Website cookie pop-ups to appear less in new UK Government proposals | Hacker News Reader

Website cookie pop-ups to appear less in new UK Government proposals

thetelegraphandargus.co.uk

12 pointsdane-pgp32 comments

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Press Release

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-data-laws-to-boost-br...

Consultation

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/data-a-new-direc...

Includes nuggets like the gov planning

- "removal of consent requirements in relation to audience measurement cookies"

- that "organisations should be able to use cookies and similar technologies without consent for a wider range of non-intrusive purposes"

- "to remove the need for websites to display cookie banners to UK residents"

Here's a take from the Open Rights Group on the downsides of this development: https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/brace-yourselves-new-uk...

To be clear, the actual proposal is to allow an opt-out model for mass data collection from sites – I'd say probably not something that we generally want to encourage!

Yeah, this sounds like “roll back one of the most important part of both the ePrivacy Directive and GDPR”, mitigated only by the possibility of something like Do-Not-Track being given legal weight. (Though I don’t imagine they’ll actually follow through on that part in that form, or most browsers that aren’t Chrome will set their defaults so.)

Businesses don’t like those rules. And they have tended to pretend to comply (but not actually comply) in such a way as to convince people to dislike them too.

All of this cookie nonsense could've been avoided if browsers simply treated cookies the same way they treat your location/microphone/camera. Denied by default, permission required by the user _through_ the browser.

Imagine if websites could use your camera the same way they can use cookies and gave you the promise that they won't use it just because you clicked a button made by them. Ridiculous.

If you're worried about cookies just install Cookie AutoDelete.

* https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/cookie-autode...

* https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cookie-autodelete/...

> if browsers simply treated cookies the same way they treat your location/microphone/camera

The GDPR has nothing to do with cookies - things that you can't control such as browser fingerprinting or IP addresses are also covered by data processing consent forms.

In fact, cookies are already pretty much useless for tracking anyway given that most browsers have strong countermeasures against them.

This is a huge step forward for ease of use and accessibility.

And a huge step backwards for data protection and transparency in the adtech industry.

I wouldn't have high hopes, regardless of GDPR issues, this really reads like a political move of a government in a weak position. There's more of the usual EU bashing bullshit than actual data privacy content in this announcement.

I like the general idea (I generally would just only accept functional cookies across the board 99% of the time so it would be good for sites to just be able to pick that up from browser settings) but it's unclear whether the UK actually has the clout to get browsers and websites to actually support this, probably to create a whole web standard around it, etc. Particularly if it might end up contradicting EU legislation on the matter.

Edit: also I suppose if marketing cookies etc. are important to websites then they will probably nag you for access to them if you've blanket denied them. And it's not clear that this will actually be better than the cookie banners.

> ministers have proposed replacing pop-up cookie alerts on websites with an opt-out system where users set cover-all data permissions in their web browser settings, removing the need to consent to cookies on each site they visit.

That sounds like a nice idea, but are they going to make it illegal for a site to have one of those banners? The headline says "appear less", so it doesn't sound like they'll be forbidden.

Of course the real reason for this law is to remove the protections of the GDPR, and the "cookie pop-ups" claim is just designed to make people continue hating the EU. If the UK government really cared about those pop-ups, they'd properly fund the UK's data regulator and bring actions against companies that don't have a one-click "Refuse cookies" option.

It's also worth asking why companies started using those cookie banners in the first place, instead of complying with the spirit of the GDPR and not using unnecessary tracking cookies at all. My guess is that the pop-ups were designed as a way to gaslight users into hating the regulations, so in that sense the cookie banners have been successful.

I only hope that, as these banners won't actually be illegal, companies that implement UK-specific cookie banner functionality will put up different wording for those users, saying "Thanks for voting for a government that lets us not care about your privacy any more. [Accept]"

Gaslight isn't just a cool word you throw in to make your argument sound more forceful. It actually has a specific meaning.

Given that, can you explain how companies are making users doubt their own sanity / reality through cookie banners?

I’m afraid you are a bit late to enforce the original meaning

> The term may also be used to describe a person (a "gaslighter") who presents a false narrative to another group or person, thereby leading them to doubt their perceptions and become misled, disoriented or distressed.

