[sseneca]

It’s almost impressive what these people have created. Now, when I stumble across the rare “Reject All” button on one of those pop ups, I don’t know if they even really mean “all” or if it keeps the trackers under “legitimate interests” enabled because they’re... “legitimate”. So the only safe option ends up being disabling all of them manually, which is absurd when these websites list hundreds and hundreds of trackers.

It’s as if they used decades of HCI research precisely to make the user experience as horrible as possible. No wait, I’m sure they did exactly that.

[Macha]

I've found the Reject All button _more common_ in the last few months, but due to a lot of sites that have added it also adding a legitimate interests section which is seperate, to the point I'm less trusting of sites that have recently added reject all.

For all the hate that Yahoo gets for theirs (shown above), at least it does have a mostly functional reject all function, even if it requires two button presses (the end of the footer does tell you to go manually opt out of facebook/twitter).

[randac]

Also the 'reject all' button is often drawn in a greyed out style to make people assume you can't interact with it. The 'accept the status quo' button is always brightly coloured and may as well have blinking arrows pointing at it...

It's honestly absurd the amount of different dark patterns they're using to try to trick users.

[sseneca]

I’ve already seen websites which I (cynically) assume exploit this new-found aversion I and many others have to green buttons in cookie pop-ups by using differing colour schemes, e.g. https://hltv.org, whose “Allow all cookies” button is actually blue, whilst “Allow selection” is green.

“TrustArc” is a funny name considering it and its pals have obliterated any trust I had in this stuff.

[piva00]

With that they win the public's opinion. I make an effort to always explain to people I hear complaining about those pop-ups why they've been made to be annoying. Usually it helps to turn their opinion against GDPR towards the companies employing the dark patterns.

No one likes to be blatantly manipulated.

[curryst]

I think that's a long lost battle and they know it. They're going for attrition. People don't want to be tracked, and clicking all the don't track buttons 78 times a day is annoying, so eventually they say fuck it and just start clicking Accept All.

There need to be fines for this. They're clearly violating the spirit of the law, if not the exact letter (and I think much of Europe has legal systems that follow the spirit more than the letter, don't they?)

[corty]

In practically all cases it is against the exact letter of the law: "It shall be as easy to withdraw as to give consent."

Article 7 (3) 4. https://gdpr-info.eu/art-7-gdpr/

[TeMPOraL]

They're often violating the letter too.

I'm in favor of a lot more fines, and substantial fines. Few companies need to be made example of. The current situation does further damage to how EU citizens perceive GDPR and EU itself - companies do their best to make the consent control experience as bad and tiresome as possible, and then they tell people to blame GDPR for how web browsing just got more annoying.

[anticristi]

"I will invade your privacy for the legitimate interest of my AdTech network."

A few more GDPR fines and that hole will also be plugged. :)