Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by account42 969 days ago
> Storing previous_visitor=1 into local storage is not the type of tracking most people are objecting to

Who are you to speak for "most people". I do object to that kind of cookie being placed without my explicit consent. It provides at least some identifying information that might allow multiple websites working together to uniquely identify you.
2 comments
PeterisP 969 days ago
No, a cookie with default settings attached to https://example.com saying "previous_visitor=true" does not provide any information whatsoever to any sites other than https://example.com.

There are various techniques to place "cookies" (sometimes not technically cookies) that can be correlated by multiple websites working together, but the website has to go out of their way to proactively do that, this is not something that gets enabled by simply placing a standard non-personalized cookie.

link
pcl 969 days ago
… and once it’s used by multiple sites to uniquely identify you, it becomes a tracking cookie in (most of) the laws on the books.

The law judges intent as well as technology.

link