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> What’s even the point of the popup then? Complying with idiotic bureaucratic regulations. Nobody wants to be popping that thing up, but if they don't, they

> What’s even the point of the popup then? Complying with idiotic bureaucratic regulations. Nobody wants to be popping that thing up, but if they don't, they can get reamed by the EU.

AlexandrB 4y ago
They could just... not use tracking cookies. Then no banner is required. The real idiocy is every website wanting to hoover up data.
- gtirloni 4y ago
  The popup is about any cookies, right? Cookies are a basic building blocks of websites. If you login to a legit website, there's a cookie in your browser for that.
  - dspillett 4y ago
    > The popup is about any cookies, right? The popup is, yes. But the legislation they are pretending to be compliant with isn't. For basic session-level cookies that are essential to the operation of some sites, no legislation requires consent. The issues are third party tracking, long term use stalking, etc. But those that want to stalk you want you to believe that the legislation is against even session maintenance & similar cookies as well so you'll be against the legislation and not them. And that is apparently working on you and some others commenting in this thread.
    - gtirloni 4y ago
      Got it, those are good points. Thanks.
    - yreg 4y ago
      Unfortunately it's not always reasonably possible to convince the client / legal team that a cookie banner is not needed in such case and the decision makers would rather be sure than care about the UX. Or so I heard.
      - dspillett 4y ago
        This is understandable, though it shows a lack of legal understanding which could be worrying from a legal team, as there was a lot of scare-mongering when cookie-and-other-tracking legislation was a significant talking point. Also, largely due to the same anti-anti-tracking voices making spurious claims of what would happen, some put the warning up not because they think they need to, but to avoid having to argue that they don't need to if a complaint is made.
        yreg 4y ago
        It might be just them refusing to look into it and covering their asses, because they don't care if there is an unnecessary cookie banner. But to be fair the stories I have heard were something along the lines of: a freelancer making a website for a local restaurant and being unable to convince the restaurant owner, because the owner's nephew said that the cookie banner must be there.
  - cute_boi 4y ago
    github doesn't require such consent?
    - ronjouch 4y ago
      https://github.blog/2020-12-17-no-cookie-for-you/ https://github.blog/2020-12-17-no-cookie-for-you/
  - nathancahill 4y ago
    No, login cookies are specifically exempt.
- renewiltord 4y ago
  And you can just not use the website. Then no data is hoovered. I actually think this is probably the best system. It's double opt-in. If you both commit to your sides, you both sign the deal and get what you want. If neither of you wants to do it, you can both just not sign the deal.
nielsbot 4y ago
I actually left the page and came back in private mode, so I am thankful they asked.
chrismorgan 4y ago
The trouble is that popups like this don’t even comply with the relevant legislation. (Which is the ePrivacy Directive after the 2009 amendment, though people largely ignored this part of it until the advent of the GDPR which came into force in 2018. Simplified, ePD says “most cookies must be opt-in”.) If anything, putting such wildly non-compliant popups should make you more liable to punishment, because it undermines an argument of ignorance.
- xp84 4y ago
  If these silly laws were enforced, you'd have to shut down the whole Internet anyway.
  - hans_castorp 4y ago
    > If these silly laws were enforced, you'd have to shut down the whole Internet anyway. No, the tracking across sites will stop. None of those "silly" laws prohibit the use of e.g. session cookies.
- varenc 4y ago
  I suspect if you access the site from an EU IP address you’ll see an option besides “Accept All”. The layout [0] even seems to leave room for where this other button might be. edit: looking at the code I even see references to a “Reject All” button as well as an XHR request to a geolocation endpoint. edit2: I set a breakpoint in their code and changed by country to "FR" and sure enough, I now see a "Reject All" button! Screenshot: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/09wcuy4yh3qqoaw/reject_all.png https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/09wcuy4yh3qqoaw/reject_a... [0]: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/vw2khgjnyrnqucb/f https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/vw2khgjnyrnqucb/f
  - thayne 4y ago
    so apparently they only care about your privacy if you are a citizen of the EU? And that just brings up the question again: why show the popup to non-EU viewers if the only option is to accept the cookies. It isn't even effective as a form of protest because those viewers have even less influence over EU regulations than EU citizens.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
kefka_p 4y ago
I recently realized you can bypass cookie auth requests by toggling reader. Led me to wonder what the EU plans on doing to enforce compliance if JavaScript isn’t enabled, for example. Kind of makes the legal obligations of sites more or less impossible to fulfill under some limited circumstances.
- krab 4y ago
  If JavaScript is disabled, most of the offending cookies are not loaded. Session cookies are usually fine wrt GDPR.