-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting

Hm, in particular see the 'excessive misuse' section. I (not person you responded to) haven't seen it in this 'mislead' use before though, only in much less extreme cases than the film but still in the spirit of it, 'denying reality/the other's experience' etc. - I thought that was what people objected to but was a lost cause (until now, thanks).

Are you saying "gaslight" doesn't mean what I thought it did all this time? I feel like I'm losing my mind...

Ministers have proposed the DNT header

The UK's strategy before leaving the EU - make the EU a terrible place and the UK a better alternative, essentially dropping the bomb and then leaving. That's why they voted in favor of all those bad new digital directives back 2-3 years ago.

Keywords article 13 or 17. Uploadfilters etc.

> an opt-out system where users set cover-all data permissions in their web browser settings

Time to blow the cobwebs off P3P?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P3P

DNT already exists. Might not be as powerful, but doesn't matter much. Functional cookies don't need consent.

DNT was routinely ignored and ended up being used as a fingerprinting vector.

Then why should another header work?

Honestly, just install an adblocker. If you don’t care enough to do that, you probably don’t care about a cookie pop up.

This is the UK government desperately trying to find something they can sell as a Brexit benefit. So far we've had blue passports (which we could have had in the EU), rapid Covid vaccine approval (which we could have done in the EU), return of imperial measurements (which nobody under the age of 60 understands or wants and which never went away in the EU) and more powerful vacuum cleaners (as in, more expensive to run).

> more powerful vacuum cleaners ((as in, more expensive to run)

I know it's not your point, but on top of everything "more powerful" is misleading.

- Typically this means more power consumption, not suction power

- Most modern vaccums improve with cleverer working designs to be better, not by just chucking more power into it

- The majority of houses in the UK have carpet, which makes this kind of vaccums silly, as anyone with a carpet and 2kW vaccum can tell

Can you elaborate on your last point, for those of us with puny vacuums? I'm intrigued as to why a more powerful vacuum would be worse for carpet, I assumed it would be better. What type of surface would need a 2kW, if not a carpet?

In some of the houses I previously lived, a high-powered vaccum would just rip out the carpet :)

But seriously, I would use a medium-powered vaccum for loose debris on carpet. High suction in thin carpets can actually damaged them and for shaggy carpets it all depends on the design IMO (carpet mode), not the suction power. In fact high powered ones might be too close to the base and not suck the debris effectively.

I don't think using a reverse wind tunnel does any good to carpets, honestly.

> and more powerful vacuum cleaners (as in, more expensive to run).

Let's not pretend appliance power limits are a good thing, I'd rather pay double or triple if it gets the actual job done first time than run something cheaper 2-4 times.

Can't say that I've ever felt like my appliances aren't powerful enough, though.

> more powerful vacuum cleaners (as in, more expensive to run).

They'll be able to have bigger numbers though. If your 900 Watt machine doesn't pick up the mess your 5 year old just made, what's the answer? Empty the material it has sucked up already? Clean the filter like it says in the manual? Hit a "boost" button the cleaner has for that one area? No! The answer is to buy a 1200 Watt machine. Still not helping? Buy the 1500 Watt machine.

Definitely don't read anything that would explain it's just not really practical to turn those extra 300W into more suction, but very easy to turn them into more noise and heat and charge extra for the bigger number.

Consumerism's answer has to be more consumption, bigger numbers mean better, if you authorise consumers to think maybe they don't need bigger numbers, how will you have infinite growth?

People who wrote these laws should be fined for the loss of productivity they have caused for the miniature puzzle game you have to play before each website visit.

Of course I agree 1000s of tracking cookies just to read a news article is absurd but if you're going to be in charge of writing these laws you need to write them in a way where the work arounds wont end up being dark patterns, the way its ended up the vulnerable still just click agree rather than waste their time and the savvy have to screw around with the different interface on every site to select the right double negative option to make sure they don't get tracked.

Should have just made them illegal full stop, not legal with consent.

GDPR, that still applies to the UK, doesn’t allow dark patterns, people who use them are just waiting for the regulator to call them. Been there, done that.

The real reason behind the "annoyance" of the GDPR is its lack of enforcement. The regulation actually outlaws dark patterns in consent forms and should make it as easy to opt out as it is to opt in, but because there hasn't been any enforcement (especially in the UK - the ICO is near-useless from my experience), obnoxious and non-compliant consent flows have been allowed to proliferate.

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