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It blows my mind that these godawful cookie banners is where we ended up. Web devs, you clowns need get your shit together. No, the law doesn't require you to d

It blows my mind that these godawful cookie banners is where we ended up. Web devs, you clowns need get your shit together. No, the law doesn't require you to do this. Go back to the drawing board and do better.

kokanee 3y ago
Agree with the sentiment, disagree with the assignment of blame. Blame legal, marketing, design, or PM. No web dev decided this was how they wanted to spend a day.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  To be fair, the web developers are the ones actually typing in the code and deploying it. They must share at least partial blame. This whole "Don't blame me! Boss told me to do it" attitude is rampant in software.
  - thot_experiment 3y ago
    Big agree with this sentiment, personal responsibility/dev mutiny/collective action could go a long way toward making the world less garbage.
    - kfrzcode 3y ago
      yes individualism is the answer; collectivism is also the solution, everyone should do what they think is the morally correct thing and the whole garbage pile will suddenly go away, nobody will starve and Great Leaders will be no more. This has always worked in the past. Leadership be damned! I am important and smart enough to do the right thing!
  - rocketbop 3y ago
    I also agree with you. And the legal or marketing team that asked for it all have bosses too asking them for certain things.
  - pessimizer 3y ago
    Pretty easy to say, but if someone is going to quit their job because they think the cookie banner they've been ordered to program will annoy people, they're either absurdly privileged or comically stupid.
    - rkagerer 3y ago
      I would never work someplace that promoted hostility to their users. I am neither privileged or stupid.
      - mtrower 3y ago
        It sounds like you're at least privileged in the sense that you have the apparent option. For a lot of people it's a serious deal to pursue alternate employment, especially if the conditions they are seeking to avoid are a common practice in the industry.
  - dieselgate 3y ago
    Don’t hate the player hate the game
- coldpie 3y ago
  I don't mean the individual developers. I mean the industry. Y'all need to spin up a working group or something and figure it out. This is getting completely insane.
legitster 3y ago
> Web devs, you clowns need get your shit together. No, the law doesn't require you to do this. Your comment is a good reminder that a median HN opinion has no idea what they are talking about. This reads almost word for word what one of our execs might have expressed at us 6 years ago when we started doing GDPR compliance.
whalesalad 3y ago
It’s wild. Especially for someone who doesn’t speak German. It’s a full page takeover on mobile with a scroll bar for fine print. Absolutely bonkers.
NelsonMinar 3y ago
This kind of UI is malicious compliance, part of a campaign by European websites to slowly grind down support for GDPR by making a really shitty experience out of it.
- moultano 3y ago
  All the official EU websites have them too.
jahnu 3y ago
In this case it’s not just a legally required tracking consent question. It’s saying either accept tracking if you want to read for free or subscribe and then there is no tracking.
- pessimizer 3y ago
  > subscribe and then there is no tracking. Is that what they're saying? Because that must be a lie. It's probably more that if you're subscribed and log in, they don't have to ask to set a cookie.
klyrs 3y ago
The web devs have got their shit together. If you delete the cookie banner through the DOM inspector, it comes back.
anigbrowl 3y ago
I find it absurd that you complain about the cookie banner while ignoring the absolute trash advertising on the actual page (which appears even though I am running an adblocker). I like cookie banners, I get to set my preferences and if a website serially abuses them they don't have the excuse that I consented by surfing to the page or something. If they really engage in abuse, I can take part in legal action. Meanwhile trash clickbait advertising is semantic and psychological pollution that actively makes the internet (and by extension the world) a much worse place for profit. Your priorities need recalibration.
- rTX5CMRXIfFG 3y ago
  I just spit my drink through my nose seeing that someone actually feels the need to defend cookie banners, lol. You have a fair point on how the inline ads themselves are trash, but I wouldn’t choose one over the other—I’d have neither of them.
  - anigbrowl 3y ago
    I would prefer that cookies and tracking didn't exist, but given that they do I like having the option to opt out of them when I first visit a website.
    - mtrower 3y ago
      I don't know about your experience (individual web footprints and all), but the banners I see mostly aren't really asking for permission. They're telling you that they use cookies, that by using their website you consent, and the "accept all" button just notes your consent and makes the banner go away. Not all sites with banners work this way, but it seems quite common to me.
- dcow 3y ago
  This isn't a cookie banner. It's a full page blocking modal FFS. Way to conveniently argue past the point.
  - 3y ago
Eupolemos 3y ago
There's about 4 themeparks of regulations and "we hope this is an adequate ritual" packed into all the stuff those banners need to check and keep up to date when regulations (or the way they are enforced) change. So third parties specialize in it, and we buy the banner have the company behind them trawl our sites and pull in the info about all the cookies we don't even keep taps on. And when we've installed them, we all try not to get involved with them again. Because it is the least fun and rewarding area of any web dev day and tinkering with them just might get you invited to a whole series of GDPR review meetings.
34679 3y ago
It blows my mind that people still browse the web without an ad blocker. Install Firefox + uBlock and the problem goes away.
- mtrower 3y ago
  uBlock (at least uBlock Origin) doesn't block banners, at least not by default. Apparently you can adjust your filters to do so, but I didn't even know that was a thing until I looked into it just now.
duxup 3y ago
> Web devs, you clowns need get your shit together. It’s not some hobby site you’re visiting and a web dev likely isn’t the decision maker…. and I doubt a web dev had much to do with the legislation for all these stupid banners.
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
It's not the web devs that do it, they know what is adequate; as others said, it's legal, people who overthink these things. I was once working on a website, we had everything fine, but then a committee of various people from various departments spent days coming up with everything that they thought the cookie banner should conform to. And then the ad revenue people come in, and say that it should be easiest to just accept all. They quickly backtracked when the EU or France fined one of the big parties; suddenly, the (legally required) reject all button was back on all the cookie banners, which is a good example on how fining large companies large sums bubbles down quickly to smaller companies doing the same thing.
dang 3y ago
"Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36341702 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36341702.
mitchdoogle 3y ago
I'm a web dev and I've tried to tell most of my clients (in the US) that they don't even NEED a cookie banner, and moreover that if they do, then it needs to be compliant with the law otherwise its completely pointless and cumbersome. They don't care. They don't trust what I tell them because they see countless other websites doing it, including some bigger companies. Even when I provide links to official EU sites or to articles that explain everything quite clearly, they do not care. And I also think it is seen as a sign of legitimacy, like companies want to prove they are a serious company in their space and so they do the same things much larger companies do, without actually considering what the point is and definitely without asking any attorneys to weight in. I suppose I could flat out refuse to do something that is dumb and pointless, but I'd rather keep their business because it doesn't actually affect me much. GDPR made a lot of headlines when it was announced and a lot of American companies confused that with the cookie requirements, because that is the time I started seeing a lot of American companies install them, including my own clients asking for them. Despite the cookie requirements being around long before that. It's quite clear that, without enforcement, nobody will ever take these things seriously. The best way to handle it would be something that requires browsers to implement and which cannot be skirted. Maybe we should do away with cookies altogether and come up with something else.

