4 ms·

GitHub Removes “Cookie Banners”

24 points by theBashShell 6y ago

m1gu3l 6y ago
my cynical half is thinking they said, "well if all these other ways to track you online exist what the hell let's roll back cookies to look good for the privacy-concerned set." this seems like just privacy theatre based marketing. maybe github is actually being good here though, who knows?
- SahAssar 6y ago
  The laws (GDPR and the so called "cookie law") do not say anything about cookies specifically, so tracking users in other ways that still identify them similarly while not being necessary would still require the banner and consent.
  - proactivesvcs 6y ago
    And would still be illegal in the ways Web sites that try to hide behind "consent" banners are.
  - merb 6y ago
    it depends if you use a cookie to track individual visitors but do so by generating a hash and saving it into a database that is legal. if you save something along that hash, which would identify somebody or some kind of hash based on browser/ip, that would be illegal. btw. ip addresses still needs to be saved by german means (when users can log in), since if you are a big service you need to give authorities the identity to your users, if they made something illegal. it's really really wierd.
    - p_l 6y ago
      Add the same time, IP addresses or generally user identity are GDPR radioactive waste, so one needs all the sophisticated measures to handle that.
      - merb 6y ago
        its basically authorities > privacy > corporate greed
- zaptheimpaler 6y ago
  to be cynical, github is simply the friendly dev facing arm of Microsoft. and they will be friendly only as long as MS is trying to win more developers over.
  - proactivesvcs 6y ago
    And we all know how Microsoft enjoys its mandatory data exfiltration, particularly towards developers (WSL mandates full Windows 10 telemetry, for example).
    - hansvm 6y ago
      I particularly enjoyed how some of the privacy toggles would appear to work but not actually persist their state when reloaded. That was the last straw; I replaced the network card with something Linux-compatible, threw on Gentoo, and haven't looked back.
      - proactivesvcs 6y ago
        And the increasingly-dark patterns, appearing with every new Feature Update, to trick the user into allowing Microsoft to siphon off yet more data. I jumped ship once Windows 7 reached EOL as I saw this coming years prior :-\
        hansvm 6y ago
        Wish I'd had you to consult way back then :)
jwilk 6y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25457440 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25457440

24 points by theBashShell 6y ago

my cynical half is thinking they said, "well if all these other ways to track you online exist what the hell let's roll back cookies to look good for the privacy-concerned set." this seems like just privacy theatre based marketing. maybe github is actually being good here though, who knows?

SahAssar 6y ago
The laws (GDPR and the so called "cookie law") do not say anything about cookies specifically, so tracking users in other ways that still identify them similarly while not being necessary would still require the banner and consent.
- proactivesvcs 6y ago
  And would still be illegal in the ways Web sites that try to hide behind "consent" banners are.
- merb 6y ago
  it depends if you use a cookie to track individual visitors but do so by generating a hash and saving it into a database that is legal. if you save something along that hash, which would identify somebody or some kind of hash based on browser/ip, that would be illegal. btw. ip addresses still needs to be saved by german means (when users can log in), since if you are a big service you need to give authorities the identity to your users, if they made something illegal. it's really really wierd.
  - p_l 6y ago
    Add the same time, IP addresses or generally user identity are GDPR radioactive waste, so one needs all the sophisticated measures to handle that.
    - merb 6y ago
      its basically authorities > privacy > corporate greed
zaptheimpaler 6y ago
to be cynical, github is simply the friendly dev facing arm of Microsoft. and they will be friendly only as long as MS is trying to win more developers over.
- proactivesvcs 6y ago
  And we all know how Microsoft enjoys its mandatory data exfiltration, particularly towards developers (WSL mandates full Windows 10 telemetry, for example).
  - hansvm 6y ago
    I particularly enjoyed how some of the privacy toggles would appear to work but not actually persist their state when reloaded. That was the last straw; I replaced the network card with something Linux-compatible, threw on Gentoo, and haven't looked back.
    - proactivesvcs 6y ago
      And the increasingly-dark patterns, appearing with every new Feature Update, to trick the user into allowing Microsoft to siphon off yet more data. I jumped ship once Windows 7 reached EOL as I saw this coming years prior :-\
      - hansvm 6y ago
        Wish I'd had you to consult way back then :)

jwilk 6y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25457440 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25457440