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I think the general attitude here is pretty bad and I'm disgusted with the replies. I hope the hell they do get sued. The reason that the law exists is that pe

I think the general attitude here is pretty bad and I'm disgusted with the replies. I hope the hell they do get sued. The reason that the law exists is that people have abused the cookie functionality terribly to track people all over the Internet using every possible loophole that they can. Now the price is being paid through not very good legislation. You wrote functionality that tracks people and now you're whinging when people are given their privacy back? Forget it - I have no sympathy. Regarding legitimate use, you click accept and the problem goes away. With respect to analytics, stop being cheap and lazy and do it from your logs.

ThomPete 14y ago
I think you are missing the bigger issue here. Many people will not click/not allow if they see a warning message. In fact many people will be either confused and scared and leave. I.e. its not theoretically a problem if you assume that most users are rational users who read what is in front of them and make reasonable choices. De facto though that is not the case and that means that a lot of business who put it up will see a drop in revenue even if they normally play by the books. Furtermore it really does not help anything since those with malicious intentions can just put it up and still do all sorts of shady business on the back.
- eckyptang 14y ago
  I think most people ignore the warning and click through based on the amount of toolbars I have to remove from PCs. The drop in revenue hasn't happened for us and we've been compliant for months now. I think, based on the quantity of sites this is occuring on, that it's a non issue. People are used to it now. The malicious people can be identified easily. Think of these changes as covering your arse rather than an inconvenience.
  - underdown 14y ago
    Different websites have different audiences and monetization schemes making your anecdotal observation uninteresting. It's also at odds with reams of conversion rate optimization data. What did Amazon report - something like a 500ms delay produces a 1% drop in conversion rate. I wonder how long it takes the average pensioner to click through?
  - ThomPete 14y ago
    Let me introduce you to my mom: http://000fff.org/anatomy-of-a-noob-why-your-mom-suck-at-computers/ http://000fff.org/anatomy-of-a-noob-why-your-mom-suck-at-com... Or what about when RRW accidentially rated higher than facebook on google http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_login.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_yo... Most users will do most by automation. I.e. they learn how to do through repetition not through understanding. So what will happen is that a lot of users will basically get confused and they won't ignore they will leave.
- MatthewPhillips 14y ago
  People should be scared. There are companies that know nearly every website they visit, how often, and how they get there. People don't expect this to be the case, but it is. You complain about bad UX but the solution is obvious: don't use the tracking services and you won't have bad UX.
  - ThomPete 14y ago
    I personally never understood the problem. I want adds that are better targeted, I want them to know more about me so they don't waste my time with crap I am not interested in. But that is just me.
    - mike-cardwell 14y ago
      You're in the lucky position of being informed, and being able to make that choice. 99% of people are not informed on this subject, so their data is being gathered without their knowledge, and without their permission.
      - ThomPete 14y ago
        Not sure what you mean. I have no idea about what data and how much have been collected about me.
        mike-cardwell 14y ago
        And yet you have no problem with it?
oliveremberton 14y ago
I'm the founder of Silktide and they guy who wrote that page. Whilst I appreciate the law exists for a good reason, that doesn't mean the law is good. In it's current form it simply doesn't help user privacy or website owners. I'm hardly alone in saying as much. We ourselves wrote no "functionality that tracks people" - our site merely uses Google Analytics (anonymous measurement of visitors) and social plugins like Disqus, the Tweet and Like buttons. By the letter of the law those have to be concealed until a user has manually opted in to display them. In practice everyone instead started showing slide-down banners which accomplish nothing for privacy but piss off users. Anyone who uses analytics properly knows there's no equivalent log-based solution. Understanding the path users take through a site, how long they view pages for, whether they buy when they came from one advert versus another - these are common practice for good reason and they have ABSOLUTELY ZERO implication for user's privacy, as all this data is anonymous. The relatively few websites which genuinely might be jeopardising user's privacy - Facebook, Google, Amazon etc - tend to be large, ubiquitous and mostly ad networks. The average 10 page company website is not technically sophisticated enough to subvert a user's privacy nor do they have the visitors to do so. My fight is with a stupid law, not with privacy.
- motoford 14y ago
  You refer to Facebook, Google, Amazon as the real culprits, and not yourself -- but right above that you admit to embedding those same services on your site. Whether you wrote it or use it makes no difference, your users privacy is compromised when they visit your site.
  - oliveremberton 14y ago
    You're right of course, but as the only solution would be for: (a) Us to remove said services (b) Our competitors to not (c) Us to suffer unjustly, while they prosper Then no. The obligation should be on the provider of those services, or the law should be enforced equally. It's not enforced at all. We clearly explain what those services do in our privacy policy and we include in that an explanation of why we see there being no meaningful privacy implication for users. What's the worst Facebook/Google could do with your information - know you looked at our website? It's hardly porn.
rwmj 14y ago
With respect, people like me who delete all tracking stuff routinely now have to put up with constant cookie notices. The proper solution to this would have been for browsers to have a more prominent "delete cookies" button, for those who care. The way it's done now is just dumb: the bad guys are still going to track cookies, and it's a massive time sink for every other website out there that wants to comply with the law.
- eckyptang 14y ago
  Actually you're solving the wrong end of the problem. There should be no step which is "delete all tracking stuff". You should be asked when you hit a web page if they can add a cookie. At the moment, this is done by the page by legislation, but the next step is to do this at the browser level. I'm quite happy as it's training users to do this nicely. It took us about a day to sort it out on our corporate site and web applications. If you've got loads of social crap plugged in, don't whinge - think before you do something.
  - gmac 14y ago
    No. I know how this stuff works, and I still don't want to be asked this every time I visit a new site. I suspect most other users don't either -- and a majority of them probably don't even understand the question. The new cookie law is annoying because it results in a barrage of sliding/popup tickbox crap during one's daily browsing. What we need is browsers with sensible privacy defaults, and easily-understood alternative settings. Safari's standard no-third-party-cookies rule is nice in this regard.
  - froydnj 14y ago
    > You should be asked when you hit a web page if they can add a cookie. > > At the moment, this is done by the page by legislation, but the next step is to do this at the browser level. I'm quite happy as it's training users to do this nicely. Firefox used have an option to ask you whether you wanted to receive cookies sent by websites. Turning it on made your browsing experience quite unpleasant. And that was several years ago; I imagine it'd be worse today.
mootothemax 14y ago
You wrote functionality that tracks people and now you're whinging when people are given their privacy back? Forget it - I have no sympathy. This is the bit of your comment I take most issue with. I have done nothing of the sort - and neither have the majority of companies's sites - and yet everyone is being punished for what boils down to abuse by online advertisers. How can abusers get away with this? By relocating elsewhere. So the problem's not solved in the slightest. Meanwhile, the good guys are the ones left dancing around.
- eckyptang 14y ago
  I have done nothing of the sort either. Our corporate site and web applications have had to have some re-engineering done to not issue cookie straight away. That's the price of operating in the UK and I have no problem with that. Just remember, the good guys stay good. The bad guys are easy to pick off now at the browser or the IWF firewall.

