking cookies to be exempt from being required to follow the same model.

vertex-four 6y ago
The trick of the GDPR vs those browser technologies is that there’s actually regulation because obviously the industry can not be trusted to self-regulate. Indeed, there should be an enforced UI, but that’s not how the EU tends to regulate on privacy, and without EU regulation none of the companies currently trying to entirely ignore the GDPR will use it. They have put out guidance that some current attempts at pretending to comply are illegal, and I expect to see fines regarding that in the next couple of years - the difficulty is creating a solid case that isn’t going to undermine the GDPR through case law. I wonder, though, if there were a dirt simple API for consent in the browser, whether independent developers who would honestly like to comply would use it.

vertex-four 6y ago

The trick of the GDPR vs those browser technologies is that there’s actually regulation because obviously the industry can not be trusted to self-regulate. Indeed, there should be an enforced UI, but that’s not how the EU tends to regulate on privacy, and without EU regulation none of the companies currently trying to entirely ignore the GDPR will use it. They have put out guidance that some current attempts at pretending to comply are illegal, and I expect to see fines regarding that in the next couple of years - the difficulty is creating a solid case that isn’t going to undermine the GDPR through case law. I wonder, though, if there were a dirt simple API for consent in the browser, whether independent developers who would honestly like to comply would use it.