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Whilst, I am very opposed to tracking; especially covert. I do believe the cookie law is bad. Fundamentally, websites can not store content on your computer wit

by ZiiS 3y ago

Whilst, I am very opposed to tracking; especially covert. I do believe the cookie law is bad. Fundamentally, websites can not store content on your computer without your consent. Your "User Agent" is what stores cookies; it is usually a piece of open source software fully in your control capable of only storing them based on any policy you like, including asking you for each site. Whilst it would be nice for all sites to set an "Evil Bit" telling you which cookies are functional and which are for Adversing tracking, this is un-policable.

niklasrde 3y ago
That's not true. "strictly necessary cookies" are allowed without consent (but information on their use must be available). Examples for what that means given by the EU itself [1] include "cookies that allow web shops to hold your items in your cart while you are shopping". And on the policing - there are a lot of laws that cannot be "policed". It requires trust, goodwill, collaboration and savy users to report violations to the webmaster or relevant ICO. [1]: https://gdpr.eu/cookies/ https://gdpr.eu/cookies/
- ZiiS 3y ago
  How do you know if a site has used a cookie they said was functional to track you?
  - LunaSea 3y ago
    It doesn't matter because that's the law and if you don't follow it you risk a fine. How do you know if your neighbour is not producing meth in his basement?
mpeg 3y ago
What you're suggesting is basically the same thing as what the law is achieving. Yes, users could block all cookies but this will break functionality on a lot of sites, so it's not reasonable. And yes, sites could communicate which are functionality cookies and which are tracking cookies, but as you say it's hard to police this, so pushing the issues to the user's software won't work. What the law does is fixes all this by requiring sites to obtain consent in certain scenarios; but if your site only sets cookies required for the site to function (shopping cart, login cookies), or if it tracks users for the purpose of security (eg a bank that detects when you log in from a new device / location) you DO NOT need to obtain consent, no banner required.

by ZiiS 3y ago

niklasrde 3y ago

That's not true. "strictly necessary cookies" are allowed without consent (but information on their use must be available). Examples for what that means given by the EU itself [1] include "cookies that allow web shops to hold your items in your cart while you are shopping". And on the policing - there are a lot of laws that cannot be "policed". It requires trust, goodwill, collaboration and savy users to report violations to the webmaster or relevant ICO. [1]: https://gdpr.eu/cookies/ https://gdpr.eu/cookies/

ZiiS 3y ago
How do you know if a site has used a cookie they said was functional to track you?
- LunaSea 3y ago
  It doesn't matter because that's the law and if you don't follow it you risk a fine. How do you know if your neighbour is not producing meth in his basement?

mpeg 3y ago

What you're suggesting is basically the same thing as what the law is achieving. Yes, users could block all cookies but this will break functionality on a lot of sites, so it's not reasonable. And yes, sites could communicate which are functionality cookies and which are tracking cookies, but as you say it's hard to police this, so pushing the issues to the user's software won't work. What the law does is fixes all this by requiring sites to obtain consent in certain scenarios; but if your site only sets cookies required for the site to function (shopping cart, login cookies), or if it tracks users for the purpose of security (eg a bank that detects when you log in from a new device / location) you DO NOT need to obtain consent, no banner required.