kokanee 3y ago

Agree with the sentiment, disagree with the assignment of blame. Blame legal, marketing, design, or PM. No web dev decided this was how they wanted to spend a day.

ryandrake 3y ago
To be fair, the web developers are the ones actually typing in the code and deploying it. They must share at least partial blame. This whole "Don't blame me! Boss told me to do it" attitude is rampant in software.
- thot_experiment 3y ago
  Big agree with this sentiment, personal responsibility/dev mutiny/collective action could go a long way toward making the world less garbage.
  - kfrzcode 3y ago
    yes individualism is the answer; collectivism is also the solution, everyone should do what they think is the morally correct thing and the whole garbage pile will suddenly go away, nobody will starve and Great Leaders will be no more. This has always worked in the past. Leadership be damned! I am important and smart enough to do the right thing!
- rocketbop 3y ago
  I also agree with you. And the legal or marketing team that asked for it all have bosses too asking them for certain things.
- pessimizer 3y ago
  Pretty easy to say, but if someone is going to quit their job because they think the cookie banner they've been ordered to program will annoy people, they're either absurdly privileged or comically stupid.
  - rkagerer 3y ago
    I would never work someplace that promoted hostility to their users. I am neither privileged or stupid.
    - mtrower 3y ago
      It sounds like you're at least privileged in the sense that you have the apparent option. For a lot of people it's a serious deal to pursue alternate employment, especially if the conditions they are seeking to avoid are a common practice in the industry.
- dieselgate 3y ago
  Don’t hate the player hate the game
coldpie 3y ago
I don't mean the individual developers. I mean the industry. Y'all need to spin up a working group or something and figure it out. This is getting completely insane.

legitster 3y ago

> Web devs, you clowns need get your shit together. No, the law doesn't require you to do this. Your comment is a good reminder that a median HN opinion has no idea what they are talking about. This reads almost word for word what one of our execs might have expressed at us 6 years ago when we started doing GDPR compliance.

whalesalad 3y ago

It’s wild. Especially for someone who doesn’t speak German. It’s a full page takeover on mobile with a scroll bar for fine print. Absolutely bonkers.

