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Comment by TheOperator | Hacker News Reader

>But the pop-up won’t let us pass without clicking “agree”. Opting out is an illusion.

I mean this is a weird way to phrase it but you definitely cannot participate in modern society without hindering yourself in various meaningful ways if you do not "opt-in" to giving up your privacy. "Opt-in" requirements have consequently struck me as "privacy theatre" which mostly irritates.

I don't see any solution for the current privacy situation other than regulation and enough liability attached to data breaches to make hoarding customer data a good way to go bankrupt.

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The regulation already says that this kind of coercion is illegal and subject to admonishment and eventual fining.

Sites that do not offer the equal choice between "continue with privacy intrusion" and "continue without privacy intrusion" are definitely out of compliance since 2018. Report them to ankle-biters like http://noyb.eu if you feel like making the world a little bit better.

Unfortunately it isn't very clear about it at all, and it actually only talks about it in advice about the legislation - not in the main body of the legislation. It also isn't clear if you can do things like "Click here to continue for free with tracking, or pay to access without tracking".

No, it's very clear. From the guidelines:

> Consent will not be free in cases where there is any element of compulsion, pressure or inability to exercise free will

It should also be a law that customers can not be opted-in by default, or through consent buried in a 100 page TOS agreement. There should be a requirement that the question is presented to the user in a clear way.

It is. The consent has to be explicit and informed.

But even companies like Apple (which claims to champion privacy) blatantly don’t seem to care https://blog.gingerlime.com/2020/does-apple-care-about-your-...

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=15288746...

Article 7 is the key bit, specifically entry 2: "...the request for consent shall be presented in a manner which is clearly distinguishable from the other matters, in an intelligible and easily accessible form, using clear and plain language."

(edited to remove superfluous GDPR reference)

GDPR unfortunately doesn't apply in North America. I know there may be other clauses in American, or Canadian law (I am Canadian), but this is in no way enforced. I can think of multiple services, where the first thing I have to do after creating an account, is go and toggle opt-out in all the places the setting has been buried.

I think it is widely believed but you don't actually loose that much with opting out. It requires a lot of effort though and it probably shouldn't.

If it requires a lot of effort, how can you say you don't actually lose much?

Social media tries to insinuate that you loose out on current stuff, topics to talk about, the activities of your friends, it can prey on your insecurity and jealousness in general. But that is mostly not true in my experience.

I meant it requires effort to resist these temptations and of course the more technical effort of defending against privacy invasions of large networks.

>> But the pop-up won’t let us pass without clicking “agree”. Opting out is an illusion.

You can generally just delete the popup from the DOM.

Idea for an addon: delete popups, delete overlays, fix scrolling ( which is often broken after deleting popups ). Is it possible to earn money with addons?

> Is it possible to earn money with addons?

Sure, if you lack your spine and moral compass. The business model is as follows:

1) Make a free add-on and have it gain popularity.

Then, either:

2a) Inject malicious code into it that delivers malware/advertisements, making you money.

or:

2b) Sell your add-on to a third party that will do 2a). If your add-on is popular enough, potential buyers will come to you themselves.

Other than that, no, I don't think you can monetize an add-on directly.

The content blocker extension uBlock Origin already comes with various annoyance filter lists maintained by end-user volunteers that do that automatically.

https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock#installation

True but fails to address the illegality, coercion, and vast multitude of users.

Breaches are just part of the problem. You can have no breaches and no privacy at the same time

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