Comment by ketzu
2 days ago
> the EU should have forced browser vendors to solve. Only the user's browser can choose not to send back cookies
This is only an option if you limit tracking to using cookies. But neither tracking technologies, nor the current EU law, are limited to tracking via cookies. It also kills functionality for many web applications without also accepting all tracking. Some browser-flavors went to extreme lengths to prevent tracking through other means (eg fixed window size, highly generic header settings, ...).
Maybe I am mistaken, but it seriously frustrates me how much people within the relevant field make this mistake of conflating tracking and cookies and come to this "it would be so simple" solution.
A welcome update to the law would be to allow a header flag to opt out/in (or force the do-not-track header to have this functionality) preventing the banner from showing.
The pessimist in me thinks a legally enforced header and corresponding browser setting (so that the user wouldn't have to make an explicit choice per website) would have met enough pushback from businesses for the EU to back down to something with the infinite stupidity of the current solution.
Maybe we could move towards that end in small steps. The EU should start by banning irrelevant non-sequiturs like "We value your privacy" and other misleading or at best distracting language. It can then abandon the notion that users are at all interested in fine-grained choice, and enforce that consent and non-consent to non-essential statekeeping are two clearly distinguished and immediately accessible buttons. No one wants to partially block tracking.
It seems as though the EU is operating under the notion that this is all a matter of consumer choice, as though any informed consumer would choose to have tabs kept on them by 50 trackers if not for the inconvenience of figuring out which button stops them.
I know it'll be considered a hot take, but I'd argue that people don't even know what "tracking" in the Internet context even means enough for their supposed "preferences" about it to be valid.
90% of non-tech-nerds have this simple of an opinion about it:
1. Retargeting ads are "creepy" because ... "they just are"
2. Retargeting ads either annoy me because I think they're dumb in that particular instance ("I already BOUGHT a phone case last week, it's so dumb that it keeps showing me phone cases all day!") or because they're too good ("I gave in and bought the juicer after I kept seeing those ads all around the web") and I don't like spending money.
The rest of "tracking" they don't even know anything about and can't verifiably point to any harms.
Data brokers acquire data from thousands of different sources - many of which aren't stemming from Internet usage - and most of the browser data relevant here isn't tied to their actual name and permanent identity (and doesn't need to be to serve its purpose which is usually "to show relevant ads" and the more specific case of "to get people to come back and buy things they saw").
Honestly, just like people are annoyed by pushy car salesmen, and being asked for a "tip" at a self-order kiosk counter-service restaurant, they are going to be annoyed about aspects of the commercial Internet, and it doesn't automatically mean that they're being victimized or that they need regulations to try to help.
The law isn't there to make you less annoyed, but to protect society and the people. What gripes uninformed individuals may or may not have with the practice based on their surface level understanding are irrelevant to the effects it has on society. That someone uninformed about it can't point to any harms is not a useful observation.