Comment by Doxin
2 days ago
> let alone the ones full of dark patterns to nag you into accepting anyway.
In fact the law pretty explicitly disallows dark patterns like that. Of course tech companies have a loosy-goosy relationship with the law at the best of times.
Yeah, and only when (I think) Google got a hefty fine did the banner implementations start to add an instant "opt-out" button. The tech companies really try to skirt the rules as closely as possible.
I'm glad I'm not in EU legal, it's gotta be like dealing with internet trolls ("I didn't ACTUALLY break any rules because your rules don't say I can't use the word "fhtagn"")
The #1 problem with the cookie law is that it's not enforced.
Start fining sites with dark pattern banners and they'll start going away.
I feel like the #1 problem with the cookie law is that the vast majority of websites need to do something in order to comply while keeping their business model and the law hasn't provided a clear direction for how to comply with it.
If they had done that, nobody would be making cookie banners wrong.
> In fact the law pretty explicitly disallows dark patterns like that.
Yes. For "cookie banners" the law in fact forbids hiding "Reject all non-essential and continue" to be given less visual weight than "Accept all and continue", let alone hiding it behind "More details" or other additional steps.
It also requires consent to be informed (i.e. you need to know what you're agreeing to) and specific (i.e. you can't give blanket consent, the actual categories of data and purposes of collection need to be spelled out) and easily revokable (which is almost never the case - most sites provide no direct access to review your options later once you've "opted in").
One good example I can think of for a "cookie banner" that gets this right is the WordPress plugin from DevOwl: https://devowl.io/wordpress-real-cookie-banner/ (this is not an ad, but this is the one I've been recommending to people after having tried several of them) because it actually adds links to the footer that let you review and change your consent afterwards.
EDIT: Sorry, I first misread "disallows" as "allows". I've amended my reply accordingly.