this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2024
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European Union set to revise cookie law, admits cookie banners are annoying::undefined

top 28 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 59 points 9 months ago

A major political entity admitting mistake and correcting based on feedback. How refreshing.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 9 months ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If you’re a safari user (desktop and mobile): https://oblador.github.io/hush/

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Consent-o-matic also works on iOS and safari

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Thanks! It works on mobile (Nightly).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

should work on Android regardless of the branch.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 33 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

The actual EU documents say the complete opposite. They say that the cookie law is going nowhere, this new thing is a framework for easier compliance with the existing law for big business.

From the letter issued by the EU Supervisory Authority to the Commission about this :

While voluntary commitments [of companies to adhere to the GDPR] may be a useful tool, the pledging principles should by no means be used to circumvent legal obligations. In addition, undertaking voluntary commitments does not equate or guarantee compliance with the applicable data protection and privacy framework.

[–] merc 19 points 9 months ago (2 children)

The banners should stay. If a site doesn't use cookies, you don't get a banner. The sites choose for themselves if they want to use cookies and put up an obnoxious banner, or not use cookies.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago

I think enforcing some universal API for this would be a decent compromise. This would allow browsers to handle the UI which means the user can set a global preference or set it per site. At the very least the UI would be uniform so you wouldn't have to fight dark patterns trying to disable them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

What are you on about? The banners and cookie abuse should go

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I think what OP is saying that, yes, the cookie abuse should go for sure (I'm actually privvy of the "Legitimate interest" options.)

But that if websites want to track you, then they have to be transparent about it - hence the banners. Wanna track me? Ask me for permission. Is it annoying? Tough luck! Are you losing users because of it? Well, boo-hoo! Remove the tracking and there you go. No banner. Everyone happy.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

But the reality is, that is the reality right now. And unless something is done, its not going away

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Correct. That's what OP is saying. If websites want to use tracking cookies, they'll have to deal with the consequence of being annoying to their visitors. I'm completely okay with that. Though I'd welcome an alternative.

If websites were nicer about it, I would consider being tracked. So, a small banner consistently saying "Hey can we track you?" in which the default answer is "no" when you hit escape (as opposed to "WE ARE USING COOKIES TO TRACK YOU!!! CLICK SETTINGS TO DISABLE THIS!"), then I might click "yes" every now and then.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

To quote republicans, if "ifs" and "buts" were candy and nuts, every day would be Xmas. There's no way that'll ever hold. Just like there's no way video game companies will be less greedy, or box other corporation

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago

I trust they'll do a good job focusing on privacy rather than outright going back to "no banner, cookies for everyone!"

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Install privacy badge, turn on "automatically send do not track" and those things all just melt away when you go to a new site as it processes almost all sites automatically.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (2 children)

The "do not track" is really just you asking them politely not to track you, they are not obligated to stop tracking...more often than not, it is completely ignored and they track you anyway.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

...and the request itself can be used as a data point for tracking.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

California's regulations have teeth but there are some exclusions and exemptions, I guess like most laws it'll only be followed if suing and getting damages is easy and results made public.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Is it possible to do this on mobile phone browsers?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Yup, that's where it's the most valuable to not have to drag fingers around and whatnot, easier if you needed to deal with popup on PC with mouse and keyboard and whatnot.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

There are no cookie banners, at least not nessesary ones. There is just a consent requirement for processing personal data.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Um, what? Almost every consent banner I've seen has specifically asked about cookies, and usually nothing else.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This is a misconception many sites fall into. They really do not have to ask for just cookies, it's like there were asking to use CSS or JavaScript :).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

I like my websites RAW, they're not going to spy on me with those cascading styles and I do not want anything to interpret HTML for me, I will interpret it according to myself and not according to how some corporation wants. Wake up sheeple! /s

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

Can't wait until 28 when people realize how nice cell phones used to be.

[–] BakedGoods 1 points 9 months ago

If a site requires tracking cookies I just assume the developers of the site were incompetent.