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This doesn't make sense to me. You make it sound like a rosy cooperative relationship where advertisers want to follow the rules and regulators just haven't mad

This doesn't make sense to me. You make it sound like a rosy cooperative relationship where advertisers want to follow the rules and regulators just haven't made them. Even so, regulation isn't "complete control" in any way. It seems more like the advertisers are always going to try to make the advertisements as effective as possible while toeing the letter of the law as closely as possible and ignoring the spirit of the law completely. What are you actually trying to say here?

johndhi 3y ago
I'm saying the laws EU has released are too complex and indirect and cost too much money, and that if they wanted to ban behavioral advertising outright they should have and could have done that instead of what they have done.
- EMIRELADERO 3y ago
  Could you give some details about which provisions of those laws are too complex/cost too much money to comply with, and why?
- mrweasel 3y ago
  Any idea as to way they'd opt for this indirectness, rather than an outright ban? I'd imagine it would be to protect some niche, or to avoid getting the law dragged through courts for ten year.
  - blackbeans 3y ago
    As far as I know, the EU legislation is primarily aimed to protect privacy. Behavioral advertising is related because it requires tracking, and tracking requires the consent and understanding of users in the EU. There was (is) a huge dependence on US software in Europe, that's probably why there was some reluctance at the start in enforcing it. However since "America first" the EU is trying to be more independent and boost its own European made software, that's likely why the climate for other software has worsened.
- FridgeSeal 3y ago
  This papers over the realities a bit too much. If they were to “ban behavioural advertising”, then advertisers would simply rebrand it: “oh no it’s not behavioural advertising, it’s ’interest-centric’ advertising, completely different”. The point is to ban it in “spirit” not in “letter”, because a ban in the lette would simply get lawyered around and end up not being worth the paper it’s written on. The advertisers know that these regulations ban behavioural advertising effectively, which is why their immediate tactic is to decry the wording as “too hard” and “too confusing”. This is an obfuscation tactic. Like with GDPR, it’s actually shockingly easy to comply with: Just don’t track users and sell their data.
- dgb23 3y ago
  The actually ridiculous part is not that. It’s the fact that our browsers don’t solve this issue in a standardized way. Everyone who serves HTTP in the Eu and includes third party tracking, shows you an idiosyncratic consent banner. Often these things download a large amount of JS as well. That’s completely and utterly idiotic. - It’s confusing for users. - It interrupts the user’s flow everytime they visit a site. - It’s bad for overall performance. - It’s bad for people who publish content. - Developers have to defer to legal experts for trivial stuff out of FUD. - It doesn’t work correctly on the technical side. - It doesn’t work from a user’s perspective, because they just get annoyed or uncertain and falsely consent! Nobody wins. It should just be a standard, global feature in browsers. A site should only ask you _once_, if at all from a user’s perspective. The browser should send a “profiling and tracking” whitelist, or simply make it available via a JS API. Why is this not the case?
  - martin8412 3y ago
    There's already DNT(Do not track) in the browsers, but nobody respects it.
    - dgb23 3y ago
      So there’s the problem. This should be sufficient?
      - troupo 3y ago
        Browsers removed the Do Not Track header because it was... used to track users. This should give you the answer to "why this isn't sufficient". The ads industry does not respect anything until it's driven out of existence by fines.
      - abwizz 3y ago
        exactly and top is complaining that his industry was instead given unholy ammounts of money to agrue that it isn't.
    - vanderZwan 3y ago
- cabalamat 3y ago
  > if they wanted to ban behavioral advertising outright they should have and could have done that instead of what they have done Yes they could, so the question is why didn't they? I suspect the answer is that there are lots of factions within the EU, some want to ban it and some don't and what they've done is a compromise.
- troupo 3y ago
  > I'm saying the laws EU has released are too complex and indirect and cost too much money No, and no, and no. Most privcy-adjacent laws that EU has released in recent years are neither complex, nor do they cost too much money. Well, they cost some money because businesses have this entrenched idea that they have an inalienable right to your data, so they don't even know which data they collect, sell, exchange, let leak, or use throughout their systems. Well, boo-hoo. Spend some time and money to get rid of this idea. And the laws are "indirect" in the sense that all laws are indirect. They have to be general enough to be applicable not just in the year they were released to the technology of the time.
  - johndhi 3y ago
    > Most privcy-adjacent laws that EU has released in recent years are neither complex, nor do they cost too much money. Please visit https://gdpr-info.eu/ https://gdpr-info.eu/ and read the text of the 99 articles that make up the GDPR. You don't think 99 separate statements of the law are too many? Not complex? Add in reading all of the CJEU opinions and the original directive behind GDPR (which remains in force). Also add the e-privacy directive, a 15 year old law that is also still in force. How can you say that isn't complex? > Well, they cost some money My argument is that it costs more money than it's worth. Hard to find good statistics, but we can leave it at that.

johndhi 3y ago

I'm saying the laws EU has released are too complex and indirect and cost too much money, and that if they wanted to ban behavioral advertising outright they should have and could have done that instead of what they have done.

