5 ms·

Background (which also explains why it's being rolled out in France first): https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/06/france-fines-google-and-facebook-

Background (which also explains why it's being rolled out in France first): https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/06/france-fines-google-and-facebook-210m-over-user-tracking-cookies https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/06/france-fi... - on January 6, Google was given 3 months to fix this, with a 100k fine for each additional day. I'm wondering why it took slightly but not significantly more than the 3 months. On one hand, adding a button doesn't have to take 3 months despite all the necessary reviews etc., not if it's actually considered a priority. On the other hand, if the benefits were considered worth the fine/fee, you'd expect a bigger delay.

______-_-______ 5y ago
They'll gladly pay (maybe) 2 million in fines so that later they can pretend complying was extremely difficult for them. Drop in the bucket in the long run.
- whitesilhouette 5y ago
  Just came here to say I really liked your userid (or whatever is called nowadays).
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
remus 5y ago
Personally I wouldn't read too much in to the timing. Although the end result looks small the change affects multiple large projects, each with hundreds of millions of users, and likely has knock on effects in other parts of google. Sprinkle in a bit of legal review + big company bureaucracy and I can easily imagine it taking 3 months.
ratww 5y ago
They are definitely already A/B testing this. I'm in Germany and sometimes I see the "Decline" button when opening Google in an incognito window.
- potatoman22 5y ago
  I wonder what they'd be A/B testing for... which 'Decline' button gets the least clicks?
  - ratww 5y ago
    My guess is they just A/B test everything by default, even stuff that's court ordered.
    - mattnewton 5y ago
      Basically true but not the terms I'd use; they aren't really A/B tests but staged rollouts, though the process and tooling required is similar. We did staged rollouts of _everything_ back when I worked on google search that wasn't a trivial bug fix. We'd move it to 1% for a day, check metrics, increase to 10%, hold a couple more days and check metrics, then to 100%. Very sensitive or risky launches might hold at a full 50% for some time. UI changes were "dark launched" behind a flag that we incrementally flipped on. The reason is that no test suite captures reality and this discipline forces you to account for easy rollbacks (just turn the flag off) and handle "skew" (the case where I user starts a session where the flag is off but then starts talking to a machine where it is on, or vice/versa). This was in addition to the binary that released multiple times a week and rolled out slowly over the course of the day, and often this happened after multiple versions were tested in experiments with statistically significant samples.
  - robbedpeter 5y ago
    Or which version results in the least engagement / fastest click. You don't necessarily want to prompt introspection about privacy.
    - sodality2 5y ago
      This is absolutely true. I took a survey through MTurk from Google, from back when they were reworking the "ad" icon on search results. They wanted me to quickly select the first non-ad, with different "ad" icon styles (same color as rest of text, different shapes, etc).
jeltz 5y ago
Maybe they just wanted some extra time to do A/B tests of different layouts.
noja 5y ago
> I'm wondering why it took slightly but not significantly more than the 3 months Maybe they planned for 3 months and it took longer?
emdowling 5y ago
I can guarantee that the vast majority of implementation time was more likely due to verification and auditing of the solution, rather than the solution itself.
imajoredinecon 5y ago
The blog post mentions: > This update meant we needed to re-engineer the way cookies work on Google sites, and to make deep, coordinated changes to critical Google infrastructure.
- hef19898 5y ago
  That's acknowledgment of the fact that trampling people's privacy is Google's business model.
  - nerdponx 5y ago
    Google has a very strong interest in developing tracking techniques that do not require cookies, so they can appear to be on the side of the public with respect to privacy, while also securing a competitive advantage for tracking in a post-cookie world.
    - Nextgrid 5y ago
      The good thing about the GDPR is that it's about the act of tracking and collecting data as opposed to focusing on specific technical means, so moving away from cookies won't allow you to work around the law.
- wereHamster 5y ago
  No they didn't have to. Rejecting all cookies was possible before, it was just hidden behind convoluted and confusing menus. To make this functionality available with a single click of a button they didn't have to invent any new technology or process or backend service. Just move the onClick handler to a different HTML element on a different page.
  - shadowgovt 5y ago
    And everyone could build Twitter in a weekend. Google cookies do not work that way. Ironically, one of the challenges is that some of them are firewalled from each other so that it's harder to aggregate a holistic picture of a user in one location. You know, for privacy reasons. And not even moving an onClick handler is trivial given the layers of abstraction that Google's UIs are built on top of.
leros 5y ago
The company I work at would break if cookies weren't allowed. It would be a mad scramble to change many many things to just function at all. 3 months seems pretty fast to me to be honest.
- asddubs 5y ago
  you don't need to ask permission for functionality cookies, only tracking and such
  - leros 5y ago
    The line is blurry sometimes. Also there is likely lots of code that would break without a tracking cookie passed to it because tons of code is written with the assumption the cookie would be there.
    - asddubs 5y ago
      well, it wasn't just the last 3 months that there was supposed to be a way to disable those, just that it has to be a single button now (which afaik was previously already the case anyway)
    - SSLy 5y ago
      GDPR is in effect since four years ago. Are your deps older than that?
      - shadowgovt 5y ago
        Most people's deps are older than that. And vast swathes of easy-to-use open-source web infra has non-GDPR-compliant defaults.
      - MomoXenosaga 5y ago
        Cookies have been controversial for at least a decade. They knew this was coming.
layer8 5y ago
I wonder if they switch the button order for Windows vs. Mac users.

