4 ms·

I didn’t know you were allowed to do that with cookies.

by clickety_clack 10mo ago

nottorp 10mo ago
UK site. Not in the EU any more.
- embedding-shape 10mo ago
  Did they really already get rid of all the laws EU enforced upon them before they left? One would think it'd take a decade at least, but I guess things can move fast when the government really wants to. The way regulation works in the EU is typically EU comes up with regulation for countries to implement, then they implement the laws via their national system, then everything is handled "locally". So just leaving the EU doesn't mean that all of those things just stop being active, you need to go through the process of removing the local laws before.
  - nottorp 10mo ago
    ... or no one bothers to enforce them any more? UK gov is too busy enforcing the death of anonymity online anyway.
    - embedding-shape 10mo ago
      > ... or no one bothers to enforce them any more? I know it happens in other countries, but can you actually get away with this in a civilized and non-authoritarian country today? Eventually you're gonna have to do/say something about it, if people keep opening up new cases about it.
      - nottorp 10mo ago
        Who's going to open a case and where? Is there any point in complaining to a local authority in an EU country about an UK web site? Esp since the guardian probably has zero business presence on the continent...
        embedding-shape 10mo ago
        If you're a UK citizen, and you see UK law being broken you report that to your local authorities. I'm not sure where other EU countries come into the context?
        nottorp 10mo ago
        In the context of this thread where I'm hypothesising that it's either legal or not enforced in the UK. An EU citizen may have grounds to complain if it's illegal in their jurisdiction, but to who?
        embedding-shape 10mo ago
        You said: > ... or no one bothers to enforce them any more? Which is strange, because why wouldn't the UK enforce UK law? There is no such thing as "EU-wide laws" as I previously explained, so again I'm not sure why other EU citizens are being pulled into context here, it literally doesn't matter. If no one is enforcing UK law, then obviously that's bad, but on another level. I'm not sure what point you're trying to do here. For example, if a company today breaks GDPR and I want to report them, then I'm gonna be engaging with my local agencies for that, regardless of where the company is based, assuming I'm in a EU country. There is no "EU bureau" you report to, since the company is breaking your local laws, you report them to your local authorities. As far as I can tell by the context, you don't quite grok how EU regulations are actually implemented in reality, which is why you keep bring up other EU citizens, but it really doesn't matter. When GDPR came into effect, it's because the countries themselves have written and implemented local laws in their countries that align with GDPR, there isn't one "GDPR-law" that is enforced by an EU entity across the entire union. > An EU citizen may have grounds to complain if it's illegal in their jurisdiction, but to who? If I'm in Italy, and a German company is breaking some Italian law, then I'm reporting them to the Italian authorities.
        hluska 10mo ago
        I can’t figure out why you’re being simultaneously argumentative and dismissive. But you’re being argumentative and dismissive while talking about a totally different subject than the person you’re replying to. EU citizens would have reason to be concerned about this. It’s not clear how an EU citizen would deal with this nor is it clear this would even be prohibited since there have been some recent rulings that muddy this. Nor is it even clear there would be a UK response since certain kinds of analytics are fine under UK GDPR. You’ve taken something very interesting and open to interpretation and reduced it down to circular arguments. That’s boring.
  - justincormack 10mo ago
    Have seen this in EU sites too. It seems to be a grey area at present.
    - embedding-shape 10mo ago
      Well, I think Meta was the first to give it a try, and given that they had to revise it to not be like that (these changes incoming in January it seems https://www.euractiv.com/news/meta-to-tweak-its-pay-or-consent-ad-model-for-eu-users-in-january/ https://www.euractiv.com/news/meta-to-tweak-its-pay-or-conse...), it seems to not be much of a gray area anymore, otherwise Facebook would continue offering that choice to users. > The social media giant was fined €200 million in April for breaching the bloc’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) over the binary choice it gives EU users to either pay to access ad-free versions of the platforms or agree to being tracked and profiled for Meta’s ads. > In a press statement, the Commission said the revised offer would give users an “effective choice” between consenting to their personal data being used to show them fully personalised ads or handing over less personal data and seeing “more limited personalised advertising”. Seems like there will be a more nuanced choice available in January, than "pay us or we'll track you"
  - rcxdude 10mo ago
    They did not. The rules are still basically the same just from a practicality point of view.
- dcminter 10mo ago
  They're doing business in the EU. Amusingly my voluntary subscription was just under the cut-off amount and I cancelled it as soon as this came in. I bought a subscription to The Economist instead.
  - Scoundreller 10mo ago
    Reminds me of when a newspaper I subscribed to went from no-paywall to a soft paywall. When I called to cancel and gave my reason as the paywall, they were very confused, but I knew what I was doing.
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
rjsw 10mo ago
Why wouldn't they be allowed to do it? You have the choice of not viewing the website.
- potatototoo99 10mo ago
  That's non-compliant with GDPR. When shown to EU readers, they cannot block access based on accepting a privacy policy. Only essential cookies that really are needed for it to function are required.
  - tacker2000 10mo ago
    Facebook also does this. But the EU posted a press release last year that they are investigating this, as it could breach the DMA. [1] The Guardian doesn't fall under the DMA though. [1] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_3582 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_...
    - fph 10mo ago
      This was 1.5 years ago; at this point they are functionally allowing it.
rcxdude 10mo ago
There's been some GDPR-related rulings in EU courts which seem to be allowing this kind of thing at least by some interpretations.

