3 ms·

If you like things the way they were before the law, just answer yes to all cookie banners you see. It does not take time if you don’t care to read it. Yours c

by fmbb 1y ago

If you like things the way they were before the law, just answer yes to all cookie banners you see. It does not take time if you don’t care to read it. Yours click yes, and they will remember you want to be tracked.

koliber 1y ago
That’s in theory. In practice these banners regularly break. They are hard to click on certain devices where the button is off screen. If they use JavaScript and there is an error elsewhere, you can’t hide them. And I regularly see them over and over again on the same sites because for some reason they can’t track me effectively for this purpose. In short they are a regular minor annoyance that does take time and effort.
- diggan 1y ago
  Seems like it's working then? Because the website chose to (optionally) track you, you need to go through a minor annoyance to accept it. You're effectively making a choice that you're fine with this annoyance (since you keep using the website) and since you're accepting it, you're fine with being tracked. Other people already get two choices to make here which they didn't get before, which is a win in my book. Seeing the banner, you can decide to avoid the website and if you still wanna use the website, you can chose if you allow them to track you by PII or not.
  - koliber 1y ago
    I get the choice, but I make the choice I like less because it is more convenient to make it. If we only look at the positives, then the situation is better. But we have to look at the cost, and there is a cost, in terms of time and mental effort, to read the banner, figure out what the choices are, and if I am not accepting all cookies, how to go through the process of rejecting some of them. Sometimes it's very involved. Also, I am an educated consumer and understand what a cookie is. Most people do not and do whatever is necessary to make the consent screen go away. Because of that, effectively they don't get this choice. As one of the parent posts said, if it was implemented on the browser level, I would get the choice, and the cost of making the right choice would be smaller. If the defaults were to "reject unnecessary cookies" then most of the population would get the benefit. The way it is right now feels like a net negative. Most people don't know what the consent is about and will not spend the time to learn it. Companies still find ways to track you that agrees with the letter but not the spirit of the law. I have friction whenever visiting a new website (or an old one that forgot my choice). The only winners are people who don't value their time and are smart enough to understand cookie consent. That's a small percentage of the general population.
    - the_other 1y ago
      > The way it is right now feels like a net negative. That's because the tracking is a net negative.
      - koliber 1y ago
        Tracking is negative. However, tracking + mandatory badly implemented consent banners everywhere feels even worse to me than just tracking alone.
xp84 1y ago
I do click yes. It still wastes my time since especially on mobile they obscure at least 1/3 of the viewport. They're just like the other popups that are now on most every site: The "Sign up for our newsletter" or "Get 10% off by signing up for emails", the paywall, the "It looks like you're using an adblocker." There's a reason people have always hated popup ads even though "just close them" has always been an option.
- orphea 1y ago
  You should understand that the law doesn't mandate the cookie popup to be annoying. It's a deliberate choice of websites, they want you to hate the banner and the law.
  - poszlem 1y ago
    Well, it works, so it doesn’t matter that it’s the website owners doing it, since in practice the frustration lands on the EU lawmakers. That just makes the law bad: it doesn’t really prevent anything, and it leaves people a little more anti-EU.
  - xp84 1y ago
    I've implemented them. The sites hate them as well. They do it because there are whole law firms now who just troll for clients with ads that say "Did you shop at <BRAND>? Your privacy may have been violated!" and file suits under CCPA, etc. The "violation" was some technicality of a cookie banner. Then the site operator has to pay attorneys and pay a settlement, which pays the plaintiff attorneys. At the end of the day, the "plaintiffs" were never "harmed" at all -- some boring usage data of an ecommerce website or something was put into a Google Analytics dashboard so that some marketer could maybe analyze conversion rates. I have seen a ton of these ads in the past few years. All these laws have done is created a ton of wealth for lawyers.
shaan7 1y ago
Yep, it baffles me that a lot of people would rather not have the option to reject cookies. Its weird to say "I don't want to stop a website tracking me because the UX is terrible. I'd rather get tracked instead.". Of course, it would be better if the UX were even better, but I'd rather take something over nothing.
- 9rx 1y ago
  > Yep, it baffles me that a lot of people would rather not have the option to reject cookies. Back in the day browsers offered this natively. When the advertising companies started building browsers there was a lot of incentive to see that go by the wayside of course... But the earlier comment isn't saying that you shouldn't have options, rather that the law needs to be more specific, such as requiring browsers to work in coordination with website operators to provide a unified solution that is agreeable to users instead of leaving it completely wide open to malicious compliance. These kind of laws need to be careful to not stifle true innovation, so it is understandable why it wanted to remain wide open at the onset. But, now that we're in the thick of it, maybe there is a point where we can agree that popup dialogs that are purposefully designed to be annoying are in volition of the spirit and that the law should be amended to force a better solution?
  - troupo 1y ago
    > that the law needs to be more specific, such as requiring browsers to work in coordination with website operators 1. The law isn't about browsers or websites. It equally applies to all tracking. E.g. in apps. Or in physical stores. 2. The world's largest advertising company could do all you describe. And they do work with websites. First by repackaging tracking through FLoC. Then by just simply repackaging tracking and calling it privacy: https://x.com/dmitriid/status/1664682689591377923 https://x.com/dmitriid/status/1664682689591377923
    - 9rx 1y ago
      > It equally applies to all tracking. E.g. in apps. Or in physical stores. Obviously. And where there are problems in those domains equal specificity would be asked for. But since we're talking about in the context of browsers specifically...
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
odie5533 1y ago
How many billions of human hours of productivity have we collectively wasted with these cookie banners?
- notachatbot123 1y ago
  Most probably magnitudes less than those wasted on advertisement and the resulting unnecessary purchases.
- stevesimmons 1y ago
  Always remember it is the web site owner who chose to waste your time. The more obnoxious the cookie banner, the quicker you can conclude "I didn't really need to visit your site anyway".
  - xp84 1y ago
    You and maybe others keep saying that. I assure you, we don't choose to use them. If you want to operate an ad-supported site, you need that consent. Untargeted ads are pointless and they don't make money. If you disagree, can I interest you in some brake pads for a Toyota Corolla? How about a dental chew for elderly cats? No? ok. If you operate an e-commerce site or a SaaS of some kind, you probably need to advertise it online. To have traffic land on your site from advertising, you need to have ad network 'pixels' on your site. That's what they require. If you won't comply, then you can't advertise and you probably can't get many customers. Websites which need neither are called "hobby sites." I'm very happy for the personal blogs which use no analytics, have no need to remember anyone or collect any "data." The sites showing the cookie banners are not that. They need to make money in order to exist.
    - latexr 1y ago
      > Untargeted ads are pointless and they don't make money. If you disagree, can I interest you in some brake pads for a Toyota Corolla? How about a dental chew for elderly cats? No? ok. Why didn’t you instead suggest server space or a novel automation tool? You know, things relevant to people visiting HN. That’s how untargeted ads work. You don’t simply advertise anything anywhere, you advertise relevant things to relevant communities. Advertise the break pads on a community of car enthusiasts and the cat chew on pet forums.
renewiltord 1y ago
Dude, I was in France and browsed to a page and it was a full page cookie modal with like 3 buttons and all these sliders. Turns out everywhere in the EU has these insane page things.
yoz-y 1y ago
The worst part. The one cookie that should remember your choice NEVER works. Never. It doesn’t matter what site I visit and what choice I do. The next day, every single website asks me to pass through the banners again.
- fsflover 1y ago
  Try UBlock Origin. It blocks stupid banners just fine. And it doesn't mean that you give your consent.

