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Using your analogy, I think what ends up happening is that even companies that don't collect hidden fees will put up a banner just in case. Not only that, I'm

Using your analogy, I think what ends up happening is that even companies that don't collect hidden fees will put up a banner just in case. Not only that, I'm not an EU citizen and I'm not browsing websites based in EU but I'm still bombarded with cookie banners non-stop.

piva00 3y ago
> Not only that, I'm not an EU citizen and I'm not browsing websites based in EU but I'm still bombarded with cookie banners non-stop. Again, that's the fault of the companies putting those up, they could make it opt-in to collect your data, they could just put a small notice on the footer with 2 simples links "Accept all/Reject all". But they chose, they decided to pester you with those banners as annoyingly as possible to make you have exactly the reaction you're having.
- aurareturn 3y ago
  The fact that companies are doing that says more about the bad law than the companies which is exactly Paul Graham's point.
  - bananapub 3y ago
    what a ridiculous point of view. do you think the same thing about laws against murder? about fraud?
    - card_zero 3y ago
      I've got to admit, I'm unclear what the equivalent of a cookie banner for murder would be. This criminal uses murder! If you continue to interact, you consent to being murdered. Murders you anyway
  - paulryanrogers 3y ago
    Or it says more about the manipulative intentions of the companies than anything about a good law.
  - piva00 3y ago
    What exactly is bad about the law that allows companies to do the annoying cookie banner?
  - kibwen 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - throw10920 3y ago
      > Please stop defending the behavior of shitty companies. At the very least, I hope you're getting paid for these comments. Please don't do this on HN.
  - layer8 3y ago
    The law is pretty crystal clear. In many cases the issue is that websites are outsourcing their tracking to ad companies, which in turn apply those banners indiscriminately because that's in their interest. That being said, all the dark-pattern banners actually break the law. The problem, if anything, is lack of enforcement of the law.
    - aurareturn 3y ago
      The law is pretty crystal clear. In many cases the issue is that websites are outsourcing their tracking to ad companies, which in turn apply those banners indiscriminately because that's in their interest. You think a small company should roll their own tracking software? A mom and pop website that wants to track its conversion rate on its little eCommerce site? Come on. Be realistic.
  - toyg 3y ago
    So the problem is that the legislator did not expect companies to be even worse assholes than they already were...? Laws are not borne in a perfect state; very much like programs, sometimes you need a few versions to see how the system actually works in practice and fix a few bugs. The fact that v1.0 has such bugs is not a good reason to just give up, nor it's an indication that the programmer is bad at programming.
    - nickpp 3y ago
      > companies to be even worse assholes All companies? Every single company with a website even if without any trackers or ads?! All companies are evil and the single law that triggered their evil behaviour is good. Sure. Ever heard of Occam's razor?
      - toyg 3y ago
        Companies who don't track don't need any banner or popup. > All companies are evil No, but many, many companies are sociopathic assholes that exist just to make a buck. Otherwise we wouldn't need these laws.
        nickpp 3y ago
        All companies exist just to make a buck. And in the process they serve us with literally every single product and service we are using every second of every day. They play by the rules we put on them, making their life easier or harder, and in the process making our life easier or harder. Like this bad cookie law.
  - rvense 3y ago
    It is the companies that suck, and Paul Graham is (quite literally) invested in the suckage, wherefore this dumb tweet. Which, if one wanted to create an ad campaign for that eternal Upton Sinclair quote, couldn't have been done much better. (Thanks for the site though, Paul)
    - kortilla 3y ago
      Paul is very unlikely to be invested in tracking unless he has some shares in Google/Facebook. Startups in tracking aren’t really a thing
      - toyg 3y ago
        I expect most startups "integrate" their regular revenues (if they have any) with some sort of adtech deal.
        nickpp 3y ago
        Any source for those allegations or is it only your imagination?
  - paulmd 3y ago