ThomPete 14y ago

I think you are missing the bigger issue here. Many people will not click/not allow if they see a warning message. In fact many people will be either confused and scared and leave. I.e. its not theoretically a problem if you assume that most users are rational users who read what is in front of them and make reasonable choices. De facto though that is not the case and that means that a lot of business who put it up will see a drop in revenue even if they normally play by the books. Furtermore it really does not help anything since those with malicious intentions can just put it up and still do all sorts of shady business on the back.

eckyptang 14y ago
I think most people ignore the warning and click through based on the amount of toolbars I have to remove from PCs. The drop in revenue hasn't happened for us and we've been compliant for months now. I think, based on the quantity of sites this is occuring on, that it's a non issue. People are used to it now. The malicious people can be identified easily. Think of these changes as covering your arse rather than an inconvenience.
- underdown 14y ago
  Different websites have different audiences and monetization schemes making your anecdotal observation uninteresting. It's also at odds with reams of conversion rate optimization data. What did Amazon report - something like a 500ms delay produces a 1% drop in conversion rate. I wonder how long it takes the average pensioner to click through?
- ThomPete 14y ago
  Let me introduce you to my mom: http://000fff.org/anatomy-of-a-noob-why-your-mom-suck-at-computers/ http://000fff.org/anatomy-of-a-noob-why-your-mom-suck-at-com... Or what about when RRW accidentially rated higher than facebook on google http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_login.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_yo... Most users will do most by automation. I.e. they learn how to do through repetition not through understanding. So what will happen is that a lot of users will basically get confused and they won't ignore they will leave.
MatthewPhillips 14y ago
People should be scared. There are companies that know nearly every website they visit, how often, and how they get there. People don't expect this to be the case, but it is. You complain about bad UX but the solution is obvious: don't use the tracking services and you won't have bad UX.
- ThomPete 14y ago
  I personally never understood the problem. I want adds that are better targeted, I want them to know more about me so they don't waste my time with crap I am not interested in. But that is just me.
  - mike-cardwell 14y ago
    You're in the lucky position of being informed, and being able to make that choice. 99% of people are not informed on this subject, so their data is being gathered without their knowledge, and without their permission.
    - ThomPete 14y ago
      Not sure what you mean. I have no idea about what data and how much have been collected about me.
      - mike-cardwell 14y ago
        And yet you have no problem with it?