by fmbb 1y ago

koliber 1y ago

That’s in theory. In practice these banners regularly break. They are hard to click on certain devices where the button is off screen. If they use JavaScript and there is an error elsewhere, you can’t hide them. And I regularly see them over and over again on the same sites because for some reason they can’t track me effectively for this purpose. In short they are a regular minor annoyance that does take time and effort.

diggan 1y ago
Seems like it's working then? Because the website chose to (optionally) track you, you need to go through a minor annoyance to accept it. You're effectively making a choice that you're fine with this annoyance (since you keep using the website) and since you're accepting it, you're fine with being tracked. Other people already get two choices to make here which they didn't get before, which is a win in my book. Seeing the banner, you can decide to avoid the website and if you still wanna use the website, you can chose if you allow them to track you by PII or not.
- koliber 1y ago
  I get the choice, but I make the choice I like less because it is more convenient to make it. If we only look at the positives, then the situation is better. But we have to look at the cost, and there is a cost, in terms of time and mental effort, to read the banner, figure out what the choices are, and if I am not accepting all cookies, how to go through the process of rejecting some of them. Sometimes it's very involved. Also, I am an educated consumer and understand what a cookie is. Most people do not and do whatever is necessary to make the consent screen go away. Because of that, effectively they don't get this choice. As one of the parent posts said, if it was implemented on the browser level, I would get the choice, and the cost of making the right choice would be smaller. If the defaults were to "reject unnecessary cookies" then most of the population would get the benefit. The way it is right now feels like a net negative. Most people don't know what the consent is about and will not spend the time to learn it. Companies still find ways to track you that agrees with the letter but not the spirit of the law. I have friction whenever visiting a new website (or an old one that forgot my choice). The only winners are people who don't value their time and are smart enough to understand cookie consent. That's a small percentage of the general population.
  - the_other 1y ago
    > The way it is right now feels like a net negative. That's because the tracking is a net negative.
    - koliber 1y ago
      Tracking is negative. However, tracking + mandatory badly implemented consent banners everywhere feels even worse to me than just tracking alone.

xp84 1y ago

I do click yes. It still wastes my time since especially on mobile they obscure at least 1/3 of the viewport. They're just like the other popups that are now on most every site: The "Sign up for our newsletter" or "Get 10% off by signing up for emails", the paywall, the "It looks like you're using an adblocker." There's a reason people have always hated popup ads even though "just close them" has always been an option.