> What’s even the point of the popup then? Complying with idiotic bureaucratic regulations. Nobody wants to be popping that thing up, but if they don't, they can get reamed by the EU.

AlexandrB 4y ago

They could just... not use tracking cookies. Then no banner is required. The real idiocy is every website wanting to hoover up data.

gtirloni 4y ago
The popup is about any cookies, right? Cookies are a basic building blocks of websites. If you login to a legit website, there's a cookie in your browser for that.
- dspillett 4y ago
  > The popup is about any cookies, right? The popup is, yes. But the legislation they are pretending to be compliant with isn't. For basic session-level cookies that are essential to the operation of some sites, no legislation requires consent. The issues are third party tracking, long term use stalking, etc. But those that want to stalk you want you to believe that the legislation is against even session maintenance & similar cookies as well so you'll be against the legislation and not them. And that is apparently working on you and some others commenting in this thread.
  - gtirloni 4y ago
    Got it, those are good points. Thanks.
  - yreg 4y ago
    Unfortunately it's not always reasonably possible to convince the client / legal team that a cookie banner is not needed in such case and the decision makers would rather be sure than care about the UX. Or so I heard.
    - dspillett 4y ago
      This is understandable, though it shows a lack of legal understanding which could be worrying from a legal team, as there was a lot of scare-mongering when cookie-and-other-tracking legislation was a significant talking point. Also, largely due to the same anti-anti-tracking voices making spurious claims of what would happen, some put the warning up not because they think they need to, but to avoid having to argue that they don't need to if a complaint is made.
      - yreg 4y ago
        It might be just them refusing to look into it and covering their asses, because they don't care if there is an unnecessary cookie banner. But to be fair the stories I have heard were something along the lines of: a freelancer making a website for a local restaurant and being unable to convince the restaurant owner, because the owner's nephew said that the cookie banner must be there.
- cute_boi 4y ago
  github doesn't require such consent?
  - ronjouch 4y ago
    https://github.blog/2020-12-17-no-cookie-for-you/ https://github.blog/2020-12-17-no-cookie-for-you/
- nathancahill 4y ago
  No, login cookies are specifically exempt.
renewiltord 4y ago
And you can just not use the website. Then no data is hoovered. I actually think this is probably the best system. It's double opt-in. If you both commit to your sides, you both sign the deal and get what you want. If neither of you wants to do it, you can both just not sign the deal.

nielsbot 4y ago

I actually left the page and came back in private mode, so I am thankful they asked.

chrismorgan 4y ago

The trouble is that popups like this don’t even comply with the relevant legislation. (Which is the ePrivacy Directive after the 2009 amendment, though people largely ignored this part of it until the advent of the GDPR which came into force in 2018. Simplified, ePD says “most cookies must be opt-in”.) If anything, putting such wildly non-compliant popups should make you more liable to punishment, because it undermines an argument of ignorance.

xp84 4y ago
If these silly laws were enforced, you'd have to shut down the whole Internet anyway.
- hans_castorp 4y ago
  > If these silly laws were enforced, you'd have to shut down the whole Internet anyway. No, the tracking across sites will stop. None of those "silly" laws prohibit the use of e.g. session cookies.
varenc 4y ago
I suspect if you access the site from an EU IP address you’ll see an option besides “Accept All”. The layout [0] even seems to leave room for where this other button might be. edit: looking at the code I even see references to a “Reject All” button as well as an XHR request to a geolocation endpoint. edit2: I set a breakpoint in their code and changed by country to "FR" and sure enough, I now see a "Reject All" button! Screenshot: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/09wcuy4yh3qqoaw/reject_all.png https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/09wcuy4yh3qqoaw/reject_a... [0]: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/vw2khgjnyrnqucb/f https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/vw2khgjnyrnqucb/f
- thayne 4y ago
  so apparently they only care about your privacy if you are a citizen of the EU? And that just brings up the question again: why show the popup to non-EU viewers if the only option is to accept the cookies. It isn't even effective as a form of protest because those viewers have even less influence over EU regulations than EU citizens.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

kefka_p 4y ago

I recently realized you can bypass cookie auth requests by toggling reader. Led me to wonder what the EU plans on doing to enforce compliance if JavaScript isn’t enabled, for example. Kind of makes the legal obligations of sites more or less impossible to fulfill under some limited circumstances.

krab 4y ago
If JavaScript is disabled, most of the offending cookies are not loaded. Session cookies are usually fine wrt GDPR.