oliveremberton 14y ago

I'm the founder of Silktide and they guy who wrote that page. Whilst I appreciate the law exists for a good reason, that doesn't mean the law is good. In it's current form it simply doesn't help user privacy or website owners. I'm hardly alone in saying as much. We ourselves wrote no "functionality that tracks people" - our site merely uses Google Analytics (anonymous measurement of visitors) and social plugins like Disqus, the Tweet and Like buttons. By the letter of the law those have to be concealed until a user has manually opted in to display them. In practice everyone instead started showing slide-down banners which accomplish nothing for privacy but piss off users. Anyone who uses analytics properly knows there's no equivalent log-based solution. Understanding the path users take through a site, how long they view pages for, whether they buy when they came from one advert versus another - these are common practice for good reason and they have ABSOLUTELY ZERO implication for user's privacy, as all this data is anonymous. The relatively few websites which genuinely might be jeopardising user's privacy - Facebook, Google, Amazon etc - tend to be large, ubiquitous and mostly ad networks. The average 10 page company website is not technically sophisticated enough to subvert a user's privacy nor do they have the visitors to do so. My fight is with a stupid law, not with privacy.

motoford 14y ago
You refer to Facebook, Google, Amazon as the real culprits, and not yourself -- but right above that you admit to embedding those same services on your site. Whether you wrote it or use it makes no difference, your users privacy is compromised when they visit your site.
- oliveremberton 14y ago
  You're right of course, but as the only solution would be for: (a) Us to remove said services (b) Our competitors to not (c) Us to suffer unjustly, while they prosper Then no. The obligation should be on the provider of those services, or the law should be enforced equally. It's not enforced at all. We clearly explain what those services do in our privacy policy and we include in that an explanation of why we see there being no meaningful privacy implication for users. What's the worst Facebook/Google could do with your information - know you looked at our website? It's hardly porn.

rwmj 14y ago

With respect, people like me who delete all tracking stuff routinely now have to put up with constant cookie notices. The proper solution to this would have been for browsers to have a more prominent "delete cookies" button, for those who care. The way it's done now is just dumb: the bad guys are still going to track cookies, and it's a massive time sink for every other website out there that wants to comply with the law.

eckyptang 14y ago
Actually you're solving the wrong end of the problem. There should be no step which is "delete all tracking stuff". You should be asked when you hit a web page if they can add a cookie. At the moment, this is done by the page by legislation, but the next step is to do this at the browser level. I'm quite happy as it's training users to do this nicely. It took us about a day to sort it out on our corporate site and web applications. If you've got loads of social crap plugged in, don't whinge - think before you do something.
- gmac 14y ago
  No. I know how this stuff works, and I still don't want to be asked this every time I visit a new site. I suspect most other users don't either -- and a majority of them probably don't even understand the question. The new cookie law is annoying because it results in a barrage of sliding/popup tickbox crap during one's daily browsing. What we need is browsers with sensible privacy defaults, and easily-understood alternative settings. Safari's standard no-third-party-cookies rule is nice in this regard.
- froydnj 14y ago
  > You should be asked when you hit a web page if they can add a cookie. > > At the moment, this is done by the page by legislation, but the next step is to do this at the browser level. I'm quite happy as it's training users to do this nicely. Firefox used have an option to ask you whether you wanted to receive cookies sent by websites. Turning it on made your browsing experience quite unpleasant. And that was several years ago; I imagine it'd be worse today.

mootothemax 14y ago

You wrote functionality that tracks people and now you're whinging when people are given their privacy back? Forget it - I have no sympathy. This is the bit of your comment I take most issue with. I have done nothing of the sort - and neither have the majority of companies's sites - and yet everyone is being punished for what boils down to abuse by online advertisers. How can abusers get away with this? By relocating elsewhere. So the problem's not solved in the slightest. Meanwhile, the good guys are the ones left dancing around.

eckyptang 14y ago
I have done nothing of the sort either. Our corporate site and web applications have had to have some re-engineering done to not issue cookie straight away. That's the price of operating in the UK and I have no problem with that. Just remember, the good guys stay good. The bad guys are easy to pick off now at the browser or the IWF firewall.