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I'm pretty confident this is to comply with a recent EU ruling that held that EU antispam laws apply to display ads that look like an email in your inbox. In e

I'm pretty confident this is to comply with a recent EU ruling that held that EU antispam laws apply to display ads that look like an email in your inbox. In essence the left prompt is a marketing email opt-in, even if it doesn't look like one (nastier people than I would say it's disguising its true nature - not I, of course). Here's the CJEU case in question: https://www.insideprivacy.com/european-union-2/court-of-justice-of-the-eu-finds-that-advertising-shown-in-email-inbox-is-subject-to-rules-on-direct-marketing/ https://www.insideprivacy.com/european-union-2/court-of-just...

MonaroVXR 5y ago
>display ads that look like an email in your inbox. Like the ones in my Gmail.
- lopis 5y ago
  There are ads in Gmail??
  - drexlspivey 5y ago
    There are ads on the internet?
    - n4bz0r 5y ago
      I think I've even seen ads out of the internet!
      - ratww 5y ago
        They show up before you finish setting up the browser and installing the extensions required for daily usage.
  - Mogzol 5y ago
    If you have the tabbed inbox enabled (i.e. Social, Promotions, Updates, Forums), then Gmail will insert ads into the non-primary tab that look almost like regular emails. If you have the tabs disabled so that all your messages show up in the Primary inbox, you don't get ads.
    - gpt5 5y ago
      To be fair, they are only showing it in the “promotions” tab, which is where all the other junk mail goes to.
iqanq 5y ago
- getcrunk 5y ago
  Yes, damn governments always after our benevolent corporations
  - nannal 5y ago
    I say cut the red tape! So what if there are children in the mines? it just means more & cheaper asbestos for everyone.
    - martin8412 5y ago
      Who's the government to say I can't sell sugar pills as the cure for cancer?!
    - foxfluff 5y ago
      Ah but haven't you heard that nobody would buy asbestos, let alone from a mine with children? Because the market is rational, ethical, and fully informed. That's in the very definition of free market pitalism.
  - drstewart 5y ago
    Exactly. The fact is that the government is infallible, and any criticism means you think all corporations are benevolent. Comcast SHOULD have a government-enforced monopoly over internet service! If you think that is overregulation: "Yes, damn governments always after our benevolent corporations"
- mola 5y ago
  I suspect it's because of American tech companies egregiously monitizing their customers
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
tempnow987 5y ago
Good find. Every prompt I see I now wonder, did the EU do this? I came across an EU site that now make you click accept before they show you the LINK to a youtube video. This is a video they made themselves. It's really interesting
- leobg 5y ago
  You cannot even embed fonts or libraries from a CDN. Because this could be construed as “leaking the visitor’s IP address” to the non-EU “Ausland”. You either have to host everything yourself, or ask the user for consent first.
  - david422 5y ago
    Once again, shouldn't that be controlled by the browser? The users browser is making the request, not the website.
    - leobg 5y ago
      Of course. Any engineer would solve it that way. And it ran just fine as a browser setting since the 1990s. But the EU isn’t run by engineers. It’s run by bureaucrats who try to save the web without understanding it. They’ve heard nothing of Chesterton’s Fence.
      - pojzon 5y ago
        Im pretty sure EU passed GDPR as a response to brexit figgling and facebook/google avoiding paying taxes.” Hurting EU market immensly. Politics dont understand the web but noticed its dengerous if left unregulated.
        _abox 5y ago
        Not really. GDPR preparations predated the Brexit vote. It was even completed and passed several months before the vote even happened (back when everyone still expected it to fail, even Cameron who initiated it has no expectation it would pass) And EU tax avoidance is mainly done through Ireland and the Netherlands which are still member states.
nerdponx 5y ago
That's pretty sneaky. Most users will select "more space". Clearly a deliberate Catch 22 for users. Such a disgustingly unethical design. What kind of sick people come up with this stuff? Edit: Perhaps showing ads in line with real emails is less visually intrusive then traditional "banner" ads. I take issue specifically with the false choice presented to users in order to manipulate them.
- andrei_says_ 5y ago
  Which choice results in ads being fully eliminated by ublock and pi-hole?
- mixedCase 5y ago
  >What kind of sick people come up with this stuff? Well, Microsoft in this case, and companies like it. They're out to maximize the profit they can extract from their users, so they will do so. People aren't leaving their products in large enough quantities for them to stop doing it. Which makes this a good opportunity to re-evaluate whether you really need any of their products, or at least see if you can reduce your dependency on anti-user companies.
  - nerdponx 5y ago
    Don't forget the other side of it: we as programmers, designers, PMs, etc. have a lot more concentrated power than end users do. One of many good reasons to unionize is the ability to set professional standards.
    - PaulHoule 5y ago
      This. For people in the software biz I think being allowed to make quality products is one of the most important aspects of our working conditions, particularly for our social standing in the long term.
    - Griffinsauce 5y ago
      Professional standards have a hard time against monetary incentives. We should work towards making dark patterns simply illegal and removing those incentives. Edit: AND unionize AND vote for proper labor rights that make unions unnecessary. I just mean to say that it's better to remove the problem rather than trying to "battle" it with more force.
mandeepj 5y ago
> this is to comply with a recent EU ruling then should n't that UI layout be specific only to EU users?
- haunter 5y ago
  The linked Twitter user lives in Portugal
jrochkind1 5y ago
It's pretty clear which one they want you to pick. Oh, you don't want ads that look like email, I guess you want less space on your screen and slower-loading? Okay fine Mr. Likes Less Space and Slower Loading.
- bentcorner 5y ago
  Whenever I see these kinds of choices it always seems like the "bad" choice is the right one. Similar to clicking buttons during checkout flow that literally say things like "No, I don't want extra protection for my purchase".
  - DangitBobby 5y ago
    Try applying this rule to any popup modals, calls-to-action, and other unsolicited software interactions: Identify the button decorated as "primary" and click the other button instead.
    - monetus 5y ago
      I wonder how many modals use the fine-print button, or even an X, as the primary one, having trained so many users to instantly close modals by searching for those.
tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
"Would you like misleading fake email ads, or big ugly ads?"
ben_w 5y ago
Huh. When did various mail providers start deciding to go from having a spam filter as a selling point to having spam built in?
- account42 5y ago
  Around when they decided they could use their "spam" filter to filter out competing or idependent mail providers.
dillondoyle 5y ago
that's so interesting. and an odd ruling?! I've boughten yahoo email ads. and tried gmails promoted version. it's a really interesting idea and seems better than outright spam plus email inboxes have a huge amount of valuable data it could be one of the most relevant ad experiences if they truly leveraged that data. I buy ads and don't have a problem with a lot of the industry, i'm minority on that here. To me highly relevant ads are way better than mortgage loan quicken shit ads and virus crap I see otherwise.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  I think part of the difference here is that you see ads at all. Most of us who hate tracking block ads completely so it's not a choice between relevant ads or irrelevant ones. Either way we don't see them so limiting tracking has no downsides. But I would especially hate ads showing up in my mailbox. I pay for O365 business so they don't, but if they did I would drop the service immediately. Spam is a big problem and artificially adding ads on top of all that makes it even bigger.
inopinatus 5y ago
Not all “malicious compliance” is to be celebrated.

