7 ms·

I think consulting tech companies should be something they need to do, otherwise we end up with crap like that cookie banner.

matheusmoreira 5y ago
Why can't they just hire expert advisors themselves? That way they don't need to consult companies who have conflicts of interest.
- krono 5y ago
  Imagine the number of ex-bigcorp applicants for those positions that coincidentally left their previous employee on exactly the date the job offers went up ;)
  - matheusmoreira 5y ago
    Just exclude anyone with any relation to corporations.
    - krono 5y ago
      Filling corruption-sensitive positions is a really difficult problem. On one hand it's near impossible to trust the purity of anyone with ties to the opponent, whilst on the other it is precisely and pretty much only those people that have expertise, experience, and inside knowledge that one requires to achieve meaningful success. Also, if you were chief evil at bigco, wouldn't you keep some people without any backlink around precisely for situations like these?
- Jensson 5y ago
  They do. I know software engineers who work for the government on regulations etc. Then those experts consults with the company experts to talk about what regulations should look like.
chmod775 5y ago
That cookie banner is mostly corporations trying to be sneaky and trying to trick people into giving consent, or just flat-out misunderstanding the regulation. You need no cookie banner if you only use cookies as required by the service you provide to the user. For instance if a user is trying to log in, you don't need to ask for permission to set a cookie for that. The consent is implicit. If you want to set tracking cookies on the other hand...
- kiklion 5y ago
  > That cookie banner is mostly corporations trying to be sneaky and trying to trick people into giving consent, or just flat-out misunderstanding the regulation. If the cookie banner satisfies the regulations and is the path of least resistance, then companies are going to use it. If the EU doesn’t want the cookie banner everywhere then the regulations need to not allow it. It is much, much easier to put a banner up than to audit every application and technology used to ensure nothing tracks the user.
  - chmod775 5y ago
    > If the cookie banner satisfies the regulations That's joke though. Most of them don't. And upon getting called out and/or fined, corporations right now just edge a bit further towards an actually compliant implementation - rinse and repeat. Currently we're in the state of "what if we made it really sloooow and convoluted to opt out?" - which is also not compliant because that makes not giving consent harder than giving consent. At some point we're going to be there, but right now we're not. The cookie banners as they are implemented right now are mostly wishful thinking by adtech: "Hopefully this will be enough?" It's not. But nobody wants to be the first to stop widely tracking people and going back to good old contextual ads. They're going to wait until the EU turns the heat up to 100 and maybe even then wait for a competitor to blink first.
    - rndgermandude 5y ago
      Max Schrems' (of the SchremsI and SchremsII court decisions) noyb group is now aiming for sites with non-compliant banners[1], having filed a first round of over 400 GDPR complaints. It will take years before the regulators come up with rulings and those decisions have been litigated, like it usually does, but it's good to see that somebody at least started the process as the regulators themselves have been - as usual - dragging their feet. [1] https://noyb.eu/en/noyb-files-422-formal-gdpr-complaints-nerve-wrecking-cookie-banners https://noyb.eu/en/noyb-files-422-formal-gdpr-complaints-ner...
junon 5y ago
They should consult organizations that aren't out to invade privacy for monetary gain. For example, EFF.
- input_sh 5y ago
  There's plenty of EFFs out there in Europe. Most of them are country-specific, but they also have an EU-wide... coalition, for the lack of a better word: https://edri.org/about-us/our-network/ https://edri.org/about-us/our-network/
BiteCode_dev 5y ago
The banner is not because of the law, it's because of the sites. You don't have to put that banner: just don't track people. When you see such banner, don't get angry at the law, get angry at all those websites that are tracking you.

matheusmoreira 5y ago

Why can't they just hire expert advisors themselves? That way they don't need to consult companies who have conflicts of interest.

krono 5y ago
Imagine the number of ex-bigcorp applicants for those positions that coincidentally left their previous employee on exactly the date the job offers went up ;)
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  Just exclude anyone with any relation to corporations.
  - krono 5y ago
    Filling corruption-sensitive positions is a really difficult problem. On one hand it's near impossible to trust the purity of anyone with ties to the opponent, whilst on the other it is precisely and pretty much only those people that have expertise, experience, and inside knowledge that one requires to achieve meaningful success. Also, if you were chief evil at bigco, wouldn't you keep some people without any backlink around precisely for situations like these?
Jensson 5y ago
They do. I know software engineers who work for the government on regulations etc. Then those experts consults with the company experts to talk about what regulations should look like.

chmod775 5y ago

That cookie banner is mostly corporations trying to be sneaky and trying to trick people into giving consent, or just flat-out misunderstanding the regulation. You need no cookie banner if you only use cookies as required by the service you provide to the user. For instance if a user is trying to log in, you don't need to ask for permission to set a cookie for that. The consent is implicit. If you want to set tracking cookies on the other hand...

kiklion 5y ago
> That cookie banner is mostly corporations trying to be sneaky and trying to trick people into giving consent, or just flat-out misunderstanding the regulation. If the cookie banner satisfies the regulations and is the path of least resistance, then companies are going to use it. If the EU doesn’t want the cookie banner everywhere then the regulations need to not allow it. It is much, much easier to put a banner up than to audit every application and technology used to ensure nothing tracks the user.
- chmod775 5y ago
  > If the cookie banner satisfies the regulations That's joke though. Most of them don't. And upon getting called out and/or fined, corporations right now just edge a bit further towards an actually compliant implementation - rinse and repeat. Currently we're in the state of "what if we made it really sloooow and convoluted to opt out?" - which is also not compliant because that makes not giving consent harder than giving consent. At some point we're going to be there, but right now we're not. The cookie banners as they are implemented right now are mostly wishful thinking by adtech: "Hopefully this will be enough?" It's not. But nobody wants to be the first to stop widely tracking people and going back to good old contextual ads. They're going to wait until the EU turns the heat up to 100 and maybe even then wait for a competitor to blink first.
  - rndgermandude 5y ago
    Max Schrems' (of the SchremsI and SchremsII court decisions) noyb group is now aiming for sites with non-compliant banners[1], having filed a first round of over 400 GDPR complaints. It will take years before the regulators come up with rulings and those decisions have been litigated, like it usually does, but it's good to see that somebody at least started the process as the regulators themselves have been - as usual - dragging their feet. [1] https://noyb.eu/en/noyb-files-422-formal-gdpr-complaints-nerve-wrecking-cookie-banners https://noyb.eu/en/noyb-files-422-formal-gdpr-complaints-ner...

junon 5y ago

They should consult organizations that aren't out to invade privacy for monetary gain. For example, EFF.

input_sh 5y ago
There's plenty of EFFs out there in Europe. Most of them are country-specific, but they also have an EU-wide... coalition, for the lack of a better word: https://edri.org/about-us/our-network/ https://edri.org/about-us/our-network/

BiteCode_dev 5y ago

The banner is not because of the law, it's because of the sites. You don't have to put that banner: just don't track people. When you see such banner, don't get angry at the law, get angry at all those websites that are tracking you.