NelsonMinar 3y ago

This kind of UI is malicious compliance, part of a campaign by European websites to slowly grind down support for GDPR by making a really shitty experience out of it.

moultano 3y ago
All the official EU websites have them too.

jahnu 3y ago

In this case it’s not just a legally required tracking consent question. It’s saying either accept tracking if you want to read for free or subscribe and then there is no tracking.

pessimizer 3y ago
> subscribe and then there is no tracking. Is that what they're saying? Because that must be a lie. It's probably more that if you're subscribed and log in, they don't have to ask to set a cookie.

klyrs 3y ago

The web devs have got their shit together. If you delete the cookie banner through the DOM inspector, it comes back.

anigbrowl 3y ago

I find it absurd that you complain about the cookie banner while ignoring the absolute trash advertising on the actual page (which appears even though I am running an adblocker). I like cookie banners, I get to set my preferences and if a website serially abuses them they don't have the excuse that I consented by surfing to the page or something. If they really engage in abuse, I can take part in legal action. Meanwhile trash clickbait advertising is semantic and psychological pollution that actively makes the internet (and by extension the world) a much worse place for profit. Your priorities need recalibration.

rTX5CMRXIfFG 3y ago
I just spit my drink through my nose seeing that someone actually feels the need to defend cookie banners, lol. You have a fair point on how the inline ads themselves are trash, but I wouldn’t choose one over the other—I’d have neither of them.
- anigbrowl 3y ago
  I would prefer that cookies and tracking didn't exist, but given that they do I like having the option to opt out of them when I first visit a website.
  - mtrower 3y ago
    I don't know about your experience (individual web footprints and all), but the banners I see mostly aren't really asking for permission. They're telling you that they use cookies, that by using their website you consent, and the "accept all" button just notes your consent and makes the banner go away. Not all sites with banners work this way, but it seems quite common to me.
dcow 3y ago
This isn't a cookie banner. It's a full page blocking modal FFS. Way to conveniently argue past the point.
- 3y ago

Eupolemos 3y ago

There's about 4 themeparks of regulations and "we hope this is an adequate ritual" packed into all the stuff those banners need to check and keep up to date when regulations (or the way they are enforced) change. So third parties specialize in it, and we buy the banner have the company behind them trawl our sites and pull in the info about all the cookies we don't even keep taps on. And when we've installed them, we all try not to get involved with them again. Because it is the least fun and rewarding area of any web dev day and tinkering with them just might get you invited to a whole series of GDPR review meetings.

34679 3y ago

It blows my mind that people still browse the web without an ad blocker. Install Firefox + uBlock and the problem goes away.

mtrower 3y ago
uBlock (at least uBlock Origin) doesn't block banners, at least not by default. Apparently you can adjust your filters to do so, but I didn't even know that was a thing until I looked into it just now.

duxup 3y ago

> Web devs, you clowns need get your shit together. It’s not some hobby site you’re visiting and a web dev likely isn’t the decision maker…. and I doubt a web dev had much to do with the legislation for all these stupid banners.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago

It's not the web devs that do it, they know what is adequate; as others said, it's legal, people who overthink these things. I was once working on a website, we had everything fine, but then a committee of various people from various departments spent days coming up with everything that they thought the cookie banner should conform to. And then the ad revenue people come in, and say that it should be easiest to just accept all. They quickly backtracked when the EU or France fined one of the big parties; suddenly, the (legally required) reject all button was back on all the cookie banners, which is a good example on how fining large companies large sums bubbles down quickly to smaller companies doing the same thing.

dang 3y ago

"Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36341702 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36341702.

mitchdoogle 3y ago

I'm a web dev and I've tried to tell most of my clients (in the US) that they don't even NEED a cookie banner, and moreover that if they do, then it needs to be compliant with the law otherwise its completely pointless and cumbersome. They don't care. They don't trust what I tell them because they see countless other websites doing it, including some bigger companies. Even when I provide links to official EU sites or to articles that explain everything quite clearly, they do not care. And I also think it is seen as a sign of legitimacy, like companies want to prove they are a serious company in their space and so they do the same things much larger companies do, without actually considering what the point is and definitely without asking any attorneys to weight in. I suppose I could flat out refuse to do something that is dumb and pointless, but I'd rather keep their business because it doesn't actually affect me much. GDPR made a lot of headlines when it was announced and a lot of American companies confused that with the cookie requirements, because that is the time I started seeing a lot of American companies install them, including my own clients asking for them. Despite the cookie requirements being around long before that. It's quite clear that, without enforcement, nobody will ever take these things seriously. The best way to handle it would be something that requires browsers to implement and which cannot be skirted. Maybe we should do away with cookies altogether and come up with something else.