    "this is what you get for trying to handle us with kid gloves" is an understandable reaction/blowback from advertisers but I don't think it's something we should be giving any real weight or merit. it's also generally an indictment of the modern neoliberal regulatory approach in general. asking people nicely to follow train safety regulations etc isn't going to get you results. even fines/penalties largely end up just as cost-of-doing-business (even in the EU). if you really want behavior to go away, make it illegal and give people at the top Sarbanes-Oxley-style legal culpability if it happens on their watch. again, if you want to know the right way to set incentives so that people don't do a thing, you need only look at the way rich people want their money handled. you can bet that ripping off rich people is an ultra-mega-crime and doesn't just get a 1%-of-the-takings slap on the wrist. And lo and behold SOX does actually hold important people accountable as a result, not just some fall guy at the bottom.
nolok 3y ago
For your first point I disagree, my companies don't track and we don't have banner cookies. On your second point, that is again a choice of said companies, not a problem with the law. The GDPR has proven very well that if they cared, they can segment who is affected or not, and not just big tech lots of random local news site and the likes are doing it just fine. So again, you're aiming at the wrong culprit.
gizmo 3y ago
Do you have /any/ examples of websites that don't have a bunch of 3rd party cookies that still have a cookie banner? Middle managers absolutely love anything with charts and graphs because it makes their decisions feel more scientific. That's why they want tracking software included on their websites. And if the law requires disclosure then a cookie popup is the solution.
- PennRobotics 3y ago
  It only took two minutes to find at https://www.schwarzkuenstler.com/ https://www.schwarzkuenstler.com/ and I'm sure I can find a dozen more in half an hour. Germany is a bit litigious w.r.t. internet or privacy, so the combination---cookie consent---is a doozy. Nearly every German website that does anything will have a consent notification, and the slightest misstep (e.g. using Google Fonts without asking permission) can be punishable.
  - gizmo 3y ago
    Their privacy policy states they use Google reCAPTCHA, which requires disclosure.
    - PennRobotics 3y ago
      True, I hadn't noticed that at first glance, and I didn't see that as a third-party cookie in my site data. Nonetheless, I regularly see cookie warnings on sites with purely first-party cookies or even "just" session storage. (Mostly, I have been alert to this for the past year as I've started making non-personal web sites in Europe.)
- maccard 3y ago
  My company recently announced a game, and we launched a website for the game. There's no ̶t̶h̶i̶r̶d̶ ̶p̶a̶r̶t̶y̶ e:tracking cookies (I didn't make the site, but I do run it). Our US based legal team told us we needed a cookie banner if we were going to have visitors in the EU. I pushed back, but I lost, and ultimately it's not my fight.
pokot0 3y ago
Just been in Europe last week (I live in US): you have no idea what a nightmare internet is in Europe. You are only seeing a side effect here.
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  > what a nightmare internet is in Europe I live in Europe; I don't experience this "nightmare". Would you care to expand?
  - yau8edq12i 3y ago
    As someone who's lived in both the US and Europe during the past few years... GP is full of shit.
  - pokot0 3y ago
    Sure. The nightmare is that every single time you open the browser on a website you have to go through the data tracking preference for that website. It's a lot of work to avoid being tracked (companies are obviously using dark patterns there) and when you do it 20 times a day it gets frustrating quickly and collectively a big waste of human time. Now I am not saying the US doesn't have a problem. They just don't have GDPR and most website don't ask you for any permission to track you. So the experience is generally smoother (with the occasional tracking popup). Ideally there should be a way for me to broadcast my willingness to share my data and not allow dark patterns to try to change my opinion. But the GDPR does not cover that and allows websites to drive you crazy until you click "YES, Track me"
    - tremon 3y ago
      I think your problem is that you're accessing US websites from Europe, since those are what you know. European websites are a lot less annoying, they actually care about the customer base here.
    - denton-scratch 3y ago
      > every single time you open the browser on a website you have to go through the data tracking preference for that website This is not my experience. Perhaps the websites you favour are exceptionally abusive. > a way for me to broadcast my willingness to share my data That's the opposite of what most people want to broadcast. > But the GDPR does not cover that and allows websites to drive you crazy Apparently your view is that GDPR should not allow that, i.e. it isn't strict enough. I'm inclined to agree.

