I don't understand the hate toward cookie banners. It's like if the citizens of a surveillance state complained if civilian-dressed informants had to carry a big ugly sign. Sure, the sign is ugly and everywhere; but maybe the actual problem is that there are so many informants that you have to see so many signs, rather than their signs being ugly.
Shoot the actual problem (i.e. the dark patterns and malicious compliance of the concerned websites), not the messenger.
Both are a problem in their own right. Tracking visitors to make up for your lackluster business model is abusive, but cookie banners as usually implemented are but one way to comply with regulations aimed at curtailing this. And in my book, it's a form of malicious compliance, making it equally part of the problem.
Annoying consent flows aren't compliant, at least not with the GDPR. A compliant consent flow should make it as easy to accept as it is to decline, so pre-ticked checkboxes or hiding/burying the decline option doesn't comply.
Incompetent regulators that are asleep at the wheel and still haven't done anything to punish this (GDPR went into effect in 2018) are definitely a problem though.
Even if the regulators attacked more websites it wouldn't matter. You'd just have more and more websites that block European users.
You can't expect websites to give you a pop up that asks whether they can monetize your visit or not. Everyone's going to click "refuse" because ads are annoying. As a consequence your website makes no money. At that point why run the website at all?
Regulators don't want to regulate too hard, because it would ruin all the freely available websites.
> As a consequence your website makes no money. At that point why run the website at all?
Many European websites are now proposing users to either accept cookies or buy a subscription to the website. This looks like a very sane way to address the problem to me.
> You'd just have more and more websites that block European users.
Why should I care? Market changes, adapt or disappear.
> You'd just have more and more websites that block European users.
Great! It frees up space for more respectful alternatives.
However ads are universally disliked and the problems the current ad model brings (privacy, spam/scams/malware, inappropriate/illegal content, etc) are generally universal too, so it's just a matter of time before similar regulation is enacted outside of Europe too.
> because it would ruin all the freely available websites.
Laws against theft/robbery/carjacking ruin free/below-market-rate car rental websites too, yet nobody is complaining about those because society has decided that theft is bad even if it would technically open up new business opportunities that wouldn't otherwise be possible. Why should this be any different?
> I don't understand the hate toward cookie banners.
My main issue with it is that if I disable cookies, then every single time I need to accept it. If I enable cookies then I only need to accept it one time. I think this annoying thing actually reduces security, because people are more likely to just not delete the cookies at the end of the session to avoid this annoying popup. Makes the web totally unusable if you delete the cookies regularly without a plugin to hide the cookie banner.
We already knew cookies were being used everywhere. I dont need to be told the same thing 100000 times because it makes some people feel better and altruistic.
It didn't bring any benefits and has wasted excessive amounts of my time.
First-party, non-tracking cookies do not require a cookie banner.
I'm always flabbergaste how good the propaganda machines of ads agencies is that people are actively fighting protective measure on their behalf. Nihil novi sub sole I guess, but it's fascinating to see this process happen first hand.
That's just plain false. I know many people, especially in the older, less technically literate people, who now systematically disable such analytics thanks to these banners – people who had never realised the real dimension of users tracking before this law.
It's not propaganda by ad agencies. Why make it into a conspiracy? There are pretty great tools out there that you can use for websites, such as Google analytics, but the moment you use that you're implementing a cookie banner.
Want to have ads? Cookie banner. Want to have YouTube/Twitter/whatever integration? Cookie banner.
europa.eu has a cookie banner. A website that doesn't even need to pay its own bills!
>I don't understand the hate toward cookie banners.
Because they fundamentally don't work. The EU politicians had to have known that they didn't work from previous experience, but decided to inflict us with these pop ups anyway. Their own damn website has this pop up.[0]
Reasons why cookie banners don't work:
1. They need to be implemented by the website. This means that if a website decides to ignore the cookie law they can set all the cookies they want and you won't be notified. If they are outside of the EU's jurisdiction they won't even care.
