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Kill The Cookie Banner

Kill The Cookie Banner

rapnie

Comments (174)

  • chrismorgan
    The other approach to killing the cookie banner is simply to declare that such a thing cannot constitute “informed consent”. (Perhaps: “ticking a checkbox and/or clicking a button cannot constitute informed consent”; and see what they try next.) From a factual perspective, I honestly think that shouldn’t be controversial: it’s well-understood that very few people actually read those things, they just want to get them out of the way. Just as shrink-wrap licenses and even simple contracts have at times in some jurisdictions essentially been neutered, so that only terms that a reasonable person would expect to be there are enforceable, at which point it becomes obvious that the whole thing needs tearing down in favour of standard licenses/contracts. In the Australian state Victoria, for example, there are standard rent and property sale contracts; for renting you must use that contract <https://www.consumer.vic.gov.au/housing/renting/starting-and...>, and I got the impression that residential sales practically always use the standard contract.But of course it’s impossible to convince someone of something when their livelihood depends on their not understanding it.
  • Phemist
    > Tired of misleading cookie banners? The EU Commission has finally proposed a solution: set your privacy preferences in the browser once, and never see another banner.So lawmakers do know how to make legally binding preferences based on device settings? What a crazy innovation.. now if only parents were given these options to indicate their child is using a device.. we could do away with all this Online Safety Act nonsense...
  • ezoe
    It's technically stupid in the first place.It's YOUR browser, a locally running software on a physical computer YOU own which memorize the cookie key-value pair a remote host told YOU to memorize and YOU return the same value later. It's YOU who allowed the cookie. If YOU don't want to allow the cookie, YOU simply not allow it.You are technically 100% control on cookie. These JavaScript implemented in-page UI has no guarantee to respect your wish. But you have a power to disable it.
  • tezza
    Even well meaning bodies like TFL (Transport for London) have cookie warnings that impede the actual access of the website.Need to look up a bus time? Full screen cookie consent with accept buttons drawn OFF THE SCREEN.
  • dspillett
    > automated signals that would communicate your privacy preferences between your device and websites or apps0Sounds good, as long as it covers the "legitimate interest" bollocks⁰ that is often hidden in inconvenient UI nests as well as the basic preference.-------[0] "we see your preference not to be stalked, but we want to anyway, click again for every partner to reconfirm you don't want them following you around"
  • 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.
  • shagie
    > Tired of misleading cookie banners? The EU Commission has finally proposed a solution: set your privacy preferences in the browser once, and never see another banner. Unfortunately, the tracking industry is pushing back – and so far, they’ve been successful.> ...> You may think that EU privacy law requires cookie banners. But the law is clear: online tracking is prohibited by default.That's an excellent idea... lets see how its implemented on https://european-union.europa.eu/index_enOh... there's a cookie banner.
  • hollowturtle
    I always wondered though why a website in the eu, for the love of their users, won't just drop cookie usage and instrusive third party scripts. Just do analytics on the backend and don't set any cookie, except for tokens in authenticated areas
  • Retr0id
    I think this would be a net benefit, but I can see an issue. A lot of news sites today do "accept tracking, or pay us, or you can't access the page". The orgs doing this are reputable-ish so I assume it's considered legal, on some level at least.So now they'd have a new popup that says "reconfigure your browser to accept tracking, or pay us, or you can't access the page". Which isn't really an improvement.
  • hash872
    Also there's a big difference between the sites that easily allow you to simply reject whatever their premade cookie settings are. And, the sites that only allow you to use them after you've accepted (example, politico.eu). Or, the sites that do have a 'reject' option, but you have to click through multiple screens and then manually reject each individual option.Sites that easily allow you to simply reject everything are then a short hop, skip and a jump into browser settings where you auto-reject all cookie/tracking nonsense
  • anon
    undefined
  • alt227
    I still don't get why every website has a cookie banner by default. I am data controller for several companies and have lots of exposure to GDPR. All my websites have no cookie banner, as they are not required.I guess that most companies just chuck it up there as a default so they dont have to read the law, or maybe they are all actually harvesting and selling personal data and therefore require cookies? Who knows.
  • ChadMoran
    What does enforcement of not having these banners look like? Wha tif people just... didn't.
  • imhoguy
    And guess who makes the most of devices and the most popular browser, I already see post install "Get most of the browsing experience by agreeing to these defaults."
  • richard_chase
    It would have been funny to get a cookie banner on this site. They missed a good opportunity.
  • ktosobcy