piva00 3y ago

> Not only that, I'm not an EU citizen and I'm not browsing websites based in EU but I'm still bombarded with cookie banners non-stop. Again, that's the fault of the companies putting those up, they could make it opt-in to collect your data, they could just put a small notice on the footer with 2 simples links "Accept all/Reject all". But they chose, they decided to pester you with those banners as annoyingly as possible to make you have exactly the reaction you're having.

aurareturn 3y ago
The fact that companies are doing that says more about the bad law than the companies which is exactly Paul Graham's point.
- bananapub 3y ago
  what a ridiculous point of view. do you think the same thing about laws against murder? about fraud?
  - card_zero 3y ago
    I've got to admit, I'm unclear what the equivalent of a cookie banner for murder would be. This criminal uses murder! If you continue to interact, you consent to being murdered. Murders you anyway
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  Or it says more about the manipulative intentions of the companies than anything about a good law.
- piva00 3y ago
  What exactly is bad about the law that allows companies to do the annoying cookie banner?
- kibwen 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - throw10920 3y ago
    > Please stop defending the behavior of shitty companies. At the very least, I hope you're getting paid for these comments. Please don't do this on HN.
- layer8 3y ago
  The law is pretty crystal clear. In many cases the issue is that websites are outsourcing their tracking to ad companies, which in turn apply those banners indiscriminately because that's in their interest. That being said, all the dark-pattern banners actually break the law. The problem, if anything, is lack of enforcement of the law.
  - aurareturn 3y ago
    The law is pretty crystal clear. In many cases the issue is that websites are outsourcing their tracking to ad companies, which in turn apply those banners indiscriminately because that's in their interest. You think a small company should roll their own tracking software? A mom and pop website that wants to track its conversion rate on its little eCommerce site? Come on. Be realistic.
- toyg 3y ago
  So the problem is that the legislator did not expect companies to be even worse assholes than they already were...? Laws are not borne in a perfect state; very much like programs, sometimes you need a few versions to see how the system actually works in practice and fix a few bugs. The fact that v1.0 has such bugs is not a good reason to just give up, nor it's an indication that the programmer is bad at programming.
  - nickpp 3y ago
    > companies to be even worse assholes All companies? Every single company with a website even if without any trackers or ads?! All companies are evil and the single law that triggered their evil behaviour is good. Sure. Ever heard of Occam's razor?
    - toyg 3y ago
      Companies who don't track don't need any banner or popup. > All companies are evil No, but many, many companies are sociopathic assholes that exist just to make a buck. Otherwise we wouldn't need these laws.
      - nickpp 3y ago
        All companies exist just to make a buck. And in the process they serve us with literally every single product and service we are using every second of every day. They play by the rules we put on them, making their life easier or harder, and in the process making our life easier or harder. Like this bad cookie law.
- rvense 3y ago
  It is the companies that suck, and Paul Graham is (quite literally) invested in the suckage, wherefore this dumb tweet. Which, if one wanted to create an ad campaign for that eternal Upton Sinclair quote, couldn't have been done much better. (Thanks for the site though, Paul)
  - kortilla 3y ago
    Paul is very unlikely to be invested in tracking unless he has some shares in Google/Facebook. Startups in tracking aren’t really a thing
    - toyg 3y ago
      I expect most startups "integrate" their regular revenues (if they have any) with some sort of adtech deal.
      - nickpp 3y ago
        Any source for those allegations or is it only your imagination?
- paulmd 3y ago
  "this is what you get for trying to handle us with kid gloves" is an understandable reaction/blowback from advertisers but I don't think it's something we should be giving any real weight or merit. it's also generally an indictment of the modern neoliberal regulatory approach in general. asking people nicely to follow train safety regulations etc isn't going to get you results. even fines/penalties largely end up just as cost-of-doing-business (even in the EU). if you really want behavior to go away, make it illegal and give people at the top Sarbanes-Oxley-style legal culpability if it happens on their watch. again, if you want to know the right way to set incentives so that people don't do a thing, you need only look at the way rich people want their money handled. you can bet that ripping off rich people is an ultra-mega-crime and doesn't just get a 1%-of-the-takings slap on the wrist. And lo and behold SOX does actually hold important people accountable as a result, not just some fall guy at the bottom.