I didn’t know you were allowed to do that with cookies.

nottorp 10mo ago

UK site. Not in the EU any more.

embedding-shape 10mo ago
Did they really already get rid of all the laws EU enforced upon them before they left? One would think it'd take a decade at least, but I guess things can move fast when the government really wants to. The way regulation works in the EU is typically EU comes up with regulation for countries to implement, then they implement the laws via their national system, then everything is handled "locally". So just leaving the EU doesn't mean that all of those things just stop being active, you need to go through the process of removing the local laws before.
- nottorp 10mo ago
  ... or no one bothers to enforce them any more? UK gov is too busy enforcing the death of anonymity online anyway.
  - embedding-shape 10mo ago
    > ... or no one bothers to enforce them any more? I know it happens in other countries, but can you actually get away with this in a civilized and non-authoritarian country today? Eventually you're gonna have to do/say something about it, if people keep opening up new cases about it.
    - nottorp 10mo ago
      Who's going to open a case and where? Is there any point in complaining to a local authority in an EU country about an UK web site? Esp since the guardian probably has zero business presence on the continent...
      - embedding-shape 10mo ago
        If you're a UK citizen, and you see UK law being broken you report that to your local authorities. I'm not sure where other EU countries come into the context?
        nottorp 10mo ago
        In the context of this thread where I'm hypothesising that it's either legal or not enforced in the UK. An EU citizen may have grounds to complain if it's illegal in their jurisdiction, but to who?
        embedding-shape 10mo ago
        You said: > ... or no one bothers to enforce them any more? Which is strange, because why wouldn't the UK enforce UK law? There is no such thing as "EU-wide laws" as I previously explained, so again I'm not sure why other EU citizens are being pulled into context here, it literally doesn't matter. If no one is enforcing UK law, then obviously that's bad, but on another level. I'm not sure what point you're trying to do here. For example, if a company today breaks GDPR and I want to report them, then I'm gonna be engaging with my local agencies for that, regardless of where the company is based, assuming I'm in a EU country. There is no "EU bureau" you report to, since the company is breaking your local laws, you report them to your local authorities. As far as I can tell by the context, you don't quite grok how EU regulations are actually implemented in reality, which is why you keep bring up other EU citizens, but it really doesn't matter. When GDPR came into effect, it's because the countries themselves have written and implemented local laws in their countries that align with GDPR, there isn't one "GDPR-law" that is enforced by an EU entity across the entire union. > An EU citizen may have grounds to complain if it's illegal in their jurisdiction, but to who? If I'm in Italy, and a German company is breaking some Italian law, then I'm reporting them to the Italian authorities.
        hluska 10mo ago
        I can’t figure out why you’re being simultaneously argumentative and dismissive. But you’re being argumentative and dismissive while talking about a totally different subject than the person you’re replying to. EU citizens would have reason to be concerned about this. It’s not clear how an EU citizen would deal with this nor is it clear this would even be prohibited since there have been some recent rulings that muddy this. Nor is it even clear there would be a UK response since certain kinds of analytics are fine under UK GDPR. You’ve taken something very interesting and open to interpretation and reduced it down to circular arguments. That’s boring.
- justincormack 10mo ago
  Have seen this in EU sites too. It seems to be a grey area at present.
  - embedding-shape 10mo ago
    Well, I think Meta was the first to give it a try, and given that they had to revise it to not be like that (these changes incoming in January it seems https://www.euractiv.com/news/meta-to-tweak-its-pay-or-consent-ad-model-for-eu-users-in-january/ https://www.euractiv.com/news/meta-to-tweak-its-pay-or-conse...), it seems to not be much of a gray area anymore, otherwise Facebook would continue offering that choice to users. > The social media giant was fined €200 million in April for breaching the bloc’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) over the binary choice it gives EU users to either pay to access ad-free versions of the platforms or agree to being tracked and profiled for Meta’s ads. > In a press statement, the Commission said the revised offer would give users an “effective choice” between consenting to their personal data being used to show them fully personalised ads or handing over less personal data and seeing “more limited personalised advertising”. Seems like there will be a more nuanced choice available in January, than "pay us or we'll track you"
- rcxdude 10mo ago
  They did not. The rules are still basically the same just from a practicality point of view.
dcminter 10mo ago
They're doing business in the EU. Amusingly my voluntary subscription was just under the cut-off amount and I cancelled it as soon as this came in. I bought a subscription to The Economist instead.
- Scoundreller 10mo ago
  Reminds me of when a newspaper I subscribed to went from no-paywall to a soft paywall. When I called to cancel and gave my reason as the paywall, they were very confused, but I knew what I was doing.
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]

rjsw 10mo ago

Why wouldn't they be allowed to do it? You have the choice of not viewing the website.

potatototoo99 10mo ago
That's non-compliant with GDPR. When shown to EU readers, they cannot block access based on accepting a privacy policy. Only essential cookies that really are needed for it to function are required.
- tacker2000 10mo ago
  Facebook also does this. But the EU posted a press release last year that they are investigating this, as it could breach the DMA. [1] The Guardian doesn't fall under the DMA though. [1] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_3582 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_...
  - fph 10mo ago
    This was 1.5 years ago; at this point they are functionally allowing it.

rcxdude 10mo ago

There's been some GDPR-related rulings in EU courts which seem to be allowing this kind of thing at least by some interpretations.