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Part of what it means to be "good at regulation" is to anticipate the likely consequences of regulations. So a regulation that says that "businesses must now gi
by tlb 3y ago
Part of what it means to be "good at regulation" is to anticipate the likely consequences of regulations. So a regulation that says that "businesses must now give away their products for free, unless they honk each customer's nose" will result in a lot of sore noses.
Which is basically the case here. Almost all websites make money through ads, or at least keep logs of user activity to help them optimize their website, and that's not going to change, so the EU's boneheaded regulations make the customers suffer a little extra.
- xxs 3y agoI guess the confusion is about advertising and tracking - the banners are about tracking not advertising.
- paulgb 3y agoAdvertising can be more targeted (and thus higher paying) when paired with tracking.
- itishappy 3y agoSo can car insurance, but I'd rather my agent not install a GPS without my knowledge or consent on my vehicle.
- tekknik 3y agonot the same, you’re paying for car insurance and they offer you a discount if you allow tracking. most sites using tracking are providing you something for no monetary cost to you, instead by showing you targeted ads
- itishappy 3y agoIt's not that different, let's make it the same. Welcome to my new insurance company! Thanks for requesting a quote (it's free! the quote, not the insurance), my agent will swing by to install a GPS chip while you sleep. We're not doing anything malicious with it, we just give you call whenever you're within 5 miles of one of our locations. We'll put it in the bin the vehicle manufacturer conveniently installed for us to hold all the trackers grocery stores and shopping malls use to offer free parking, which you can of course empty out at any time (it's clearly labeled once you remove the oil pan). What's this, a shopping center now asks before installing a GPS chip on my car (but still somehow offers free parking if I decline)? How inconvenient!
- tekknik 3y agoYou’re forgetting a key thing, market acceptance. Drive at all once in your life and you’ll realize a majority of people speed. You’re not going to force these people to punish themselves so such a system would have to come from regulation. The market has already said no.
- isodev 3y ago> Almost all websites make money through ads The EU regulation does not prevent ads from being shown, it specifically targets tracking. No tracking > no banner > everyone is happier > go ahead and show all the ads that are required.
- Xelbair 3y agoAnd all that tracking comes down with inability to take risk on business side. Ad company wants to be 100% sure that ads are shown to humans, and pay only for those shown to humans(going deeper - to specific cohorts of humans, which in the past was approximated by content of the site showing ads). Whereas sites serving ads want to extract as much money as it is possible from advertisers based on their audience count. The incentives are on both sides to to one-up each other without tracking - hosts by inflating visitor numbers, advertisers by disputing that. In a perfect world ad(wouldn't exist i know but bear with that) companies would pay X/month for site with Y visitors, where X depends on Y. No need for tracking, and roughly over multiple sites and multiple months it averages out. Not enough conversion rates(risk for ad company - they could pay less)? offer lower rate per visitor next period. Site gets spike in visitors(risk for host - they could charge more)? report higher estimated Y for next period. What we got instead is an insane tracking infrastructure that costs way more than any possible profit gained for both sides. It's not even profit - it's avoiding being 'scammed', avoiding risk. Remember that all that tracking bullshit started before targeted advertising was mainstream and widespread. It all started with bots and inflated click numbers, and inability to accept risk. Tl;dr banning targeted advertising won't remove all tracking bullshit
- joenot443 3y agoWell said. It's frustrating seeing people earnestly pretending as if the 'solution' we're living with now is any kind of improvement.
- thomastjeffery 3y agoWithout regulation, how do you expect this market to change?
- oneeyedpigeon 3y agoA site can keep logs of user activity to help optimize without tracking my personal data. As soon as a company needs to track me, it's doing more than "optimizing its website"—it's using my data to sell me stuff or selling my data to third parties. And I'm glad it needs permission to do those things.
- tekknik 3y agoWhat if I want to optimize my site for certain classes of users? Say a less than abled person. What if I want to make my product easier to use with various control schemes used by a handicapped person and my product is so complex that tracking this demographic’s usage of my product is the easiest or only way? and what if there is no intent to sell your data? I could ask permission and delay, or I could just capture the data and run experiments or A/B testing. You should also learn that nobody knows everything, and saying something isn’t required usually is just showing your own ignorance as in almost every case you’ll come across you will find at least one valid use.
- oneeyedpigeon 3y ago> What if I want to optimize my site for certain classes of users? Say a less than abled person. What are you learning from users' personal data that changes how you do this? Shouldn't your site be accessible, regardless of usage?
- tekknik 3y agoSay I want to know why handicapped people with certain disorders are having a difficult time accessing the site. Having a site accessible is a start, but unless you somehow predict difficulties using your product after design changes then you will constantly have to verify things like button sizes and placements.
- happymellon 3y agoShowing adverts is not what requires them to ask permission.
- rkangel 3y agoYour point is well made, and this is an unfortunate consequence of the regulation (and I enjoyed the analogy). But it isn't necessary to have cookie banners on every website. Github is a moderately complex, user-optimised website, right? https://github.blog/2020-12-17-no-cookie-for-you/ https://github.blog/2020-12-17-no-cookie-for-you/
- hgomersall 3y agoI clicked on that link and immediately got a cookie banner. Am I missing something?
- rkangel 3y agoInteresting. Clearly I am providing out of date information.
- cseleborg 3y agoMore interestingly, that article says: > We are also committing that going forward, we will only use cookies that are required for us to serve GitHub.com. A few pixels further down, on the cookie banner: > We use optional cookies to improve your experience on our websites and to display personalized advertising based on your online activity. I guess now we finally have a rule-of-thumb figure for what "going forward" means: 3-4 years, tops.
- hgomersall 3y agoOTOH, github.blog is not github.com.
- denton-scratch 3y agoI don't know; I clicked on the link and saw no cookie banner.
- siva7 3y ago
- IanCal 3y ago> Almost all websites make money through ads, Doesn't require tracking of individuals. > or at least keep logs of user activity to help them optimize their website Doesn't require tracking of individuals.
- throw10920 3y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong, aren't but IP addresses are considered to be "personal information" and therefore collecting them is "tracking" under the GDPR?
- oneeyedpigeon 3y agoMy guess is that they are because ISPs may keep records of them—I think they are required to in some jurisdictions. But you don't have to store IPs in your server logs.
- IanCal 3y agoYou're also allowed to store IP addresses in your logs, you just have to take care with the data and the reason you're storing them needs to be justified - either because you have a legitimate interest in doing so (e.g. security) or because you have my explicit consent. If I order something from an online shop, they don't need to have a banner in order to take my name and address to post the item to me - that's fully expected and reasonable. They do need my consent if they want to use that to post adverts to me though.
- IanCal 3y agoYes but it depends what you're doing with them as to whether you need consent. If you're keeping a record of my IP address and what I do on your site to sell me stuff then yes you're tracking me and need my consent for that. If you've got my IP address in your logs because you keep security logs for reasonable timeframes then you don't need my consent - though you do need to handle them appropriately because it's my personal data.
- thomastjeffery 3y ago
- madsbuch 3y agothose pesky regulations. back in the good ol days where I could pillage for a living, but then that damn government came and took away my livelihood! How dare they! </sarcasm> Just because you made money of it, it doesn't mean it is right.