    Uhm…> The solution: automatically communicate your privacy preferenceWould be lovely and would happen if it weren't for… wait for it… Google and whole effed up ad-busines:https://ppc.land/eu-council-drops-cookie-signal-after-google...F*ck google and other BigTech…
  • SeriousM
    It's a "Dick over".
  • rpdillon
    The insanity around cookie banners is a good target.> Tired of misleading cookie banners? The EU Commission has finally proposed a solution: set your privacy preferences in the browser once, and never see another banner.Fortunately, if you have uBlock Origin, you can enable Easylist cookie notices under annoyances and avoid most of them. Combine with blocking third-party cookies, and the problem pretty much disappears.The fact that the EU tried to regulate this stuff is a shame, because regulation is not a good remedy. End-users have agency here. The solution is to enable end-users to have control in their browser (which they always did, so it's an issue of education, like so many things).Shame that Google is trying to kill uBO though. Extremely pleased that Brave continues to support it.
  • sandeepkd
    Usually government mandating something is concerning cause it seems to favor the government for its existence. However with EU commission its actually interesting combination, its representing multiple individual governments at once which somehow works good for the citizens.Overall this is a common sense solution. The challenge is that a significant industry makes money by collecting and selling data. It makes it harder for businesses who depend on it, they are going to get creative and will eventually come up with some dark pattern to circumvent it.
  • troupo
    > he EU Commission finally proposed a solution to the cookie banner problem: automated signals that would communicate your privacy preferences between your device and websites or apps.It wasn't on EU Commission to "finally propose a solution". The soluton has always been there.Somehow, Google, aka world's largest tracking and advertising company incidentally making the worlds' dominant browser and completely dominating all web standards, couldn't be bothered, and instead was pushing crap like FLoC
  • mmarq
    As if the DNT thingy didn’t exist…
  • johndhi
    how about: -if we really don't like targeted advertising, just outlaw it -then let websites do whatever they want with our cookies so long as they aren't targeted advertisinginstead of building websites and writing laws over the span of decades that just seem to want to ban targeted advertising but don't actually do it. FFS.
  • drnick1
    uBlock Origin with all "annoyance" filters enabled. I haven't seen a cookie banner in years.Another good one to have the "hide Youtube shorts" filter, featured on HN a while back.
  • nektro
    can we also kill the dark pattern of "accept all" and "choose your preferences" ?
  • hieKVj2ECC
    Yes please!
  • tgma
    I am old enough to remember Do Not Track and its failure and problems associated with it. What's new here? Why wasn't it adopted in the first place for GDPR?
  • charcircuit
    Even if you communicated your preferences sites would still want to ask for an exception to them. At least you won't see them ask for consent if you preapprove it.
  • the__alchemist
    Keep fighting! For now: browser plugins.
  • paulddraper
    Doesn't this lead to an all-or-nothing approach?I don't want randomnewssite to track me. But a favorite online store...I do want help with recommendations.
  • wrqvrwvq
    or we could glass the continent
  • openquery
    Finally yes yes yes.I've wanted the option to select your cookie preferences once and forget in a brower for ever.I assume the reason this wasn't done initially was corporate pressure (most people would opt-out of everything by default).1.2 billion exposed users × 8.17 years×365×3 banners/day×4 seconds÷36 is roughly 10-15 billion human hours lost to dealing with damn cookies since GDPR took effect on May 2018.That's about 17,000 human lives.
  • srijanbaniyal
    [flagged]
  • dfaoidsoi
    [dead]
  • SadErn
    [dead]
  • doodlebugging
    No need to kill the cookie banner. Just change the system so that everyone in every organization who supports cookies and other forms of user tracking and engagement will have every detail of their own existence and their family's existence broadcast in real time globally 24/7/365. Anyone who tries to opt out is jailed under 24 hour surveillance for a minimum of one year.EDIT: It's obvious that people really hate this option. Maybe too many here have their incomes too closely tied to the metrics that cookies are designed to collect. It could also be that it is an unrealistic option for everything except the most extreme societal changes.If you are old enough and look back far enough you may remember the time before all this bullshit like I do. Once marketing and advertising get involved and gain power in an organization, things tend to go to shit fast.
  • tete
    No, please don't!It's great. The current law forces people that don't give a shit about user privacy to have a banner (or any other way of asking for consent first) while giving everyone that cares and everyone not wanting to spy on their visitor a free pass.
  • TechSquidTV
    The EU has been on a decade-long crusade to destroy the internet.
  • W3cUYxYwmXb5c
    This is conflating different things. They are trying to use people's annoyance with the banner THEY caused to build support for another legislation.Cookies were never a problem. Just get rid of the banner.This other legislation should pass/fail on its own merit.