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Comment by fludlight | Hacker News Reader

They’d shut down the email account ;-)

A better solution is websites actually accepting the “do not track” requests that browsers already send. Unfortunately the most popular web browser is run by the most popular tracking company, who also almost wholly funds the second most popular browser.

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Also, websites have no incentives to implement such a feature if it's not required by law.

It costs money and gives them nothing in return

Well, GDPR and CCPA compliance cost something. That could be made simpler using this option.

Also, Ad Blockers are becoming quite prevalent again. Personally, I’ve started using one again for privacy reasons. If a publisher would actually respect my Do Not Track request, I’d happily leave their ads up. I have no problem with contextual advertising.

So that’s revenue left on the table.

It would not be easier. It has to be implemented in addition to the consent form.

I have a website. If I wanted to support DNT, I'd have to take an hour or two to figure it out. To be honest, it wasn't even on my radar.

The solution is to send a message by avoiding those sites thus creating a disincentive for them to maintain the practices. But as you can see from the number of upvotes even very technically literate people will get over this just for an interesting title.

Techcrunch routinely ends up on the front page on HN, ironically many times for articles that condemn the very practices they engage in. No website will change their practices because of strong, informed opinions when the clicks still come in, especially from a distinguished community like HN that just validates Techcrunch's choices.

The problem here is that there’s a prisoner’s dilemma among websites that rely on ad revenue. If only a few websites decide to become fully GDPR compliant, then those websites see all of their ad revenue disappear and go out of business. If, on the other hand, every website properly implements the GDPR requirements then the tracking based ad model disappears and we’re back to the pre-tracking world of ads.

The problem is: how do you get everyone to cooperate at the same time when the incentive for cheating is that your website gets all the revenue?

This dilemma is just one of many in modern society and all are aspects of Moloch [1]. Ultimately we’d like to kill Moloch but that seems very difficult right now.

[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

Can't they use non-tracking ads based on the content of the page?

They can’t until advertisers agree to it. Today, that means walking away from the big networks and finding your own advertisers to sign for one-off deals. Some sites do it (slatestarcodex is one) but it’s hard work.

> The problem is: how do you get everyone to cooperate at the same time when the incentive for cheating is that your website gets all the revenue?

By cutting to the source and making targeted internet advertisements illegal, full stop, with business-wrecking, revenue-scaled fines implemented for both offending websites and offending ad companies.

don't fine businesses, just require a certain proportion of shares be handed over. if the offences is bad enough, the government gets a majority stake and can force change. if its not, the prior owners lose income and influence on an ongoing basis, since their 10% share is now 9%.

Enforcement of laws is generally the standard solution to "how do you get everyone to cooperate at the same time when the incentive for cheating is that your website gets all the revenue". Compliance should not be voluntary - if cheaters get identified and punished, the coordination dilemma goes away.

In central Europe it is illegal to film the public space in front of your billboard without special permit. Billboards that don't film the space in front of them are still pretty common.

An effective ad on a popular website could be a single jpg hosted on the same webserver as that website itself. You wouldn't need any Cookie banner for that.

But ohh, that isn't enough. No they want to be able to show your users content you didn't explicitly approve and run code on your users computers you cannot verify.

If you had a lemonade stand would you let some company film your customers faces? Probably not.

The GDPR law just makes sure you ask them before you do it

I believe they still need to allow you to withdraw consent if they want to comply with GDPR.

So maybe it'll be fax instead of email. Or a weekly letter with a list of all the IPs that have revoked consent? I'm pretty sure this could be done very cost effectively if it's many users and only a small pool of bad UI offenders.

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