[maratc]

The plaintiff's browser did what the defendant's code ordered it to do.

If the defendant's code violated GPDR (which seems to be the court's conclusion) by sending the plaintiff's browser somewhere, it's a defendant's problem, not plaintiff's.

[7373737373]

Yeah, that's exactly the agency argument. It's not as if the plaintiff's browser is actually under control of the defendant, a user agent is not forced to follow the instructions that are contained in a website it requested on behalf of its user.

[maratc]

> not forced to follow the instructions

Again, you're talking about an opt-out. GPDR (the law) requires an opt-in.

[7373737373]

I don't think forcing each and every single website provider to implement their own consent forms is the right approach to regulating this. User agents should have the ability to convey and enforce privacy preferences on behalf of the user, and website providers should be legally required to comply with these if possible (or refuse service if not). But requiring ever more complex, explicit and custom opt-in consent forms for various provider, third party and user jurisdiction combinations is just inane.

[ratww]

Consent forms are not required, just host the font. They are also way more expensive and complicated to implement than self-hosting fonts. Asking for consent over usage of third-party fonts borders on pettiness from the website owner.

> User agents should have the ability to convey and enforce privacy preferences on behalf of the user, and website providers should be legally required to comply with these if possible (or refuse service if not).

The burden of respecting privacy choices in every single other case (data in the backend, data shared with partner, paper data) is already with the website. Every non-privacy-respecting implementation in the frontend is made by website owners.

Keep in mind that sometimes websites don't work with blocking other stuff, or are more difficult to use when blocking fonts (Google Material). So this is not even a practical suggestion.

[maratc]

There are two options to do what's required by the law: either A. not sending users' personal data to third parties; or B. receive informed consent from the users before sending their personal data to third parties.

If the option B seems unwanted for some reason (any reason), there is still option A. Implementing a different solution (that breaks the law) has consequences.

[xtracto]

This is a pretty sad state of affairs IMO. The fact is that CDNs and similar third party services play an important role. Websites wont stop us6them, it's not feasible (btw if I "host" my fonts in S3 do I have to get consent for sharing IP with Amazon? With DNS? with every router that goes through tracert?) .

In reality, websites will add more crap "opt in" CYA forms at first loading, making the interaction fugly and unusable. We can discuss here in HN how that is unnecessary and whatnot, but that's what's going to happen...

I just wish that websites wouldn't force us outside of the EU to the asinine UX required by the EU (I hate having to press ACCEPT ALL on each page I visit.... whatever I dont want is already blocked by an extension anyways).

[latk]

> The fact is that CDNs and similar third party services play an important role.

They no longer do, since browsers implemented cache isolation.

> if I "host" my fonts in S3 do I have to get consent for sharing IP with Amazon?

No, you're supposed to contractually bind your vendors/service providers as data processors with a contract (“data processing agreement”) per Art 28 GDPR. There's some debate around whether US-based companies are legally able of entering into such an agreement (say hello to the Cloud Act from me), but the general consensus still is that non-US cloud regions might be OK, and that CDNs that let you sign a DPA (like Akamai, Cloudflare, Fastly, …) are also OK. In contrast, Google Fonts does not seem to be covered by the Google Cloud DPA.

> with every router that goes through tracert?

No, such mere transmission doesn't count as processing, and/or the intermediaries are responsible for their own compliance. In any case the connection should be protected by TLS so that only the client IP address + your domain name is visible to intermediate routers.

> websites will add more crap "opt in" CYA forms

Unfortunately, I agree, though the point of this judgement is that self-hosting some assets is a perfectly cromulent alternative. I think relying on “consent” would be difficult in a case like this, since it is not generally possible to make access to a service conditional on consent to unnecessary processing activities. Using a CDN for assets like files is unnecessary.

> I just wish that websites wouldn't force us outside of the EU to the asinine UX required by the EU

For EU-based websites there is no choice, as the law doesn't care about where the users are.

There's also a bit of irony in here that there has been a lot of work in replacing the cursed cookie consent requirements that gave us most of these annoying consent banners – but the past few months revealed that the US tech giants have been successfully lobbying against the proposed ePrivacy Regulation. So please redirect your ire against Google. Without them this might have been fixed in 2018.

[7373737373]

There's a difference between data sent to the website provider (and through it, indirectly to third parties), and interactions between the browser and third parties. The linked ruling forces the provider to ask the user for consent for third parties (even though the provider has nothing to do with the interaction!), instead of mandating a direct opt-in interaction between the user (agent) and third parties.

Imagine embedding many social media sites. Instead of forcing the social media sites or browser vendors to create embeddings that ask for consent themselves, the website provider has to ask for consent on behalf of all external sites before loading any content. As a web developer, this is a nightmare.

[maratc]

> even though the provider has nothing to do with the interaction

I beg your pardon, but in this case "the provider" (website) has directly sent the user's browser to a third party (google fonts) by including an instruction in the code (HTML) that the provider has sent to the user's browser. The browser did not decide to contact google fonts all by itself; it was directed to do so by the provider. Arguing the provider "has nothing to do with the interaction" looks a bit disingenuous to me.

[shukantpal]

> Again, you're talking about an opt-out. GPDR (the law) requires an opt-in.

It is opt-in. You decided to use a browser that implements the full HTML spec. Just use a basic browser.

[maratc]

"Your honor, the victims of my ransomware attack decided to use a modern CPU to run my code. The attack would not have succeeded have the victims used Z-80, so there's no one to blame but the victims themselves."

[shukantpal]

Yeah like when you use a browser no where did you literally cause & consent to loading and running stuff.

False analogy.

Ironic that people use this line of reasoning to defend ad blockers (I'm responsible for whatever software I run) but then use the opposite argument when they don't like what the software does.

[ratww]

> It's not as if the plaintiff's browser is actually under control of the defendant

In theory and in practice it is, though. The browser viewport, by executing remote code, is in fact under control of the defendant's website.

Most websites are closed-source. The "instructions" are not available to the customer.

[Jon_Lowtek]

> a user agent is not forced to follow the instructions

Luckily! A large german media corporation called "Springer" has for years, and is still, unsuccessfully trying to get the courts and politicians to rule that users can not manipulate web content and must run it as intended, as changing it would violate copyright and is a sabotage of their program. And i bet they aren't the only ones globally. Also: how many devices are locked down and can only run code as it is provided by trusted third parties? Try installing an ad-blocker on a smart-tv or a playstation.

[austhrow743]

Website have no authority over the browsers accessing them. They can't order. Just state information. "There's a font over here" not "you have to go access this font over here".

That browsers by default tend to follow links to resources automatically doesn't change that. It's still the agent the user has chosen to represent them when talking to the website making the decision not the website.

If a legal body want to make the call that users shouldn't be responsible for choosing what their browsers automatically do or don't do on their behalf that's fine. But it's absurd to do it by making it the website creators problem. It's the browser that's choosing to do things without asking the person it represents for explicit permission. It's the browser sending the information to the third party. Put it on the browsers!

We've got a handful of choices for browsers. They all gratuitously send every bit of information they can get their hands on to every website they can. Just straight up informational security Judas'. And GDPR blames websites? It's crazy to me.