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in addition to the cookie banner vandalism committed by the EU, another problem that needs solving is legal agreements: it is not acceptable to run a society in

in addition to the cookie banner vandalism committed by the EU, another problem that needs solving is legal agreements: it is not acceptable to run a society in a way that involves frequently requiring the public to sign documents they obviously haven’t read. I don’t know what the solution is, but I suspect it involves a massive devolution of power away from lawyers, so that they are no longer allowed to simply create agreement documents as long and complex as they want. The new documents must literally be such that it is probable that all users who sign, have read. That probably means just one or two short sentences. In other words an “agreement” would not be legally valid unless it was short and simple enough for it to be empirically likely that the user has read it, unless we are in a situation in which a user has explicitly selected a service that they are told involves high legal complexity.

dmitriid 5y ago
> in addition to the cookie banner vandalism committed by the EU You mean cookie banner vandalism committed by companies who couldn't care about laws and privacy and trick people into consenting through barely legal and illegal popups.
- da39a3ee 5y ago
  Not sure what you mean. What alternative action to putting up a banner do you propose for the huge numbers of companies that are apparently using cookies in a way that requires a banner? All the companies putting up banners today are clearly using cookies in a manner that would require a banner under EU rules. The EU knew this, and knew the effect their rules would have on the aesthetics and UX of the internet. Hence “vandalism”.
  - almavi 5y ago
    An alternative may be to stop tracking users and sharing cookie data with third parties by default.
  - Y_Y 5y ago
    Well the obvious solution is to stop using these cookies, since they're not necessary for the site's function. I know the site wants to scrape your data to optimize against and sell, but maybe they could just not?
    - dangerface 5y ago
      If its an eCommerce site then tracking and logging users is a necessary function in the same way as any brick and mortar tracks and logs its customers. A brick and mortar doesn't need your consent to track you on cctv because accessing the store is the consent why should a website require your consent for the same thing? The law is just a bad idea poorly executed, like the obsession with cookies? I assume the law is for normies that don't understand that websites are using cookies to track them, but normies don't know that cookies are used to track them so informing them that the site uses cookies means nothing to them, they will agree cookies not knowing they are actually agreeing to being tracked. From the point of view of a developer the cookie obsession also causes problems, like what if I use cookies to store the fact that people don't want to be tracked so I don't pester them with the notice? do I need a notice for that? What if I don't use cookies but an e-tag for the same purpose. If I uniquely fingerprint your browser can I then just track anyone anywhere without consent? Im not using cookies. If the EU wanted to ban tracking users they could easily have just wrote that into law instead of this legal, technical and practical mess.
      - dmitriid 5y ago
        > A brick and mortar doesn't need your consent to track you on cctv GDPR is superseded by more specific laws, of course. For example, you can use CCTVs for security, but you also have to prominently display a notice that the store uses CCTV cameras. Also, you cannot store that data indefinitely long, you can't sell it to other parties etc. So, can websites track and log their users? Yes. Can they sell that data to a million ad agencies? No. Can they use that data to track the user to their home? No. > The law is just a bad idea poorly executed The law is an amazing idea. The poor execution is purely on the part of companies (and also developers like you) who have become so used to collecting all the data they can wholesale that they can't even imagine not doing it. > like what if I use cookies to store the fact that people don't want to be tracked so I don't pester them with the notice? So, save that cookie, there's literally nothing stopping you from doing that. > If the EU wanted to ban tracking users they could easily have just wrote that into law That's basically what they did: you can't collect personal user information that's not required for the functioning of your business without consent. This literally prevents tracking.
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    > What alternative action to putting up a banner do you propose for the huge numbers of companies that are apparently using cookies in a way that requires a banner? 1. If you use cookies that are strictly necessary for your site to function, you don't need the banner, at all. 2. For anything else you need a banner. So, the question is: is it EU that "vandalised the web with cookie banners" or "huge number of companies" that indiscriminately collect and sell your data?

dmitriid 5y ago

> in addition to the cookie banner vandalism committed by the EU You mean cookie banner vandalism committed by companies who couldn't care about laws and privacy and trick people into consenting through barely legal and illegal popups.

da39a3ee 5y ago
Not sure what you mean. What alternative action to putting up a banner do you propose for the huge numbers of companies that are apparently using cookies in a way that requires a banner? All the companies putting up banners today are clearly using cookies in a manner that would require a banner under EU rules. The EU knew this, and knew the effect their rules would have on the aesthetics and UX of the internet. Hence “vandalism”.
- almavi 5y ago
  An alternative may be to stop tracking users and sharing cookie data with third parties by default.
- Y_Y 5y ago
  Well the obvious solution is to stop using these cookies, since they're not necessary for the site's function. I know the site wants to scrape your data to optimize against and sell, but maybe they could just not?
  - dangerface 5y ago
    If its an eCommerce site then tracking and logging users is a necessary function in the same way as any brick and mortar tracks and logs its customers. A brick and mortar doesn't need your consent to track you on cctv because accessing the store is the consent why should a website require your consent for the same thing? The law is just a bad idea poorly executed, like the obsession with cookies? I assume the law is for normies that don't understand that websites are using cookies to track them, but normies don't know that cookies are used to track them so informing them that the site uses cookies means nothing to them, they will agree cookies not knowing they are actually agreeing to being tracked. From the point of view of a developer the cookie obsession also causes problems, like what if I use cookies to store the fact that people don't want to be tracked so I don't pester them with the notice? do I need a notice for that? What if I don't use cookies but an e-tag for the same purpose. If I uniquely fingerprint your browser can I then just track anyone anywhere without consent? Im not using cookies. If the EU wanted to ban tracking users they could easily have just wrote that into law instead of this legal, technical and practical mess.
    - dmitriid 5y ago
      > A brick and mortar doesn't need your consent to track you on cctv GDPR is superseded by more specific laws, of course. For example, you can use CCTVs for security, but you also have to prominently display a notice that the store uses CCTV cameras. Also, you cannot store that data indefinitely long, you can't sell it to other parties etc. So, can websites track and log their users? Yes. Can they sell that data to a million ad agencies? No. Can they use that data to track the user to their home? No. > The law is just a bad idea poorly executed The law is an amazing idea. The poor execution is purely on the part of companies (and also developers like you) who have become so used to collecting all the data they can wholesale that they can't even imagine not doing it. > like what if I use cookies to store the fact that people don't want to be tracked so I don't pester them with the notice? So, save that cookie, there's literally nothing stopping you from doing that. > If the EU wanted to ban tracking users they could easily have just wrote that into law That's basically what they did: you can't collect personal user information that's not required for the functioning of your business without consent. This literally prevents tracking.
- dmitriid 5y ago
  > What alternative action to putting up a banner do you propose for the huge numbers of companies that are apparently using cookies in a way that requires a banner? 1. If you use cookies that are strictly necessary for your site to function, you don't need the banner, at all. 2. For anything else you need a banner. So, the question is: is it EU that "vandalised the web with cookie banners" or "huge number of companies" that indiscriminately collect and sell your data?