2. Targeted advertising is how a lot of websites pay the bills. This means that websites will use every trick in the book to get you to not click on the "refuse" button. Why wouldn't they? You're using their server time, but generating no revenue if you refuse. Websites will fight this process. They'll eventually lose, but the internet will either turn into a splinternet or cable TV. Ads are what make free websites work and cookies is how it happens right now.
3. Websites are made by people who aren't always well-versed in legalese and can't just hire a lawyer for everything. They don't always know whether they need a pop up or not. The safer option is to put it up there. If the EU's own website has one then probably so does yours.
4. Popups are annoying.
Cookies should be handled by the browser. Not some harebrained JavaScript.
At least twenty years ago the popups had voluptuous women for me to look at before before I closed them in annoyance. Now they're still spying on me same as before but they're irritating me while they do it.
I have never given correct information for those. I always sign up with the name of a president and the address of the White House. I’ve been using a phone number from 15 years ago for those.
>I have never given correct information for those. I always sign up with the name of a president and the address of the White House. I’ve been using a phone number from 15 years ago for those.
I believe +1 (202) 456-1414 is the number[0] you want to use.
I don't have a problem with accepting some ToS when I sign up to a service. My problem is this new law where you have to accept the ToS of every single website on the internet before you can use it, then the ad networks, the analytics services, etc. It would be like having to sign a ream of papers every time I enter a store.
The sites wouldn't need to get your consent for justifiable usage only. They actively decide they want more than that, they want to sell your data. So it's on them, the law itself is fine.
I have zero problems with ad-supported shit going out of business and making space for good, paid content. Imagine a world where content has to be so good as to convince people to take out their wallet. No more clickbait, "this video is sponsored by ShitVPN", chumboxes, etc.
Fully with you on that one. The fact of the matter is that most "free" content is fast food style content - you eat it because it's designed to be addictive. Consumers may feel like they want it, but that's just because it's there, prodding you, calling out to you, autoplaying the next video out of "convenience". If it were to disappear tomorrow, I'd likely spend more time reading old books, practicing programming for my entertainment
There was a time when the likes of YouTube and blogging were just a hobby, not a job for pseudo marketers. Replacing paid "influencers" and "content creators" with plain hobbyists again would be a wonderful thing.
I can imagine such a world. It would be cable TV with heavy region locks. The poorer parts of the world wouldn't be on it at all.
Paying for things online is still a terrible experience. You need a credit card, which isn't always easy to get outside of the rich western countries. I would never have used websites like reddit, HN, Twitter, YouTube or Google if I had had to pay for it. As a kid I wouldn't have been able to pay even if I had wanted to.
>No more clickbait, "this video is sponsored by ShitVPN", chumboxes, etc.
No, you would have even more of this, because this type of monetization is not linked to cookies.
Outside of email (which I do pay for), I can't think of an online service I'd pay for. HN is about as close as it gets, but I wouldn't pay for what it is today.
You don’t, that’s the point of the law. As in, the old “EU cookie law” focused on you knowing the terms, but that proved ineffectual where every website operator said “accept or GTFO” (you’d think that would end up an unstable equilibrium, but it didn’t).
Thus the “new” GDPR is predicated on the idea that consent given under “... or GTFO” terms is invalid, given the imbalance in negotiating power, and said consent (where required) had to be voluntary by that definition. The result is cigarette-labelling-level malicious compliance on part of website operators (and compliance-in-a-box vendors they use).
Many of the things you see, such as requiring you to turn off every single “purpose” or “partner”, are manifestly illegal (or rather, don’t legally constitute voluntary consent, so showing them is legal but tracking you afterwards isn’t), but enforcement has been lackluster so far. We’ll see where we end up I guess. (I genuinely don’t know how I want this to go.)
Shoot the actual problem (i.e. the dark patterns and malicious compliance of the concerned websites), not the messenger.