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Comment by jonplackett | Hacker News Reader

I thought all these EU tech regulations might do some good

But now when I arrive at any website I have to accept cookie policy, then I have to accept that they will invade my privacy and log my data (or waste half an hour un-checking boxes) and only then can I get down to the business of not signing up to their newsletter and not downloading their app.

Maybe this is simpler but tech companies seem to find loopholes faster than they can be closed and we just get stuck in the middle with a crap version of what we had before.

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Those are dark patterns on the part of the webmasters of those sites though.

They want to make it as hard for you to protect your privacy as possible. It’s the same reason they bug you install an app instead of using the web. In an app you have even less control.

Notice the number of sites that have an enable all but no disable all button?

Thing is if they’re using dark patterns at this stage how can you trust the content of the page you’re trying to view?

The alternative is much worse which every company tracking you with your consent. It was scary to see what data Facebook collects on you if you are logged out.

I suspect the EU will introduce new legislation in due course, but of course, they are heavily lobbied too by the tech industry, so it may take some time.,

Facebook still are tracking us all though because they’ve just dark-patterned their way around the regulation. So we have the same data sharing, and now I’m annoyed every time I get to a website.

I’m not arguing for a return to what we had. Just pointing out that what we have does not work yet.

Plus lots of companies are clearly in breach - like when they say ‘by continuing to use this site you agree to the terms and conditions’ this is not active consent. But nothing is done.

You don't have to accept that, and if you waste half an hour unchecking boxes that site is doing malicious compliance.

In my experience it's three clicks or so to turn off data gathering. I could not be happier with the GDPR.

It's not even malicious compliance. It's non-compliance since it should be as easy to deny as it is to accept.

Hopefully this behaviour will change once the ongoing cases make their way through the court system.

Some sites make you turn off every ad partner individually!

And it’s not individual sites going rogue. It’s clearly a box from an ad network. Not sure how you haven’t come across these.

I'd say more that the majority I've seen have been proper, and the nonproper ones I've just not looked at and backed out. Not like I'm starved for reading choice.

OK found an example - this is Reuters. A big proper site.

Go try and get into this site while declining cookies

It just pops up the consent dialogue full screen again (on mobile at least) until you accept

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-electric-norway/ele...

Manage Consent -> Decline All?

edit: Oh wow you have to do that per click. Wow.

Let's hope they get sued for that.

Another one (does anyone read old threads)

https://cgi.tutsplus.com/tutorials/introduction-to-the-basic...

This has no reject button, only accept and covers up half the page until you accept.

> But now when I arrive at any website I have to accept cookie policy, then I have to accept that they will invade my privacy and log my data (or waste half an hour un-checking boxes)

If you have to uncheck the boxes, the site is not GDPR compliant.

GDPR says that consent have to be given explicitly, not implicitly with an explicit opt-out option.

Thus the EU has massively reduced online tracking, and that is great.

Yes but it still happens all the time!

Some of them are inactive consent too. ‘By continuing to use the site, we own your soul’ etc

The EU regulations are doing one good thing: they are giving a small competitive advantage to companies that don't track you. For example, I've stopped using Google search, because I had enough of the creepy tracking on Google. I rarely watch Youtube videos anymore, because I don't want to click the consent button.

Some companies might start to rethink if they really need all this tracking technology. For example, I've removed Google Analytics from all sites that I was responsible for when the GDPR went into effect. I've decided that the potential liablility, and the inconvenience for the user was just not worth the small upside of knowing how many people clicked which link.

I've also stopped including tracking pixels in email newsletters, and I've also convinced others to stop using Google Analytics.

With the GDPR, you now at least know that some websites are going to do everything to track you, and it's an informed choice.

This needs to be enforced better, because all these pop-ups with "Accept | click 175 checkboxes to opt out" are illegal.

The adtech/publishing industry is beyond belief. Instead of reducing 3rd party tracking, they've just added another 3rd party used to track whether they have consent to track you. And then they still track you even if you don't agree, because all that code is crap and/or they don't care.

if you start looking into the CVs of the people that decide these sort of things you will understand why things are the way they are.

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