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Am I crazy or is this website not allowing me to opt out of cookie tracking unless I sign up for a subscription? I know the EU cookie banners have basically ru
by petcat 3mo ago
Am I crazy or is this website not allowing me to opt out of cookie tracking unless I sign up for a subscription?
I know the EU cookie banners have basically ruined the internet, but this seems like a whole 'nother level of obnoxious.
- stavros 3mo agoWow, yeah, that seems... illegal, no?
- wronex 3mo agoIm pretty sure it is illegal. In my understanding, it must be equally easy to reject and accept. And the website MUST continue working under either choice. Which is not the case here. I think the lawmakers should have made all forms of tracking illegal instead. That would make law writing and following easier. And closer to the spirit of what they are trying to accomplish and what everyone wants (except you Silicon Valley O.o)
- briandear 3mo agoI hate the tracking too. But how to websites monetize free content otherwise? Advertising doesn’t work if you can’t price it. Without tracking, everything becomes a paywall.
- wronex 3mo agoIt seems a lot of people are doing amazing things with Patreon. Share some things for free (free as in beer) then have a paid tier for those who want more. Convince us you’re worthy, then we’ll give you money willingly.
- Carbon1603 3mo agoNope, completely legal.
- esafak 3mo agoYou Reject the undesirable ones (all!) and click Agree to Selected.
- SahAssar 3mo agoOn these you usually can't reject them. It says > Data processing by advertising providers including personalised advertising with profiling (Consent required for free use)
- em-bee 3mo agodoesn't work, they don't let you unselect anything. you have to accept everything or pay. very frustrating because especially a tech magazine like heise should really know better
- buzer 3mo agoIt's called "pay-or-okay" (or "consent-or-pay") and there hasn't been many decisions on it yet which has led noyb to sue German DPAs: https://noyb.eu/en/years-inactivity-pay-or-ok-cases-noyb-sues-german-dpas https://noyb.eu/en/years-inactivity-pay-or-ok-cases-noyb-sue... There is one case where DPA ruled in favor of the company, but it's currently being appealed: https://noyb.eu/en/pay-or-ok-der-spiegel-noyb-sues-hamburg-dpa https://noyb.eu/en/pay-or-ok-der-spiegel-noyb-sues-hamburg-d... Another one ruled against company and court agreed: https://noyb.eu/en/court-decides-pay-or-okay-derstandardat-illegal https://noyb.eu/en/court-decides-pay-or-okay-derstandardat-i...
- eumember 3mo agoAccording to GDPR it’s illegal to condition content on tracking approval. This is VERY clear if you read the law. I can’t understand why this has become very popular to do just recently.
- buzer 3mo agoPersonally I do agree, but enforcement is unfortunately behind DPAs and it's pretty clear that they are trying to avoid ruling on it. In theory someone could directly sue some company which engages on this via Article 79, but this can be expensive and depending on jurisdiction the plaintiff can end up with personal liability on defendant's legal costs if court ends up finding that this is actually legal (e.g. Finland has "loser pays" rule in civil suits). Additionally this does also touch ePD and in some countries there might be different agency which handles ePD complaints compared to GDPR, like in Finland Data Protection Ombudsman handles GDPR, but Transport and Communications Agency (Traficom) handles ePD. If there is something that touches both the Ombudsman usually lets Traficom take care of ePD aspects before they give any GDPR ruling. Both of these can take years.
- netsharc 3mo agoWhen they force that, it's an invitation for me to open it in an incognito window. Track all you want, assholes!
- bayindirh 3mo agoTry the demo on this site: https://fingerprint.com/demo https://fingerprint.com/demo Both in incognito and normal modes. I bet you'll get the same fingerprinting ID in both. So yes, they can track you in incognito mode, too.
- m132 3mo agoThis is what made me disable JavaScript by default in 2018. I didn't even get this banner.
- pmontra 3mo agoYou are correct. Reader mode on Firefox shows the full article though.
- GuB-42 3mo agoVery common on EU news websites. Workarounds include: - reader mode - "behind the overlay" extension (and others like it) - archive.is - probably many others
- zzril 3mo agoI have conditioned my left first finger and pinky to just hammer F5 and Esc until the page loading stops at the right moment...
- Lio 3mo agoIt's not EU cookie banners that have ruined the internet, it's malicious compliance and dark pattens on behalf of those that want to track you.
- petcat 3mo agoThe EU's own government websites have these same cookie banners. Are they maliciously compliant with their own regulations? EU made bad laws that have encouraged this kind of behavior. And now we're all suffering. Look at the CCPA in California for legislation that accomplishes largely the same goals, but doesn't break the web due to "malicious compliance".
- troupo 3mo ago> The EU's own government websites have these same cookie banners. Most of them decidedly don't have the same cookie banners. E.g. in vast majority of cases they don't prevent you from seeing content, and have an easy opt-out mechanism without dark patterns.
- inigyou 3mo agoYes, the EU also wants to track you.
- briandear 3mo agoNo. The cookie banners have ruined the internet. The banners haven’t fixed anything. Business as usual, just click here.
- rpdillon 3mo agoThe result matters, which is why regulations should be considered carefully. The whole cookie fiasco is exactly that: they created a whole industry of shitty compliance and the rules are complex enough that every engineering team is like "just use the off-the-shelf shitty thing". And here we are.
- jwr 3mo agoAs a reminder "EU cookie banners" are not required if you use cookies for site functionality. They are only required if your site uses these to track users. This needs repeating, it's a common misconception (deliberately spread by many, too) that the EU requires cookie banners for all cookies.
- briandear 3mo agoYet every website still has them.
- buzer 3mo agoNot quite. > This shall not prevent any technical storage or access for the sole purpose of carrying out or facilitating the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network, or as strictly necessary in order to provide an information society service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user. This is the reason why these are usually separated to "strictly necessary" and "functional" cookies. Functional cookies are things which enhance the functionality, but are not strictly necessary. These would generally include things like persistent cookie for language choice rather than just session one.
- inigyou 3mo agoNext to the language chooser, write that this chooser sets a cookie. Don't need a banner.
- rpdillon 3mo agoThis gets repeated a lot, but is not my experience after having worked with both in-house and contracted lawyers to understand how functional cookies are handled. We end up wanting something more durable than session cookies to track user preferences so we can set them next time they visit. This is super standard light/dark mode, region, language type of stuff. But that's considered “tracking" in many of these discussions, which never made sense to me.
- gib444 3mo agoAs a reminder, legislative bodies have responsibility for (supposed) unintended consequences too.
- mattrighetti 3mo ago> Am I crazy or is this website not allowing me to opt out of cookie tracking unless I sign up for a subscription? Extremely common practice for newspapers websites, unfortunately.