EMIRELADERO 3y ago
Could you give some details about which provisions of those laws are too complex/cost too much money to comply with, and why?
mrweasel 3y ago
Any idea as to way they'd opt for this indirectness, rather than an outright ban? I'd imagine it would be to protect some niche, or to avoid getting the law dragged through courts for ten year.
- blackbeans 3y ago
  As far as I know, the EU legislation is primarily aimed to protect privacy. Behavioral advertising is related because it requires tracking, and tracking requires the consent and understanding of users in the EU. There was (is) a huge dependence on US software in Europe, that's probably why there was some reluctance at the start in enforcing it. However since "America first" the EU is trying to be more independent and boost its own European made software, that's likely why the climate for other software has worsened.
FridgeSeal 3y ago
This papers over the realities a bit too much. If they were to “ban behavioural advertising”, then advertisers would simply rebrand it: “oh no it’s not behavioural advertising, it’s ’interest-centric’ advertising, completely different”. The point is to ban it in “spirit” not in “letter”, because a ban in the lette would simply get lawyered around and end up not being worth the paper it’s written on. The advertisers know that these regulations ban behavioural advertising effectively, which is why their immediate tactic is to decry the wording as “too hard” and “too confusing”. This is an obfuscation tactic. Like with GDPR, it’s actually shockingly easy to comply with: Just don’t track users and sell their data.
dgb23 3y ago
The actually ridiculous part is not that. It’s the fact that our browsers don’t solve this issue in a standardized way. Everyone who serves HTTP in the Eu and includes third party tracking, shows you an idiosyncratic consent banner. Often these things download a large amount of JS as well. That’s completely and utterly idiotic. - It’s confusing for users. - It interrupts the user’s flow everytime they visit a site. - It’s bad for overall performance. - It’s bad for people who publish content. - Developers have to defer to legal experts for trivial stuff out of FUD. - It doesn’t work correctly on the technical side. - It doesn’t work from a user’s perspective, because they just get annoyed or uncertain and falsely consent! Nobody wins. It should just be a standard, global feature in browsers. A site should only ask you _once_, if at all from a user’s perspective. The browser should send a “profiling and tracking” whitelist, or simply make it available via a JS API. Why is this not the case?
- martin8412 3y ago
  There's already DNT(Do not track) in the browsers, but nobody respects it.
  - dgb23 3y ago
    So there’s the problem. This should be sufficient?
    - troupo 3y ago
      Browsers removed the Do Not Track header because it was... used to track users. This should give you the answer to "why this isn't sufficient". The ads industry does not respect anything until it's driven out of existence by fines.
    - abwizz 3y ago
      exactly and top is complaining that his industry was instead given unholy ammounts of money to agrue that it isn't.
  - vanderZwan 3y ago
cabalamat 3y ago
> if they wanted to ban behavioral advertising outright they should have and could have done that instead of what they have done Yes they could, so the question is why didn't they? I suspect the answer is that there are lots of factions within the EU, some want to ban it and some don't and what they've done is a compromise.
troupo 3y ago
> I'm saying the laws EU has released are too complex and indirect and cost too much money No, and no, and no. Most privcy-adjacent laws that EU has released in recent years are neither complex, nor do they cost too much money. Well, they cost some money because businesses have this entrenched idea that they have an inalienable right to your data, so they don't even know which data they collect, sell, exchange, let leak, or use throughout their systems. Well, boo-hoo. Spend some time and money to get rid of this idea. And the laws are "indirect" in the sense that all laws are indirect. They have to be general enough to be applicable not just in the year they were released to the technology of the time.
- johndhi 3y ago
  > Most privcy-adjacent laws that EU has released in recent years are neither complex, nor do they cost too much money. Please visit https://gdpr-info.eu/ https://gdpr-info.eu/ and read the text of the 99 articles that make up the GDPR. You don't think 99 separate statements of the law are too many? Not complex? Add in reading all of the CJEU opinions and the original directive behind GDPR (which remains in force). Also add the e-privacy directive, a 15 year old law that is also still in force. How can you say that isn't complex? > Well, they cost some money My argument is that it costs more money than it's worth. Hard to find good statistics, but we can leave it at that.