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People seem outraged about the marketing cookies. Genuine question: Why?

baobob 4y ago
GitHub made a huge fuss in a blog post about their compliance with the ePrivacy directive not more than 2 years ago. I personally found their approach and interpretation interesting and unique, so this change seems noteworthy for that reason alone
hatware 4y ago
> marketing cookies Do you think ads have gotten better or worse over time? I think it's unequivocally worse now than it was then. There's a point where you're fed up with seeing the same ads for products you don't want or need.
- petre 4y ago
  Do you think cancer has gotten better or worse over time? Because that's what ads are, rhe cancer of any media they touch.
armchairhacker 4y ago
Slippery slope. First it's cookies for marketing, then it's selling your data, then it's "sponsored" repositories showing up in search. Next thing you know, recruiters are cold-calling you with your private email address and you can't even get to your own README without scrolling past banner ads and autoplay videos. After all, that's pretty much how the rest of the web works. Do I really think that's going to happen? No. If GitHub were to introduce ads or invasive marketing everyone would move to GitLab in a second. A decent amount of people are already moving to GitLab and GitHub hasn't even done anything! Things like marketing cookies for analytics on marketing pages are genuinely not an issue. But people take it as a sign, because of all the shit that goes on the rest of the web, and how GitHub explicitly said they were not going to do this. The fact they made a "commitment" not to do this is particularly important because it shows that GitHub's promises don't mean anything. But migrating your repo is easy. Personally I'm going to wait until things actually get bad before moving.
- lopatin 4y ago
  I see. I didn’t know that they previously committed to explicitly not doing this. Sounds like they kind of shot them selves in the foot.
- easrng 4y ago
  > Next thing you know, recruiters are cold-calling you with your private email address This already happens.
jacamera 4y ago
I left a thumbs-up reaction on the GitHub post. The cookie outrage is completely absurd.
- lopatin 4y ago
  You madlad!
WhyNotHugo 4y ago
These are used to track around a person. Imagine if a store put a tiny sticker on anyone who stopped by to look at their products. Not this person is identifiable as "stopped to look at product X" whenever they visit other stores from the same owner. Personally, it just creeps me out, even though it's basically the norm online.

GitHub made a huge fuss in a blog post about their compliance with the ePrivacy directive not more than 2 years ago. I personally found their approach and interpretation interesting and unique, so this change seems noteworthy for that reason alone

hatware 4y ago

> marketing cookies Do you think ads have gotten better or worse over time? I think it's unequivocally worse now than it was then. There's a point where you're fed up with seeing the same ads for products you don't want or need.

petre 4y ago
Do you think cancer has gotten better or worse over time? Because that's what ads are, rhe cancer of any media they touch.

armchairhacker 4y ago

Slippery slope. First it's cookies for marketing, then it's selling your data, then it's "sponsored" repositories showing up in search. Next thing you know, recruiters are cold-calling you with your private email address and you can't even get to your own README without scrolling past banner ads and autoplay videos. After all, that's pretty much how the rest of the web works. Do I really think that's going to happen? No. If GitHub were to introduce ads or invasive marketing everyone would move to GitLab in a second. A decent amount of people are already moving to GitLab and GitHub hasn't even done anything! Things like marketing cookies for analytics on marketing pages are genuinely not an issue. But people take it as a sign, because of all the shit that goes on the rest of the web, and how GitHub explicitly said they were not going to do this. The fact they made a "commitment" not to do this is particularly important because it shows that GitHub's promises don't mean anything. But migrating your repo is easy. Personally I'm going to wait until things actually get bad before moving.

lopatin 4y ago
I see. I didn’t know that they previously committed to explicitly not doing this. Sounds like they kind of shot them selves in the foot.
easrng 4y ago
> Next thing you know, recruiters are cold-calling you with your private email address This already happens.

jacamera 4y ago

I left a thumbs-up reaction on the GitHub post. The cookie outrage is completely absurd.

lopatin 4y ago
You madlad!

WhyNotHugo 4y ago

These are used to track around a person. Imagine if a store put a tiny sticker on anyone who stopped by to look at their products. Not this person is identifiable as "stopped to look at product X" whenever they visit other stores from the same owner. Personally, it just creeps me out, even though it's basically the norm online.