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The EU forcing this garbage is one of the worst things to happen to the web.

ceejayoz 3y ago
The EU didn't actually force cookie banners; they're not the only route to GDPR compliance. The other routes - like only using necessary cookies - were just unacceptable to ad/tracking companies.
- bennyp101 3y ago
  Cookie consent banners and GDPR are different things though - it just happens that GDPR also classifies cookies as identifiers.
- Spivak 3y ago
  "The EU didn't force cookie banners, they just made it so that companies have to choose between the banners and their revenue, conversion tracking, and business metrics." Whoever's bright idea that forcing an annoying banner on users was going to make any company currently employing tracking think even for a microsecond about not tracking needs to have their head examined. Because you employ tracking you're legally obligated to make someone else's life more annoying is a brilliant piece of legislation.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    > "The EU didn't force cookie banners, they just made it so that companies have to choose between the banners and their revenue, conversion tracking, and business metrics." You don't have to choose between those. Revenue tracking is clearly necessary; `SUM(total) FROM orders` hardly violates the GDPR. Conversion tracking can be done in an anonymized fashion, or via things like coupon codes. Plenty of business metrics left to go on. The EU correctly decided the balance of things was too far in the corporate direction versus the consumer direction.
- wnevets 3y ago
  > they're not the only route to GDPR compliance. But if it was the easiest and cheapest. Their lack of basic foresight is painful and has made the web worse.
  - forty 3y ago
    You cannot blame the EU on having many websites making poor product decision and customers being content with crappy websites. Just stop visiting websites that have those banners and write angrily about it too their support. If enough people do the same, the law will work as intended.
    - wnevets 3y ago
      > You cannot blame the EU on having many websites making poor product decision and customers being content with crappy websites. I absolutely can blame the EU, prior to these regulations these cookie banners didn't plague the web. Virtually no one's privacy has increased because these regulations but almost everyone's web experience has been made worse because of these regulations. > If enough people do the same, the law will work as intended. How many more years do we have to wait for this happen? This HN post exist because FireFox is having to create a brand new feature to handle this garbage on its own.
- adrr 3y ago
  EU is law is so bad that Wikipedia has a cookie banner. It literally bans all non functional cookies unless the users consents like preference cookies, performance monitoring cookies etc. I am sure all their government sites violate their own rules because i see preference cookies getting dropped without my consent and if I block the cookie, site still works.
  - Nextgrid 3y ago
    > preference cookies This would count as a functional cookie. > performance monitoring cookies Your web server doesn't need a cookie to tell you how long it took to process my request.
  - jimbobthrowawy 3y ago
    What does this wikipedia cookie banner look like? I tried to get it to pop up for the last ten minutes and got nothing. Even changed browsers, deleted all cookies, and disabled my adblocker. Might it be a regional thing? My IP address is geolocated in the EU.
    - wnevets 3y ago
      I don't think it exists. The only banners I've ever gotten on wikipedia are donation related.
- Nextgrid 3y ago
  To be fair, the EU does bear the fault in that its regulation is not enforced enough. The GDPR actually forbids annoying users into consent (it doesn't count if you force or trick users into consenting) but enforcement of this has been so lacking that entire businesses like TrustArc have been built on providing non-GDPR-compliant consent flows.
yard2010 3y ago
Murica not catching up with the game not regulating anything and literally letting crooked billionaires do whatever they like is one of the worst things happen to the web :(
- wnevets 3y ago
  > literally letting crooked billionaires do whatever they like How exactly have these banners prevented that?

The EU didn't actually force cookie banners; they're not the only route to GDPR compliance. The other routes - like only using necessary cookies - were just unacceptable to ad/tracking companies.

bennyp101 3y ago
Cookie consent banners and GDPR are different things though - it just happens that GDPR also classifies cookies as identifiers.
Spivak 3y ago
"The EU didn't force cookie banners, they just made it so that companies have to choose between the banners and their revenue, conversion tracking, and business metrics." Whoever's bright idea that forcing an annoying banner on users was going to make any company currently employing tracking think even for a microsecond about not tracking needs to have their head examined. Because you employ tracking you're legally obligated to make someone else's life more annoying is a brilliant piece of legislation.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  > "The EU didn't force cookie banners, they just made it so that companies have to choose between the banners and their revenue, conversion tracking, and business metrics." You don't have to choose between those. Revenue tracking is clearly necessary; `SUM(total) FROM orders` hardly violates the GDPR. Conversion tracking can be done in an anonymized fashion, or via things like coupon codes. Plenty of business metrics left to go on. The EU correctly decided the balance of things was too far in the corporate direction versus the consumer direction.
wnevets 3y ago
> they're not the only route to GDPR compliance. But if it was the easiest and cheapest. Their lack of basic foresight is painful and has made the web worse.
- forty 3y ago
  You cannot blame the EU on having many websites making poor product decision and customers being content with crappy websites. Just stop visiting websites that have those banners and write angrily about it too their support. If enough people do the same, the law will work as intended.
  - wnevets 3y ago
    > You cannot blame the EU on having many websites making poor product decision and customers being content with crappy websites. I absolutely can blame the EU, prior to these regulations these cookie banners didn't plague the web. Virtually no one's privacy has increased because these regulations but almost everyone's web experience has been made worse because of these regulations. > If enough people do the same, the law will work as intended. How many more years do we have to wait for this happen? This HN post exist because FireFox is having to create a brand new feature to handle this garbage on its own.
adrr 3y ago
EU is law is so bad that Wikipedia has a cookie banner. It literally bans all non functional cookies unless the users consents like preference cookies, performance monitoring cookies etc. I am sure all their government sites violate their own rules because i see preference cookies getting dropped without my consent and if I block the cookie, site still works.
- Nextgrid 3y ago
  > preference cookies This would count as a functional cookie. > performance monitoring cookies Your web server doesn't need a cookie to tell you how long it took to process my request.
- jimbobthrowawy 3y ago
  What does this wikipedia cookie banner look like? I tried to get it to pop up for the last ten minutes and got nothing. Even changed browsers, deleted all cookies, and disabled my adblocker. Might it be a regional thing? My IP address is geolocated in the EU.
  - wnevets 3y ago
    I don't think it exists. The only banners I've ever gotten on wikipedia are donation related.
Nextgrid 3y ago
To be fair, the EU does bear the fault in that its regulation is not enforced enough. The GDPR actually forbids annoying users into consent (it doesn't count if you force or trick users into consenting) but enforcement of this has been so lacking that entire businesses like TrustArc have been built on providing non-GDPR-compliant consent flows.

yard2010 3y ago

Murica not catching up with the game not regulating anything and literally letting crooked billionaires do whatever they like is one of the worst things happen to the web :(

wnevets 3y ago
> literally letting crooked billionaires do whatever they like How exactly have these banners prevented that?