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Microsoft pulled an Apple and turned DNT into opt-in. Advertisers were very clear that they would only honor DNT if it people were tracked by default. The EU t

Microsoft pulled an Apple and turned DNT into opt-in. Advertisers were very clear that they would only honor DNT if it people were tracked by default. The EU then passed a bill that said you can't collect data unless it's for one of six reasons, one of which is "user consent". This basically mandated opt-in, so everyone went super-aggressive on consent banners (which, BTW, are probably illegal).

toxik 5y ago
Consent popups are legal so long as agreeing is not easier than disagreeing. Iow, you cannot make it harder to disagree - which 99.95% of them do.
- gnud 5y ago
  Also, "consent" has a specific meaning in GDPR, see article 4(11) [0]: > Consent of the data subject means any freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data subject’s wishes by which he or she, by a statement or by a clear affirmative action, signifies agreement to the processing of personal data relating to him or her. Which is why I suspect almost all "cookie banners" are worthless. They don't give a clear, informed consent, so the site operator is still not allowed to use the data for anything at all. 0: https://gdpr.eu/article-4-definitions/ https://gdpr.eu/article-4-definitions/
- trompetenaccoun 5y ago
  Seems like a good case for a class action suit. Why hasn't this happened yet?
  - eurasiantiger 5y ago
    Because it would have hundreds of millions of people in it.
- eurasiantiger 5y ago
  Revoking consent must also be as easy as consenting. Almost no site does this correctly.
AlexandrB 5y ago
> Advertisers were very clear that they would only honor DNT if it people were tracked by default. It's ridiculous that Microsoft's response wasn't to just nuke trackers from space with some kind of adware blocker integration in Edge. This is the equivalent of a mugger saying he'll only honour your "do no mug" sign if the sign defaults to "mug me please" and has to be explicitly changed.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  Microsoft is part of "them" now though given their direction since Windows 10, so I find that very unlikely.
  - noisem4ker 5y ago
    While you are right that Microsoft loosened their stance with privacy, let's not conflate data collection purposes: 1. telemetry, for diagnostics and health monitoring 2. usage analysis, for program improvement and personalization 3. content analysis, for advertising and marketing purposes Windows requires kind 1 and encourages kind 2*. Type 3 does not really apply, though, as I don't see Windows sniffing what I write in my text files so that I'm shown relevant ads later. It's all explained here: https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/data-collection-windows https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/data-collection-windows * Also note that the Customer Experience Improvement Program has been with us since Windows 7. Same thing, just not perceived as badly as Windows 10.
    - morelisp 5y ago
      Without a law like the GDPR, nothing stops them from using data collected for 1) and 2) for 3). Which they will do once some PM realizes it's worth something. (There's even 0), data collected for functional purposes like 2FA. Multiple companies have taken data straight from 0 to 3 once they see the possible revenue.)
- kmeisthax 5y ago
  Ad blocking is not a "nuke trackers from space" button. It's more like piloting a drone fleet to pick out and kill terrorists or insurgents in a not-so-friendly country. It requires lots of work to identify ads and create comprehensive filter rules to block ads, and periodic re-checking to make sure they haven't been broken by the advertising companies. Note how most ad blocking tech is either community-run FOSS projects or companies with not-so-savory business practices. It's really not the kind of work that browser vendors want to do. In fact, Apple went out of their way to create an extension type purely for delivering ad block lists to Safari all the way back in iOS 9. Ad blocking is that much of a pain that even Apple was willing to farm it out to third parties years before we got proper mobile extension support. Occasionally, browser vendors get lucky, and there's a tracker type that's "easy enough" to kill. Things like third-party cookies would be one of them - but even then this required a huge amount of testing to avoid breaking apps that relied on them for authentication. The only reason why ad block even works is because ad companies are incredibly paranoid and don't trust each other. The standard way to do display ads is to embed each other's `<iframe>`s or JS, which gives ad blockers a nice easy target to hit. Platforms like Facebook or Twitter that are trusted to do their own ad delivery and thus don't hotlink subresources are far harder to block. They can change how ads are styled basically every hour if they wanted, which would make any kind of rule-based ad blocking ineffective. If every ad platform did this, ad block as we know it would be dead.

