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> privacy rights given to us by law (eg in the EU) > As a EU citizen, i hope that our ineffectual administration at least tries to fight this somehow. Of cours

> privacy rights given to us by law (eg in the EU) > As a EU citizen, i hope that our ineffectual administration at least tries to fight this somehow. Of course, there is little hope. GDPR is thanks to the EU and I wouldn’t say it has no effect. It seems like you’re contradicting yourself with these two paragraphs.

CommanderData 5y ago
GDPR has been a massive win for user/consumer rights. Its a piece of legislation law makers in the US are trying to mimic. Surprisingly the UK are trying to rid or weaken GDPR significantly after brexit. The only way to fix this problem now is through strong legislation.
- wjnc 5y ago
  Do we really need more or new legislation if there is still ample room for improvement on the enforcement side of GDPR. Just a not so far stretch: all or most of the GDPR supervisors now think Google Analytics is a no-go. Publish this and an intention to fine say 2% of revenue, set an expiration date six months ahead and do a EU-tender for a scraping facility finding all users of Google Analytics. Then in six months, re-scrape and send out the fines. Rinse and repeat. Google Tag Manager could be declared illegal on the outset, with a 5 to 10% fine for Google if they continue to offer it in the EU. Do a top-down assessment of the usage of Google Tag Manager in the largest e-commerce users in Europe. Fine them as well. At the end of the day privacy enforcement could easily pay for itself. (Edit: After typing this I think you were writing from a US perspective. I think GDPR is a big win as well, but enforcement is feeble ;)
- mlatu 5y ago
  US law makers are trying to mimic GDPR? are you certain? would be certainly nice, but i dont believe there is a majority in the US that would support such a change. I mean there are probably more individual people interested in doing that than not, but I bet in comparison there are more individual $$$ being invested in keeping data privacy laws as lax as possible
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  Did it really make the world a better place? Most sites collect as much data as ever, but now we need many more clicks, and can't have nice things like photos from kindergarden parties anymore.
  - GreenWatermelon 5y ago
    I'm less likely to use a site that offers obnoxious cookie consent forms, and I think I'm better off without them. so yeah, it made the world better for me. My anger is directed towards the criminal websites that seek to circumvent the spirit of the law (most if the web today)
    - shadowgovt 5y ago
      To my observation, there are no sites with more than a dram of content on them that haven't been compelled by GDPR compliance to put an obnoxious cookie banner up. If you've found some, please share.
      - denton-scratch 5y ago
        If you need to set a cookie for the correct operation of your site, then you don't need a cookie banner. The banners are a middle-finger to the GDPR.
        shadowgovt 5y ago
        ... but "correct operation of your site" is in the eye of a judge and can't be evaluated before someone brings suit, so "better safe than sorry" behavior (at the cost of user time) is completely predictable. ... It's not even clear that it's safe to log IP addresses in the style of a default Apache configuration on a static website without user consent.
        denton-scratch 5y ago
        > completely predictable It's completely predictable that there are people who don't want to comply. Collecting personal information is a lucrative business. Re. Website logs: in fact it's perfectly clear that a website log retained for the purposes of site management is fine. It's on the face of the regulation.
- kristofferR 5y ago
  > Surprisingly the UK are trying to rid or weaken GDPR significantly after brexit. Isn't that the whole point of brexit - to get rid of various EU customer protection laws and regulations?
chickenimprint 5y ago
Is it safe to assume you've never had to deal with those downright malevolent dark patterns and button labyrinths, designed to make it extremely unlikely for anyone in the general population to actually reject tracking?
- simongray 5y ago
  There are solutions to most of that, e.g. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/consent-o-matic/mdjildafknihdffpkfmmpnpoiajfjnjd https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/consent-o-matic/md...
  - danuker 5y ago
    This is more of a workaround. A solution to a poliical problem is political, not technical.
    - mlatu 5y ago
      i would call it societal; society still needs to grasp in what way they are being exploited. it's still not clear to most people
    - emsixteen 5y ago
      How is it political?
      - danuker 5y ago
        The decision to force service providers collect consent from their own users is a political decision. And a fundamentally bad one: providers' incentive is to make it easy to get consent and hard to refuse. I don't know what policy is better than this, but right now, we only get more annoyance without any benefits in privacy. Pretty much every page I've visited issues 3rd party requests before I consent to data sharing.
  - KronisLV 5y ago
    Those are (nice) solutions to a problem that shouldn't be allowed to (legally) exist. The industry shouldn't be allowed to play clever with the ways to coerce their users into giving up their information just because they know that most of those users are not interested in navigating difficult dialogs.
MrYellowP 5y ago
You think the GDPR is a good idea? Wow, mate, that's quite the detachment from reality. In reality, GDPR is pure nonsense. It's a serious burden for anyone putting up a site. Any site. They all have cookies. All of them. It is so bad, there are now services taking care of this, because it's so much of a bullshit that people need to rely on others to get it right. You'll probably spin this as a net win, right? Because more businesses, right? Right?? The odds of 99% of the people not simply clicking "accept all" are slim to none and anyone insisting otherwise would make himself look like a moron. It's like you're assuming the masses out there are actually thinking about things. They don't! It's not how people work! They just click it away and are done with it, because it's super fucking annoying to constantly click that bullshit away and it does literally nothing for us people, no matter how much anyone would want to insist that it does, theoretically, do benefit us. The GDPR is pure nonsense. It is not made for the people. It in fact completely ignores how people operate.
- sunaurus 5y ago
  It seems you're not fully clear on what GDPR is. You could check this page for more info: https://gdpr.eu/what-is-gdpr/ https://gdpr.eu/what-is-gdpr/ Just as a very brief note: it's not really about cookies, it's more about how companies should store data about people and what kind of rights people have concerning that data.
  - MrYellowP 5y ago
    AND NOBODY FUCKING CARES! THAT'S THE FUCKING POINT! ALL IT IS IS AN ANNOYING WINDOW WHICH HAS TO BE CLICKED AWAY! That's what I mean by "detached from reality." For you it's something glorified, but the vast majority of humanity do not give a flying fuck and just think it's annoying. You think this is good! It's not! You're just so deep in that bubble, you don't fucking recognize that your bubble isn't actual reality!
    - sunaurus 5y ago
      Again, go ahead and read the link I posted. You're talking about cookie consent pop-ups, those are not what the GDPR is about at all. Putting a cookie consent pop-up on your website does not make you compliant with the GDPR. The GDPR is about protecting personal information of EU citizens, giving them rights to demand access to data that is held about them, and giving them rights to request deletion of any personal data that is held about them. To be super clear, I'm not saying that cookie consent pop-ups are good - I also think they're not really serving any real purpose. But this fact has very little to do with the GDPR!