MonaroVXR 5y ago

>display ads that look like an email in your inbox. Like the ones in my Gmail.

lopis 5y ago
There are ads in Gmail??
- drexlspivey 5y ago
  There are ads on the internet?
  - n4bz0r 5y ago
    I think I've even seen ads out of the internet!
    - ratww 5y ago
      They show up before you finish setting up the browser and installing the extensions required for daily usage.
- Mogzol 5y ago
  If you have the tabbed inbox enabled (i.e. Social, Promotions, Updates, Forums), then Gmail will insert ads into the non-primary tab that look almost like regular emails. If you have the tabs disabled so that all your messages show up in the Primary inbox, you don't get ads.
  - gpt5 5y ago
    To be fair, they are only showing it in the “promotions” tab, which is where all the other junk mail goes to.

iqanq 5y ago

getcrunk 5y ago
Yes, damn governments always after our benevolent corporations
- nannal 5y ago
  I say cut the red tape! So what if there are children in the mines? it just means more & cheaper asbestos for everyone.
  - martin8412 5y ago
    Who's the government to say I can't sell sugar pills as the cure for cancer?!
  - foxfluff 5y ago
    Ah but haven't you heard that nobody would buy asbestos, let alone from a mine with children? Because the market is rational, ethical, and fully informed. That's in the very definition of free market pitalism.
- drstewart 5y ago
  Exactly. The fact is that the government is infallible, and any criticism means you think all corporations are benevolent. Comcast SHOULD have a government-enforced monopoly over internet service! If you think that is overregulation: "Yes, damn governments always after our benevolent corporations"
mola 5y ago
I suspect it's because of American tech companies egregiously monitizing their customers
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

tempnow987 5y ago

Good find. Every prompt I see I now wonder, did the EU do this? I came across an EU site that now make you click accept before they show you the LINK to a youtube video. This is a video they made themselves. It's really interesting

