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by intricatedetail 1852 days ago
Why can't governments make tracking illegal?

These companies that manipulate population into buying products they don't want or need are the mythical "broken window".

Nobody mention how all this online business contributes to global warming. Factories produce useless products, that need to be stored, delivered, disposed of...
6 comments
yosito 1852 days ago
> Why can't governments make tracking illegal?

Because they're not really in charge anymore.

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livre 1852 days ago
>Why can't governments make tracking illegal?

Why would they? These companies are collecting the data the government wants, it's a free service for the government and they only have to ask for the data when they need it.

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CoolGuySteve 1852 days ago
Because some company with a successful app can build a real time population census for a foreign government.
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cm2012 1852 days ago
Because web traffic for the purposes of advertising doesn't actually hurt anyone, and it pays for services the electorate likes.
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marcodiego 1852 days ago
> Why can't governments make tracking illegal?

Because then they won't receive a few million $$ in donation for the next campaign.

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PeterisP 1852 days ago
It's difficult to make regulation for a specific line that actually does disallow tracking without leaving loopholes and does not put weird restrictions on everyone else.

However, governments (at least some) are trying; GDPR is a step in that direction, but it has ovious associated difficulties have been discussed here in HN for years; California is moving in with similar laws, so there is a trend, but it will take years for it to get anywhere. I'd guess that EU will make "GDPR v2" (however that will be called) with severe restrictions on tracking by 2025 or so.

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intricatedetail 1852 days ago
This could be combined with banning ad targeting. So even if companies collected data, they wouldn't be legally allowed to use it.
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johannes1234321 1852 days ago
Well, GDPR went large steps in making it somewhat illegal, while users may still "consent" to being tracked ... which lead to big cookie banners nobody understands. Steps are being done, but lobbies are strong in their fight against.
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mschuetz 1852 days ago
> while users may still "consent" to being tracked

That's the problem, in my opinion. Users should not be able to consent to third party tracking because if they can, companies will use any dark pattern at their disposal to make them consent. Third party tracking in general should be banned.

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johannes1234321 1852 days ago
Noyb, the NGO founded by Max Schrems, the guy who successfully sued Facebook, is preparing to build large cases against different users of cookie banners to get rid of all the dark patterns: https://twitter.com/NOYBeu/status/1399230262953787395

That's good progress.

However I agree to you that this isn't enough. Even without dark patterns too many people will click "yes" without understanding and this will live on in some way or another, till we make laws stricter.

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