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Around the time the whole cookie banner thing started, Forbes had this particular one that acted like turning off nonessential cookies was this whole convoluted
by junon 5y ago
Around the time the whole cookie banner thing started, Forbes had this particular one that acted like turning off nonessential cookies was this whole convoluted process that required waiting and processing something. There'd be a progress bar stating "please wait, processing your request".
Looking at the JavaScript, it was a setTimeout() for quite a long time.
I knew exactly what kind of company Forbes was after that.
- jnsaff2 5y agoIsn’t that what google AMP does as well when you block some of their garbage?
- ffofevdgx 5y agoAnd now you also know what kind of company google is.
- carlmr 5y agoI mean it's a company that looks up to rich people, no matter how they got there. Scamming is legitimate if it makes you rich, right?
- simonblack 5y agoForbes is a company that caters to "wannabee" rich people, rather than the 'real rich'. 'Real Rich' people can usually see past scams and similar bullshit. If they couldn't, they wouldn't remain rich for long. :)
- wolverine876 5y ago> Forbes had this particular one that acted like turning off nonessential cookies was this whole convoluted process that required waiting and processing something. There'd be a progress bar stating "please wait, processing your request". Weather Underground, formerly an indie weather service that IIRC goes back to a telnet interface before the web existed, does something similar. A window from trustarc.com appears showing a progress meter counting up the percentage 'processed', alongside "We are processing your request, this could take up to a few minutes to process." Haha. I flipped 2 bits. Now owned by The Weather Company (who also owns The Weather Channel), who are owned by IBM, who proudly say it uses the IBM Cloud, which apparently needs a few minutes to process this. Shameful deception of end-users. I had used wunderground for my entire life on the Internet until I saw that. The National Weather Service is pretty good - and no dark patterns.
- zinekeller 5y agoEvery American should thank NWS (amd their equivalent state/local meteorology offices if they exists on your area) for basically doing their job.
- pjc50 5y agoAlways entertains me that name, given the organisation that previously used it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Underground https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Underground
- callalex 5y agoIt’s my understanding that they mostly just regurgitate NWS data you already paid for and slap some ads on it.
- vgaldikas 5y agoWhat would be the logic of doing this?
- faeyanpiraat 5y agoYou had the option to “accept everything and continue instantly” when you were waiting.
- junon 5y agoYou could enable predatory advertising cookies instantly without waiting.
- voakbasda 5y agoIt is a coercive tactic to get people to accept their tracking cookies
- VPenkov 5y agoSometimes users find a loader reassuring that the operation is working. I can think of many instances where, as a web developer, I've been asked to implement a loader because an important process finishes too quickly. Now this is anecdotal and may not be why the publisher did it but it can see why it would be implemented.
- mort96 5y agoThat's fair, but it isn't just a few seconds to give the impression that something is working, it's multiple minutes of watching a percentage slooowly climb from 0% to 100%. It's obviously just a cheap trick to annoy people who turn off their spyware.
- VPenkov 5y agoAha, maybe I misunderstood the example initially. In this case it could be a rate limiting feature that would ensure your browser is not making an excessive amount of http requests. That said, some parallelization should happen so it could go faster. So it does sound like there was no attempt to make it good for users.
- Adrox 5y agoExcept it only happens when you don't wanna be tracked. In case you opt-in for ALL the cookies it's instantaneous...
- xigoi 5y agoTurning off spyware requires zero requests. You could even say it requires a negative number of requests.
- vurpo 5y agoThis process requires no requests, no processing, nothing at all. It's literally asking the user "do you want us to make extra requests and data processing, or not do anything at all?", so choosing the "no" option should result in nothing at all being done "behind the scenes".
- deckard1 5y agoGlad I'm not the only one that has noticed this scam going on. I've seen a number of sites doing it. One site I saw this on you had to wait an entire minute. Guess it's time for a new set of laws...
- andylynch 5y agoIt’s already illegal- this is the exact kind of nonsense Google and Facebook were fined for at the end of last year. Strangely the Irish data protection agency seems less enthusiastic.
- rightbyte 5y agoThe Irish state gets some sweet ad money from harbouring Google in the EU. Edit: They also protect Facebook ...
- luciusdomitius 5y agoAlright, but was it any better when for example NYT employed the 'click-to-subscribe-call-to-cancel' model? I remember that relatively well, because 13 years ago I used to trust them and was literally shocked when I had to spend 85 minutes and ~130 EUR on a 2009 international call.
- shapefrog 5y agowhat about jimmy over there ... he did this thing last year, it was so terrible you would not believe. really puts things into perspective, makes you think.
- luciusdomitius 5y ago
- junon 5y agoNo but that is orthogonal to the discussion.
- jml7c5 5y agoDid they use TrustArc? A number of companies use the fake progress bar they provide. Here's an HN thread about Starbucks doing it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28500092 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28500092 (which links to https://twitter.com/pixelscript/status/1436664488913215490 https://twitter.com/pixelscript/status/1436664488913215490 )
- junon 5y agoThe name sounds awfully familiar, yeah.