CommanderData 5y ago

GDPR has been a massive win for user/consumer rights. Its a piece of legislation law makers in the US are trying to mimic. Surprisingly the UK are trying to rid or weaken GDPR significantly after brexit. The only way to fix this problem now is through strong legislation.

wjnc 5y ago
Do we really need more or new legislation if there is still ample room for improvement on the enforcement side of GDPR. Just a not so far stretch: all or most of the GDPR supervisors now think Google Analytics is a no-go. Publish this and an intention to fine say 2% of revenue, set an expiration date six months ahead and do a EU-tender for a scraping facility finding all users of Google Analytics. Then in six months, re-scrape and send out the fines. Rinse and repeat. Google Tag Manager could be declared illegal on the outset, with a 5 to 10% fine for Google if they continue to offer it in the EU. Do a top-down assessment of the usage of Google Tag Manager in the largest e-commerce users in Europe. Fine them as well. At the end of the day privacy enforcement could easily pay for itself. (Edit: After typing this I think you were writing from a US perspective. I think GDPR is a big win as well, but enforcement is feeble ;)
mlatu 5y ago
US law makers are trying to mimic GDPR? are you certain? would be certainly nice, but i dont believe there is a majority in the US that would support such a change. I mean there are probably more individual people interested in doing that than not, but I bet in comparison there are more individual $$$ being invested in keeping data privacy laws as lax as possible
kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
Did it really make the world a better place? Most sites collect as much data as ever, but now we need many more clicks, and can't have nice things like photos from kindergarden parties anymore.
- GreenWatermelon 5y ago
  I'm less likely to use a site that offers obnoxious cookie consent forms, and I think I'm better off without them. so yeah, it made the world better for me. My anger is directed towards the criminal websites that seek to circumvent the spirit of the law (most if the web today)
  - shadowgovt 5y ago
    To my observation, there are no sites with more than a dram of content on them that haven't been compelled by GDPR compliance to put an obnoxious cookie banner up. If you've found some, please share.
    - denton-scratch 5y ago
      If you need to set a cookie for the correct operation of your site, then you don't need a cookie banner. The banners are a middle-finger to the GDPR.
      - shadowgovt 5y ago
        ... but "correct operation of your site" is in the eye of a judge and can't be evaluated before someone brings suit, so "better safe than sorry" behavior (at the cost of user time) is completely predictable. ... It's not even clear that it's safe to log IP addresses in the style of a default Apache configuration on a static website without user consent.
        denton-scratch 5y ago
        > completely predictable It's completely predictable that there are people who don't want to comply. Collecting personal information is a lucrative business. Re. Website logs: in fact it's perfectly clear that a website log retained for the purposes of site management is fine. It's on the face of the regulation.
kristofferR 5y ago
> Surprisingly the UK are trying to rid or weaken GDPR significantly after brexit. Isn't that the whole point of brexit - to get rid of various EU customer protection laws and regulations?

