Comment by cookiecaper | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cookiecaper | Hacker News Reader

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> GDPR doesn't make website owners ask people if they can use cookies, you can use cookies just fine without asking people. You have to ask people when you want to collect or process more data than is required to provide the service.

I don't have any first-hand knowledge here, but my guess would be that the corporate lawyer's recommendation is always going to be "just get consent for every cookie". The alternative is to risk lengthy litigation over whether specific cookies required the consent. If they ask every time, they can avoid that nightmare.

Because of this, the notice doesn't really serve any purpose of a signal of sysop goodwill. Virtually every business large enough to have lawyers will add it where there's the possibility it'd be required, regardless of the cookie's intention.

Well-intended law that causes many negative side effects is still bad law, just as well-intended software may very well still be bad software.

It's up to you if you want to stick unnecessary notices on your website. If your lawyers tell you to do this then do it, or get better lawyers.

Some lawyers make restaurants get waivers from customers before they order steak that's not fully cooked. It doesn't mean it's necessary (and I would definitely not eat at one).

@pembrook wrote this elsewhere in the thread [0]:

> If your answer is "the entire world is stupid," then I'd argue you don't understand how the field of design is supposed to work.

And I think it really sums the argument up. Good design and engineering is about building something that performs its function efficiently, reliably, and unobtrusively. If something is widely misunderstood or misused, it's a design flaw.

"Blame the [law-abiding] citizens" is just as much of a cop-out as "blame the user".

In this case, however, it's not a case of general misinterpretation or misunderstanding. It's a case of the law creating very strong -- like significant-millions-of-dollars-on-the-line strong -- incentives for every significantly-sized company to harass every visitor. That's a pretty huge flaw.

It sounds like your response is basically "well if they aren't doing anything wrong, they have nothing to fear! just go to the tribunal and prove that every cookie is innocent." And in that case, please refer back to pembrook's quote above.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23095303

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