nolok 3y ago

For your first point I disagree, my companies don't track and we don't have banner cookies. On your second point, that is again a choice of said companies, not a problem with the law. The GDPR has proven very well that if they cared, they can segment who is affected or not, and not just big tech lots of random local news site and the likes are doing it just fine. So again, you're aiming at the wrong culprit.

gizmo 3y ago

Do you have /any/ examples of websites that don't have a bunch of 3rd party cookies that still have a cookie banner? Middle managers absolutely love anything with charts and graphs because it makes their decisions feel more scientific. That's why they want tracking software included on their websites. And if the law requires disclosure then a cookie popup is the solution.

PennRobotics 3y ago
It only took two minutes to find at https://www.schwarzkuenstler.com/ https://www.schwarzkuenstler.com/ and I'm sure I can find a dozen more in half an hour. Germany is a bit litigious w.r.t. internet or privacy, so the combination---cookie consent---is a doozy. Nearly every German website that does anything will have a consent notification, and the slightest misstep (e.g. using Google Fonts without asking permission) can be punishable.
- gizmo 3y ago
  Their privacy policy states they use Google reCAPTCHA, which requires disclosure.
  - PennRobotics 3y ago
    True, I hadn't noticed that at first glance, and I didn't see that as a third-party cookie in my site data. Nonetheless, I regularly see cookie warnings on sites with purely first-party cookies or even "just" session storage. (Mostly, I have been alert to this for the past year as I've started making non-personal web sites in Europe.)
maccard 3y ago
My company recently announced a game, and we launched a website for the game. There's no ̶t̶h̶i̶r̶d̶ ̶p̶a̶r̶t̶y̶ e:tracking cookies (I didn't make the site, but I do run it). Our US based legal team told us we needed a cookie banner if we were going to have visitors in the EU. I pushed back, but I lost, and ultimately it's not my fight.

pokot0 3y ago

Just been in Europe last week (I live in US): you have no idea what a nightmare internet is in Europe. You are only seeing a side effect here.

denton-scratch 3y ago
> what a nightmare internet is in Europe I live in Europe; I don't experience this "nightmare". Would you care to expand?
- yau8edq12i 3y ago
  As someone who's lived in both the US and Europe during the past few years... GP is full of shit.
- pokot0 3y ago
  Sure. The nightmare is that every single time you open the browser on a website you have to go through the data tracking preference for that website. It's a lot of work to avoid being tracked (companies are obviously using dark patterns there) and when you do it 20 times a day it gets frustrating quickly and collectively a big waste of human time. Now I am not saying the US doesn't have a problem. They just don't have GDPR and most website don't ask you for any permission to track you. So the experience is generally smoother (with the occasional tracking popup). Ideally there should be a way for me to broadcast my willingness to share my data and not allow dark patterns to try to change my opinion. But the GDPR does not cover that and allows websites to drive you crazy until you click "YES, Track me"
  - tremon 3y ago
    I think your problem is that you're accessing US websites from Europe, since those are what you know. European websites are a lot less annoying, they actually care about the customer base here.
  - denton-scratch 3y ago
    > every single time you open the browser on a website you have to go through the data tracking preference for that website This is not my experience. Perhaps the websites you favour are exceptionally abusive. > a way for me to broadcast my willingness to share my data That's the opposite of what most people want to broadcast. > But the GDPR does not cover that and allows websites to drive you crazy Apparently your view is that GDPR should not allow that, i.e. it isn't strict enough. I'm inclined to agree.