______-_-______ 5y ago

They'll gladly pay (maybe) 2 million in fines so that later they can pretend complying was extremely difficult for them. Drop in the bucket in the long run.

whitesilhouette 5y ago
Just came here to say I really liked your userid (or whatever is called nowadays).
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

remus 5y ago

Personally I wouldn't read too much in to the timing. Although the end result looks small the change affects multiple large projects, each with hundreds of millions of users, and likely has knock on effects in other parts of google. Sprinkle in a bit of legal review + big company bureaucracy and I can easily imagine it taking 3 months.

ratww 5y ago

They are definitely already A/B testing this. I'm in Germany and sometimes I see the "Decline" button when opening Google in an incognito window.

potatoman22 5y ago
I wonder what they'd be A/B testing for... which 'Decline' button gets the least clicks?
- ratww 5y ago
  My guess is they just A/B test everything by default, even stuff that's court ordered.
  - mattnewton 5y ago
    Basically true but not the terms I'd use; they aren't really A/B tests but staged rollouts, though the process and tooling required is similar. We did staged rollouts of _everything_ back when I worked on google search that wasn't a trivial bug fix. We'd move it to 1% for a day, check metrics, increase to 10%, hold a couple more days and check metrics, then to 100%. Very sensitive or risky launches might hold at a full 50% for some time. UI changes were "dark launched" behind a flag that we incrementally flipped on. The reason is that no test suite captures reality and this discipline forces you to account for easy rollbacks (just turn the flag off) and handle "skew" (the case where I user starts a session where the flag is off but then starts talking to a machine where it is on, or vice/versa). This was in addition to the binary that released multiple times a week and rolled out slowly over the course of the day, and often this happened after multiple versions were tested in experiments with statistically significant samples.
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  Or which version results in the least engagement / fastest click. You don't necessarily want to prompt introspection about privacy.
  - sodality2 5y ago
    This is absolutely true. I took a survey through MTurk from Google, from back when they were reworking the "ad" icon on search results. They wanted me to quickly select the first non-ad, with different "ad" icon styles (same color as rest of text, different shapes, etc).

jeltz 5y ago

Maybe they just wanted some extra time to do A/B tests of different layouts.

noja 5y ago

> I'm wondering why it took slightly but not significantly more than the 3 months Maybe they planned for 3 months and it took longer?

emdowling 5y ago

I can guarantee that the vast majority of implementation time was more likely due to verification and auditing of the solution, rather than the solution itself.

imajoredinecon 5y ago

The blog post mentions: > This update meant we needed to re-engineer the way cookies work on Google sites, and to make deep, coordinated changes to critical Google infrastructure.

hef19898 5y ago
That's acknowledgment of the fact that trampling people's privacy is Google's business model.
- nerdponx 5y ago
  Google has a very strong interest in developing tracking techniques that do not require cookies, so they can appear to be on the side of the public with respect to privacy, while also securing a competitive advantage for tracking in a post-cookie world.
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    The good thing about the GDPR is that it's about the act of tracking and collecting data as opposed to focusing on specific technical means, so moving away from cookies won't allow you to work around the law.
wereHamster 5y ago
No they didn't have to. Rejecting all cookies was possible before, it was just hidden behind convoluted and confusing menus. To make this functionality available with a single click of a button they didn't have to invent any new technology or process or backend service. Just move the onClick handler to a different HTML element on a different page.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  And everyone could build Twitter in a weekend. Google cookies do not work that way. Ironically, one of the challenges is that some of them are firewalled from each other so that it's harder to aggregate a holistic picture of a user in one location. You know, for privacy reasons. And not even moving an onClick handler is trivial given the layers of abstraction that Google's UIs are built on top of.

leros 5y ago

The company I work at would break if cookies weren't allowed. It would be a mad scramble to change many many things to just function at all. 3 months seems pretty fast to me to be honest.

asddubs 5y ago
you don't need to ask permission for functionality cookies, only tracking and such
- leros 5y ago
  The line is blurry sometimes. Also there is likely lots of code that would break without a tracking cookie passed to it because tons of code is written with the assumption the cookie would be there.
  - asddubs 5y ago
    well, it wasn't just the last 3 months that there was supposed to be a way to disable those, just that it has to be a single button now (which afaik was previously already the case anyway)
  - SSLy 5y ago
    GDPR is in effect since four years ago. Are your deps older than that?
    - shadowgovt 5y ago
      Most people's deps are older than that. And vast swathes of easy-to-use open-source web infra has non-GDPR-compliant defaults.
    - MomoXenosaga 5y ago
      Cookies have been controversial for at least a decade. They knew this was coming.

layer8 5y ago

I wonder if they switch the button order for Windows vs. Mac users.