leobg 5y ago
You cannot even embed fonts or libraries from a CDN. Because this could be construed as “leaking the visitor’s IP address” to the non-EU “Ausland”. You either have to host everything yourself, or ask the user for consent first.
- david422 5y ago
  Once again, shouldn't that be controlled by the browser? The users browser is making the request, not the website.
  - leobg 5y ago
    Of course. Any engineer would solve it that way. And it ran just fine as a browser setting since the 1990s. But the EU isn’t run by engineers. It’s run by bureaucrats who try to save the web without understanding it. They’ve heard nothing of Chesterton’s Fence.
    - pojzon 5y ago
      Im pretty sure EU passed GDPR as a response to brexit figgling and facebook/google avoiding paying taxes.” Hurting EU market immensly. Politics dont understand the web but noticed its dengerous if left unregulated.
      - _abox 5y ago
        Not really. GDPR preparations predated the Brexit vote. It was even completed and passed several months before the vote even happened (back when everyone still expected it to fail, even Cameron who initiated it has no expectation it would pass) And EU tax avoidance is mainly done through Ireland and the Netherlands which are still member states.

nerdponx 5y ago

That's pretty sneaky. Most users will select "more space". Clearly a deliberate Catch 22 for users. Such a disgustingly unethical design. What kind of sick people come up with this stuff? Edit: Perhaps showing ads in line with real emails is less visually intrusive then traditional "banner" ads. I take issue specifically with the false choice presented to users in order to manipulate them.

andrei_says_ 5y ago
Which choice results in ads being fully eliminated by ublock and pi-hole?
mixedCase 5y ago
>What kind of sick people come up with this stuff? Well, Microsoft in this case, and companies like it. They're out to maximize the profit they can extract from their users, so they will do so. People aren't leaving their products in large enough quantities for them to stop doing it. Which makes this a good opportunity to re-evaluate whether you really need any of their products, or at least see if you can reduce your dependency on anti-user companies.
- nerdponx 5y ago
  Don't forget the other side of it: we as programmers, designers, PMs, etc. have a lot more concentrated power than end users do. One of many good reasons to unionize is the ability to set professional standards.
  - PaulHoule 5y ago
    This. For people in the software biz I think being allowed to make quality products is one of the most important aspects of our working conditions, particularly for our social standing in the long term.
  - Griffinsauce 5y ago
    Professional standards have a hard time against monetary incentives. We should work towards making dark patterns simply illegal and removing those incentives. Edit: AND unionize AND vote for proper labor rights that make unions unnecessary. I just mean to say that it's better to remove the problem rather than trying to "battle" it with more force.

mandeepj 5y ago

> this is to comply with a recent EU ruling then should n't that UI layout be specific only to EU users?

haunter 5y ago
The linked Twitter user lives in Portugal

jrochkind1 5y ago

It's pretty clear which one they want you to pick. Oh, you don't want ads that look like email, I guess you want less space on your screen and slower-loading? Okay fine Mr. Likes Less Space and Slower Loading.

bentcorner 5y ago
Whenever I see these kinds of choices it always seems like the "bad" choice is the right one. Similar to clicking buttons during checkout flow that literally say things like "No, I don't want extra protection for my purchase".
- DangitBobby 5y ago
  Try applying this rule to any popup modals, calls-to-action, and other unsolicited software interactions: Identify the button decorated as "primary" and click the other button instead.
  - monetus 5y ago
    I wonder how many modals use the fine-print button, or even an X, as the primary one, having trained so many users to instantly close modals by searching for those.

tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago

"Would you like misleading fake email ads, or big ugly ads?"

ben_w 5y ago

Huh. When did various mail providers start deciding to go from having a spam filter as a selling point to having spam built in?

account42 5y ago
Around when they decided they could use their "spam" filter to filter out competing or idependent mail providers.

dillondoyle 5y ago

that's so interesting. and an odd ruling?! I've boughten yahoo email ads. and tried gmails promoted version. it's a really interesting idea and seems better than outright spam plus email inboxes have a huge amount of valuable data it could be one of the most relevant ad experiences if they truly leveraged that data. I buy ads and don't have a problem with a lot of the industry, i'm minority on that here. To me highly relevant ads are way better than mortgage loan quicken shit ads and virus crap I see otherwise.

GekkePrutser 5y ago
I think part of the difference here is that you see ads at all. Most of us who hate tracking block ads completely so it's not a choice between relevant ads or irrelevant ones. Either way we don't see them so limiting tracking has no downsides. But I would especially hate ads showing up in my mailbox. I pay for O365 business so they don't, but if they did I would drop the service immediately. Spam is a big problem and artificially adding ads on top of all that makes it even bigger.

inopinatus 5y ago

Not all “malicious compliance” is to be celebrated.