toxik 5y ago

Consent popups are legal so long as agreeing is not easier than disagreeing. Iow, you cannot make it harder to disagree - which 99.95% of them do.

gnud 5y ago
Also, "consent" has a specific meaning in GDPR, see article 4(11) [0]: > Consent of the data subject means any freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data subject’s wishes by which he or she, by a statement or by a clear affirmative action, signifies agreement to the processing of personal data relating to him or her. Which is why I suspect almost all "cookie banners" are worthless. They don't give a clear, informed consent, so the site operator is still not allowed to use the data for anything at all. 0: https://gdpr.eu/article-4-definitions/ https://gdpr.eu/article-4-definitions/
trompetenaccoun 5y ago
Seems like a good case for a class action suit. Why hasn't this happened yet?
- eurasiantiger 5y ago
  Because it would have hundreds of millions of people in it.
eurasiantiger 5y ago
Revoking consent must also be as easy as consenting. Almost no site does this correctly.

AlexandrB 5y ago

> Advertisers were very clear that they would only honor DNT if it people were tracked by default. It's ridiculous that Microsoft's response wasn't to just nuke trackers from space with some kind of adware blocker integration in Edge. This is the equivalent of a mugger saying he'll only honour your "do no mug" sign if the sign defaults to "mug me please" and has to be explicitly changed.

Nextgrid 5y ago
Microsoft is part of "them" now though given their direction since Windows 10, so I find that very unlikely.
- noisem4ker 5y ago
  While you are right that Microsoft loosened their stance with privacy, let's not conflate data collection purposes: 1. telemetry, for diagnostics and health monitoring 2. usage analysis, for program improvement and personalization 3. content analysis, for advertising and marketing purposes Windows requires kind 1 and encourages kind 2*. Type 3 does not really apply, though, as I don't see Windows sniffing what I write in my text files so that I'm shown relevant ads later. It's all explained here: https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/data-collection-windows https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/data-collection-windows * Also note that the Customer Experience Improvement Program has been with us since Windows 7. Same thing, just not perceived as badly as Windows 10.
  - morelisp 5y ago
    Without a law like the GDPR, nothing stops them from using data collected for 1) and 2) for 3). Which they will do once some PM realizes it's worth something. (There's even 0), data collected for functional purposes like 2FA. Multiple companies have taken data straight from 0 to 3 once they see the possible revenue.)
kmeisthax 5y ago
Ad blocking is not a "nuke trackers from space" button. It's more like piloting a drone fleet to pick out and kill terrorists or insurgents in a not-so-friendly country. It requires lots of work to identify ads and create comprehensive filter rules to block ads, and periodic re-checking to make sure they haven't been broken by the advertising companies. Note how most ad blocking tech is either community-run FOSS projects or companies with not-so-savory business practices. It's really not the kind of work that browser vendors want to do. In fact, Apple went out of their way to create an extension type purely for delivering ad block lists to Safari all the way back in iOS 9. Ad blocking is that much of a pain that even Apple was willing to farm it out to third parties years before we got proper mobile extension support. Occasionally, browser vendors get lucky, and there's a tracker type that's "easy enough" to kill. Things like third-party cookies would be one of them - but even then this required a huge amount of testing to avoid breaking apps that relied on them for authentication. The only reason why ad block even works is because ad companies are incredibly paranoid and don't trust each other. The standard way to do display ads is to embed each other's `<iframe>`s or JS, which gives ad blockers a nice easy target to hit. Platforms like Facebook or Twitter that are trusted to do their own ad delivery and thus don't hotlink subresources are far harder to block. They can change how ads are styled basically every hour if they wanted, which would make any kind of rule-based ad blocking ineffective. If every ad platform did this, ad block as we know it would be dead.