I cannot believe we are still in this ridiculous situation with these dreadful cookie approvals on Every. Single. Page. How did we let Europe do this to us?
They don't need to track your information but they can make a quick buck selling you the latest far right conspiracy theory or fake medicine, but for that they need consent thanks to that pesky law that says they need to be careful.
By making the popups as annoying and obnoxious as possible, the populace will blame those darn EU law makers.
It's not unlike variable speed bumps installed into the road by crash injury lawyers intended to automatically slow down cars with airbags or seat belts to get everyone to stop taking normal precautions just so they can extract more profit.
Legislative bodies are slow, but dark patterns are being investigated by DPAs already. It's only a matter of time before these dark patterns will become punishable offences as well, which should clear the way for a cleaner internet.
Meanwhile, my solution is to not give websites that insist on badgering me with their manipulative consent forms any of my business. I can live without most Medium blogs.
Most sites that have this pop up aren't being predatory. The EU is fully to blame for ruining the internet.
The website is not following "you" around, nor is it intimidating you. "You" are the one visiting the website.
>Survieling you
The website does not have cameras on "you" or have people following "you" around. The website compiles information that "you" have given it. If Alice tells Bob her name and Bob remembers it, Bob is not surveilling Alice.
Bob also remembers Alice's height, weight, eye colour, hair colour, hair length, skin pigmentation, any spots, piercings, shoe size, shoes, clothes, jewellery, any other accessories, smells, gait, and fingerprints.
Alice didn't intend to give Bob all this stuff, but it was all there for the taking, so Bob took it all. He took photos and videos and audio recordings of everything.
Bob then sold a copy of all of this information on to everyone who paid for it.
Bob does this to everyone that comes anywhere near his home. He also convinced a lot of his neighbours to install his equipment in their homes and businesses, so he captures all of this information about vast numbers of people, not just Alice.
Fuck Bob.
Charlie comes along and agrees, fuck Bob, and passes a rule to make Bob et al put up a sign saying they're doing all of this, and gain explicit consent for all of the unnecessary information they're 'compiling'.
So Bob does it in the most painful way possible, and now some people are mad at Charlie, because Charlie's the one who made the rule. Even though Bob 'compiles information that "you" have given it', and Bob's in malicious compliance of the rules.
Fuck Bob.
I mean, ostensibly, it really is the latter that upsets you, but then I question why you're blaming Europe.
It should probably work more like the permissions in iOS for tracking. I should be able to set it once, my browser should send a header to the site, and I shouldn't have to think about it. We all know why they won't do this: the majority of people would opt out.
Blaming the EU for this feels pretty disingenuous. GDPR is definitely well-intentioned and in the interest of the consumers, the horribly annoying popups you get everywhere are just a form of malicious compliance from companies who want to track you anyway and make opting out as annoying as possible.
Note that it's perfectly fine to have a page without a cookie popup. HN doesn't have one, for example. It's just not in the interest of companies to forgo user tracking.
Intentions should not be a factor in evaluating whether laws are good laws or not. GDPR is not a good law. It hasn't even put a dent in the problem, and we are worse off for having it.
It costs society nothing to not punch people (complying with the laws against physical battery). It costs society a lot, however, in real economic terms, to comply with GDPR.
Therefore, if GDPR is not being enforced, it is all cost for little/no benefit.
And the enforcers are expected to work with the companies before fining everyone.
However, it was enough to hand out some serious fines, and sites started falling in line https://noyb.eu/en/where-did-all-reject-buttons-come Funny how this works, right?
And more fines are coming https://noyb.eu/en/breaking-meta-prohibited-use-personal-dat...