3 ms·

I might be wrong but I think the EU regulation that forced these cookie acceptance forms―I can't remember if it was GDPR or some earlier directive―specifically

by yason 3y ago

I might be wrong but I think the EU regulation that forced these cookie acceptance forms―I can't remember if it was GDPR or some earlier directive―specifically required that the consent submission may not be automated so that the browser can be configured to accept everything. It may have had good intentions as entities such as Microsoft would just set their browsers to default to accept all cookies anyway and a marginal group of people would know how to turn it off and even they couldn't still be sure if a proprietary browser still accepts and sends cookies without just telling the user. So as usual the good intentions have turned into a cat-and-mouse game in the technical, grassroot realm. There are browser extensions that will just kill these consent dialogs automatically and websites try (luckily, not very hard so far), to work around the kill scripts. Everybody suffers.

ajsnigrutin 3y ago
> I think the EU regulation that forced these cookie acceptance forms Yep, i'm just not sure if it was general incompetence or just plain lobbying by third parties to do so.
- operator-name 3y ago
  The EU regulation enforced _asking users for permission before being tracked_ for non legitimate interests. There is new regulation in progress that mandates opting out to be as easy as opting in ("the Good"). None of this would be a problem if companies only used cookies for legitimate purposes.
denton-scratch 3y ago
> the EU regulation that forced these cookie acceptance forms No such regulation has ever existed in the EU.
- Rygian 3y ago
  That's correct. The regulation is about providing consent to process personal data. Many people fail to see the difference.
  - jeremyjh 3y ago
    > Many people fail to see the difference. By design. The prompt wants you to think the site only needs your permission to store necessary cookies such as for authentication, when in fact it is always because they want to track you and sell the tracking data.
  - kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
    There was a cookie law prior to GDPR. That's when the obtrusive dialogs started showing up.
- ApolloFortyNine 3y ago
  Non tracking ads pay something like 90% less than tracked ones. If your salary was going to be cut 90% tomorrow unless you started every conversation with the exact words 'I might remember this conversation later', would you just take the paycut? So no, they didn't require them in plain text. But they essentially did so when the only real alternative was to go out of business.

by yason 3y ago

ajsnigrutin 3y ago

> I think the EU regulation that forced these cookie acceptance forms Yep, i'm just not sure if it was general incompetence or just plain lobbying by third parties to do so.

operator-name 3y ago
The EU regulation enforced _asking users for permission before being tracked_ for non legitimate interests. There is new regulation in progress that mandates opting out to be as easy as opting in ("the Good"). None of this would be a problem if companies only used cookies for legitimate purposes.

denton-scratch 3y ago

> the EU regulation that forced these cookie acceptance forms No such regulation has ever existed in the EU.

Rygian 3y ago
That's correct. The regulation is about providing consent to process personal data. Many people fail to see the difference.
- jeremyjh 3y ago
  > Many people fail to see the difference. By design. The prompt wants you to think the site only needs your permission to store necessary cookies such as for authentication, when in fact it is always because they want to track you and sell the tracking data.
- kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
  There was a cookie law prior to GDPR. That's when the obtrusive dialogs started showing up.
ApolloFortyNine 3y ago
Non tracking ads pay something like 90% less than tracked ones. If your salary was going to be cut 90% tomorrow unless you started every conversation with the exact words 'I might remember this conversation later', would you just take the paycut? So no, they didn't require them in plain text. But they essentially did so when the only real alternative was to go out of business.