chickenimprint 5y ago

Is it safe to assume you've never had to deal with those downright malevolent dark patterns and button labyrinths, designed to make it extremely unlikely for anyone in the general population to actually reject tracking?

simongray 5y ago
There are solutions to most of that, e.g. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/consent-o-matic/mdjildafknihdffpkfmmpnpoiajfjnjd https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/consent-o-matic/md...
- danuker 5y ago
  This is more of a workaround. A solution to a poliical problem is political, not technical.
  - mlatu 5y ago
    i would call it societal; society still needs to grasp in what way they are being exploited. it's still not clear to most people
  - emsixteen 5y ago
    How is it political?
    - danuker 5y ago
      The decision to force service providers collect consent from their own users is a political decision. And a fundamentally bad one: providers' incentive is to make it easy to get consent and hard to refuse. I don't know what policy is better than this, but right now, we only get more annoyance without any benefits in privacy. Pretty much every page I've visited issues 3rd party requests before I consent to data sharing.
- KronisLV 5y ago
  Those are (nice) solutions to a problem that shouldn't be allowed to (legally) exist. The industry shouldn't be allowed to play clever with the ways to coerce their users into giving up their information just because they know that most of those users are not interested in navigating difficult dialogs.

MrYellowP 5y ago

You think the GDPR is a good idea? Wow, mate, that's quite the detachment from reality. In reality, GDPR is pure nonsense. It's a serious burden for anyone putting up a site. Any site. They all have cookies. All of them. It is so bad, there are now services taking care of this, because it's so much of a bullshit that people need to rely on others to get it right. You'll probably spin this as a net win, right? Because more businesses, right? Right?? The odds of 99% of the people not simply clicking "accept all" are slim to none and anyone insisting otherwise would make himself look like a moron. It's like you're assuming the masses out there are actually thinking about things. They don't! It's not how people work! They just click it away and are done with it, because it's super fucking annoying to constantly click that bullshit away and it does literally nothing for us people, no matter how much anyone would want to insist that it does, theoretically, do benefit us. The GDPR is pure nonsense. It is not made for the people. It in fact completely ignores how people operate.

sunaurus 5y ago
It seems you're not fully clear on what GDPR is. You could check this page for more info: https://gdpr.eu/what-is-gdpr/ https://gdpr.eu/what-is-gdpr/ Just as a very brief note: it's not really about cookies, it's more about how companies should store data about people and what kind of rights people have concerning that data.
- MrYellowP 5y ago
  AND NOBODY FUCKING CARES! THAT'S THE FUCKING POINT! ALL IT IS IS AN ANNOYING WINDOW WHICH HAS TO BE CLICKED AWAY! That's what I mean by "detached from reality." For you it's something glorified, but the vast majority of humanity do not give a flying fuck and just think it's annoying. You think this is good! It's not! You're just so deep in that bubble, you don't fucking recognize that your bubble isn't actual reality!
  - sunaurus 5y ago
    Again, go ahead and read the link I posted. You're talking about cookie consent pop-ups, those are not what the GDPR is about at all. Putting a cookie consent pop-up on your website does not make you compliant with the GDPR. The GDPR is about protecting personal information of EU citizens, giving them rights to demand access to data that is held about them, and giving them rights to request deletion of any personal data that is held about them. To be super clear, I'm not saying that cookie consent pop-ups are good - I also think they're not really serving any real purpose. But this fact has very little to do with the GDPR!