orphea 1y ago
You should understand that the law doesn't mandate the cookie popup to be annoying. It's a deliberate choice of websites, they want you to hate the banner and the law.
- poszlem 1y ago
  Well, it works, so it doesn’t matter that it’s the website owners doing it, since in practice the frustration lands on the EU lawmakers. That just makes the law bad: it doesn’t really prevent anything, and it leaves people a little more anti-EU.
- xp84 1y ago
  I've implemented them. The sites hate them as well. They do it because there are whole law firms now who just troll for clients with ads that say "Did you shop at <BRAND>? Your privacy may have been violated!" and file suits under CCPA, etc. The "violation" was some technicality of a cookie banner. Then the site operator has to pay attorneys and pay a settlement, which pays the plaintiff attorneys. At the end of the day, the "plaintiffs" were never "harmed" at all -- some boring usage data of an ecommerce website or something was put into a Google Analytics dashboard so that some marketer could maybe analyze conversion rates. I have seen a ton of these ads in the past few years. All these laws have done is created a ton of wealth for lawyers.

shaan7 1y ago

Yep, it baffles me that a lot of people would rather not have the option to reject cookies. Its weird to say "I don't want to stop a website tracking me because the UX is terrible. I'd rather get tracked instead.". Of course, it would be better if the UX were even better, but I'd rather take something over nothing.

9rx 1y ago
> Yep, it baffles me that a lot of people would rather not have the option to reject cookies. Back in the day browsers offered this natively. When the advertising companies started building browsers there was a lot of incentive to see that go by the wayside of course... But the earlier comment isn't saying that you shouldn't have options, rather that the law needs to be more specific, such as requiring browsers to work in coordination with website operators to provide a unified solution that is agreeable to users instead of leaving it completely wide open to malicious compliance. These kind of laws need to be careful to not stifle true innovation, so it is understandable why it wanted to remain wide open at the onset. But, now that we're in the thick of it, maybe there is a point where we can agree that popup dialogs that are purposefully designed to be annoying are in volition of the spirit and that the law should be amended to force a better solution?
- troupo 1y ago
  > that the law needs to be more specific, such as requiring browsers to work in coordination with website operators 1. The law isn't about browsers or websites. It equally applies to all tracking. E.g. in apps. Or in physical stores. 2. The world's largest advertising company could do all you describe. And they do work with websites. First by repackaging tracking through FLoC. Then by just simply repackaging tracking and calling it privacy: https://x.com/dmitriid/status/1664682689591377923 https://x.com/dmitriid/status/1664682689591377923
  - 9rx 1y ago
    > It equally applies to all tracking. E.g. in apps. Or in physical stores. Obviously. And where there are problems in those domains equal specificity would be asked for. But since we're talking about in the context of browsers specifically...

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

odie5533 1y ago

How many billions of human hours of productivity have we collectively wasted with these cookie banners?

notachatbot123 1y ago
Most probably magnitudes less than those wasted on advertisement and the resulting unnecessary purchases.
stevesimmons 1y ago
Always remember it is the web site owner who chose to waste your time. The more obnoxious the cookie banner, the quicker you can conclude "I didn't really need to visit your site anyway".
- xp84 1y ago
  You and maybe others keep saying that. I assure you, we don't choose to use them. If you want to operate an ad-supported site, you need that consent. Untargeted ads are pointless and they don't make money. If you disagree, can I interest you in some brake pads for a Toyota Corolla? How about a dental chew for elderly cats? No? ok. If you operate an e-commerce site or a SaaS of some kind, you probably need to advertise it online. To have traffic land on your site from advertising, you need to have ad network 'pixels' on your site. That's what they require. If you won't comply, then you can't advertise and you probably can't get many customers. Websites which need neither are called "hobby sites." I'm very happy for the personal blogs which use no analytics, have no need to remember anyone or collect any "data." The sites showing the cookie banners are not that. They need to make money in order to exist.
  - latexr 1y ago
    > Untargeted ads are pointless and they don't make money. If you disagree, can I interest you in some brake pads for a Toyota Corolla? How about a dental chew for elderly cats? No? ok. Why didn’t you instead suggest server space or a novel automation tool? You know, things relevant to people visiting HN. That’s how untargeted ads work. You don’t simply advertise anything anywhere, you advertise relevant things to relevant communities. Advertise the break pads on a community of car enthusiasts and the cat chew on pet forums.

renewiltord 1y ago

Dude, I was in France and browsed to a page and it was a full page cookie modal with like 3 buttons and all these sliders. Turns out everywhere in the EU has these insane page things.

yoz-y 1y ago

The worst part. The one cookie that should remember your choice NEVER works. Never. It doesn’t matter what site I visit and what choice I do. The next day, every single website asks me to pass through the banners again.

fsflover 1y ago
Try UBlock Origin. It blocks stupid banners just fine. And it doesn't mean that you give your consent.