[tysilva]

Wow, finally. This would be a major quality of life update for browsing the web. As others have stated, not all sites merit the same preferences. Hopefully they can adapt a middleground of default settings with the ability to customize site by site.

[convolvatron]

under what circumstances as user would I want to explicitly agree to have my browsing history sent to tens or hundreds of third party tracking aggregators?

[scbrg]

I've seen people argue, with a straight face, that they prefer to get ads that are "relevant to them". Including here on Hacker News.

[AlienRobot]

I don't trust anyone who is against "relevant ads," because I always think what they want isn't "irrelevant ads," they want "no ads." But no ads isn't an option.

[deathanatos]

Yet somehow print/TV worked for decades just fine without spying on their users.

I do not want the gas station, or the airplane I'm on, spying on me to build relevant advertising. That is the end game of "relevant ads": my gas pump already serves me ads, the airplane I'm on serves me ads, my own car now (via a software update that occurred after purchase) serves me ads. Monitors now serve ads. TVs are abusing people's Internet connections, which isn't ads, but it's basically the same problem: if I can abuse the customer without consequence, why shouldn't I?

Just no. The problem is, I as a consumer cannot vote with my wallet: companies can and will go "I could take your money, and earn $X, or I could do that and ads and earn $X + $Y."; there is not reason for them to choose the former, and most markets are so concentrated (e.g., airlines) that there is not ample competition for the market to provide ample "vote with wallet" choices. Further, in the car example, it's just bait and switch: even when I think I can vote with my wallet, the company can just alter the terms of the deal, knowing full well the switching price of a car makes me subservient to them.

[crote]

> But no ads isn't an option.

Why? Plenty of websites operate just fine with no or near-zero ads. Just look at the one you are currently on!

And what's with confusing "relevant ads" with "privacy-invading targeted ads"? There's still plenty of ads in print media, on television, and on billboards: none of them are invading my privacy, yet they still manage to be relevant by choosing a medium with a certain target demographic. Websites used to do the same, there's no technical reason we can't return to this.

[scbrg]

Is it completely unthinkable that we just don't want to be spied upon?

[fsflover]

> But no ads isn't an option.

Of course it is: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43595269

[albedoa]

Wow that's so deep man.

[jsrozner]

"I like being manipulated by people who want to extract maximal value from me"

[lucianbr]

Gee I wonder if anyone on HN might have some ulterior reason to write such a statement, without it being true.

[GJim]

I'm again reminded that a significant percentage of HN readership are those working in US AdTech, who's very salaries are dependent on abusing peoples privacy. Hardly surprising a hefty part of the HN demographic slants towards opposing privacy laws.

[ApolloFortyNine]

People want free content online. More than that, they just expect it.

Any future law in regards to this will likely just lead to the companies that already got consent (companies you already have accounts with) becoming even deeper entrenched.

Non targeted ads pay a small percentage of targeted ads.

[tysilva]

I don't disagree. The ideal state here is really layers of customation for the defaults. Options like reject all, or strictly necessary would be at the forefront. And then it's really up to the individual how they want to proceed when those options are not available.

[broken-kebab]

If offered something in return, I guess

[alt227]

Ask that question to the 99% of people who click 'Allow All' on cookie banners.

[fmbb]

Its the biggest button.

They did not read the text to agree.

It was the fastest way to get the banner to go away. Sometimes they force you to confirm multiple times if you click ”none” or ”minimal”.

[PaulRobinson]

Devil's advocate argument: if they were giving you something in return, and that could be cash, but it might also be "you can have this content for free".

In the UK a few news sites have changed cookie banners to "you can accept and see this stuff for free, or you can sign up for a subscription, which would you prefer?". It's the only time I hit accept (and then clear browser history).

If blanket preferences from browser signals became the norm, a segment might open up where you would configure preferences and a data broker would make sure you get something in return for your data. At minimum it might force paywalled publishers to consider that as a "lite" subscription option.

[inigyou]

That's been ruled illegal in the EU, but EU sites still do it. Basically, the consent exception only applies if the user isn't coerced into it. Because coerced consent isn't consent.

[troupo]

> but it might also be "you can have this content for free".

ads don't require invasve and pervasive tracking

[jamiequint]

Effective ads absolutely require knowing more about the user than the context on the page it's a 1-2 orders of magnitude revenue difference for the publisher per-impression.

[crote]

The effectiveness of ads is highly doubtful in general - especially when you're looking at impressions rather than clicks. And that's before we consider advertising mostly being mostly a zero-sum game.

Advertisers are willing to pay more for privacy-invading ads because they believe they are more effective. If privacy-invading ads were illegal they'd just go back to context-dependent ads like they have been using for the thousands of years before the internet was invented, and after an adjustment period the revenue will just bounce back to where it was before.

Most advertisers know this already. If privacy-invading ads were so effective, why are all the major brands now using influencers to market their products? Why go through the effort of finding a specific Instagram channel which might be a good fit and convincing the operator to enter a brand deal, when you could also just directly pay Instagram for a highly-targeted ad one swipe away?

[troupo]

> Effective ads absolutely require knowing more about the user than the context on the page

That's what the tracking industry keeps telling you with zero evidence it's true.

And then there are studies like this one: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016781162 which say that targeted ads need to be 100% to 700% more effective to be as profitable as non-targeted ads

[alt227]

You seem to have missed the point. No ads dont require those things, but companies could start offering content in return for those things instead of ads.

[Alpha3031]

As I understand it, it is the position of several DPAs that denial of access entirely (i.e. "consent or pay") could contravene the "freely given" requirement of GDPR in most cases, though this has thus far not been tested in court.

(see e.g. https://iapp.org/news/a/cjeu-clarifies-cookie-consent-requir... https://www.edpb.europa.eu/news/edpb-consent-or-pay-models-s... )

[troupo]

> but companies could start offering content in return for those things instead of ads.

Again, that is not a requirement. If your argument is that they give us content for free because of ads, ads don't require pervasive and invasive tracking. Or hiding stuff behind paywalls (since ads pay for it).

[alt227]

No my arguement is not that they give us free content for ads. It is that in the future it is entirely possible that they offer us free content in return for us allowing pervasive and invasive tracking.

Im pretty sure if a company said something like "Here have free netflix for life, as long as you install this browser plugin that provides us with information about your shopping habits" millions of people would bite their hand off.

[inigyou]

Sometimes I do it to reward the website for being less shit than most websites.

[singron]

As long as it's some automated signal, the User-Agent can use any logic it wants to send it without cooperation. The specifics of how to send the signal don't have to be legislated. E.g. Firefox's Tracking Protection has a global default a site-specific overrides, so it's very likely that they would do the same for this or just combine those features.

[ktosobcy]

Comission wanted that, Google lobbied hard to NOT have automatic sigal… go figure…

[micromacrofoot]

many will still ask because they want to track you regardless of existing preferences