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> Oh good, another pop-up dialog no one will read that will be added to every site. > no one i go through every cookie pop up and manually reject all permissi

> Oh good, another pop-up dialog no one will read that will be added to every site. > no one i go through every cookie pop up and manually reject all permissions. especially objecting to legitimate interest. i actually enjoy it. i find it satisfying saying no to a massive list of companies. the number of people who read these things is definitely not 0. my question to you is, why does compliance with regulation make you so … irritated? you don’t think it serves a purpose. but it does. there’s an incongruity there.

jampekka 2y ago
At least my irritation comes from the increasing amount of "consents" and "agreements" that are obviously not designed to be read, let alone understood. Not only cookie nags, but things like EULAs and ToS and privacy policies. And they are often not even legally valid. It's all a performative sharade of "voluntary contracts", which are in practice just forced down people's throats due to power inbalances.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  Yes, but how much can you blame this on regulation, where the regulatory intent is clear, and it's the industry that collectively chose to engage in malicious compliance?
  - jampekka 2y ago
    If the regulation has unworkable enforcement system, the regulation is to blame. E.g. that while around 2% want to be tracked while the majority is tracked is clearly a catastrophic failure in the design of the regulation. For the case of nags, something like a legally mandated respect of DNT would have solved the problem, at least on the UI level. Instead now it's a cat and mouse game with dark patterns obviously against the spirit of the law, where some Irish judge bends over backwards to find loopholes.
- dijksterhuis 2y ago
  IANAL > EULAs and ToS often seems to be liability protection for the service provider for the service provider/company. “when we were made aware of these account we immediately removed them from the service for a breach of the ToS”. ring any bells from any news articles? basically, “please don’t take us to court and sue us for everything users might do with our software. thanks.” > privacy policies consumer protection. don’t sell my phone number to direct marketing companies without me explicitly saying you can do so, or without you explicitly saying you will do so. this is being enforced: * https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/quick-tax-claims-limited-en/ https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/quick-tax-c... * https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/bonne-terre-limited/ https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/bonne-terre... more complete list: https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/ https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/ — like, yeah, these are not perfect. and they are sometimes frustrating to deal with, for everyone on either side of the agreement. and figuring out someone has done something against one of these agreements is sometimes impossible. but it is better than having nothing. don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
  - jampekka 2y ago
    There are also things like mandatory arbitration, bans of reverse engineering, handover of copyrights and personal information etc etc hidden in the ToSs and EULAs and privacy policies (or in byzantine nagboxes). Often not even legally enforceable, but how many want to go to court with some megacorporation with the risk of having to pay huge legal fees? The terms should be in law, not by whatever some lawyer army cooked up, whenever applicable and the enforcement should be done by public authorities. And proposing legally unenforceable clauses in ToS and EULAs should be criminalized. They are essentially fraud.
amelius 2y ago
I always have the feeling companies keep nagging me until I check the right boxes. Or that even if I explicitly say "no", then at some point they quietly change my settings to "yes" and I have no way of proving that wasn't what I said.
jaredklewis 2y ago
Why does it irritate me? Because I genuinely care about things like user privacy and I wish we had regulations which were actually well designed to achieve their goals. It seems to me that legislators think “what would I like to happen” and then stop there. They don’t seem to consider enforcement or other practical effects at all. I’m honestly baffled that anyone could think that the cookie popups are a success. Like if we are going to mandate that everyone implement some new scheme, can we at least make it a good one? The lowest possible bar might be something like a standardized setting in browsers. Something actually good for user privacy might mean imposing some cost on companies that want to sell user information, so there are actually incentive's for companies to respect user privacy. Maybe I am way off, but I think the group of people that "enjoy" going through cookie popups, like yourself, are a distinct minority. For most people, it's an annoyance.

jampekka 2y ago

At least my irritation comes from the increasing amount of "consents" and "agreements" that are obviously not designed to be read, let alone understood. Not only cookie nags, but things like EULAs and ToS and privacy policies. And they are often not even legally valid. It's all a performative sharade of "voluntary contracts", which are in practice just forced down people's throats due to power inbalances.

TeMPOraL 2y ago
Yes, but how much can you blame this on regulation, where the regulatory intent is clear, and it's the industry that collectively chose to engage in malicious compliance?
- jampekka 2y ago
  If the regulation has unworkable enforcement system, the regulation is to blame. E.g. that while around 2% want to be tracked while the majority is tracked is clearly a catastrophic failure in the design of the regulation. For the case of nags, something like a legally mandated respect of DNT would have solved the problem, at least on the UI level. Instead now it's a cat and mouse game with dark patterns obviously against the spirit of the law, where some Irish judge bends over backwards to find loopholes.
dijksterhuis 2y ago
IANAL > EULAs and ToS often seems to be liability protection for the service provider for the service provider/company. “when we were made aware of these account we immediately removed them from the service for a breach of the ToS”. ring any bells from any news articles? basically, “please don’t take us to court and sue us for everything users might do with our software. thanks.” > privacy policies consumer protection. don’t sell my phone number to direct marketing companies without me explicitly saying you can do so, or without you explicitly saying you will do so. this is being enforced: * https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/quick-tax-claims-limited-en/ https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/quick-tax-c... * https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/bonne-terre-limited/ https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/bonne-terre... more complete list: https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/ https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/ — like, yeah, these are not perfect. and they are sometimes frustrating to deal with, for everyone on either side of the agreement. and figuring out someone has done something against one of these agreements is sometimes impossible. but it is better than having nothing. don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
- jampekka 2y ago
  There are also things like mandatory arbitration, bans of reverse engineering, handover of copyrights and personal information etc etc hidden in the ToSs and EULAs and privacy policies (or in byzantine nagboxes). Often not even legally enforceable, but how many want to go to court with some megacorporation with the risk of having to pay huge legal fees? The terms should be in law, not by whatever some lawyer army cooked up, whenever applicable and the enforcement should be done by public authorities. And proposing legally unenforceable clauses in ToS and EULAs should be criminalized. They are essentially fraud.

amelius 2y ago

I always have the feeling companies keep nagging me until I check the right boxes. Or that even if I explicitly say "no", then at some point they quietly change my settings to "yes" and I have no way of proving that wasn't what I said.

jaredklewis 2y ago

Why does it irritate me? Because I genuinely care about things like user privacy and I wish we had regulations which were actually well designed to achieve their goals. It seems to me that legislators think “what would I like to happen” and then stop there. They don’t seem to consider enforcement or other practical effects at all. I’m honestly baffled that anyone could think that the cookie popups are a success. Like if we are going to mandate that everyone implement some new scheme, can we at least make it a good one? The lowest possible bar might be something like a standardized setting in browsers. Something actually good for user privacy might mean imposing some cost on companies that want to sell user information, so there are actually incentive's for companies to respect user privacy. Maybe I am way off, but I think the group of people that "enjoy" going through cookie popups, like yourself, are a distinct minority. For most people, it's an annoyance.