Road to hell being paved with good intentions and all, I guess. The reason sites all have the cookie permission dialog now is because of the GDPR, which has the right idea on data privacy, but the implementation wound up being so terrible that it winds up doing this. Prior to that dialog, they’d just store/read the cookies without permission (though lots of people would proactively sandbox browsers to make it a non-issue). I honestly can’t decide which is worse, at this point.
I like the ones that show the prompt for “we’ve detected an ad-blocker” with the option you can click for “continue without disabling and not supporting us”. Guilt trips work in human to human interactions, but not for random Internet prompts.
Of course I’d prefer the web simply not using cookies on every single site I visit (therefore not needing the prompt), but that’s not going to happen. Sites have to monetize somehow to stay alive.
The reason sites all have the cookie permission dialog now is because of the GDPR, which has the right idea on data privacy, but the implementation wound up being so terrible that it winds up doing this.
GDPR is not at fault here though, since it does not require asking for consent if the processed data is necessary for the purpose of the provided service. For example, a web shop usually wouldn’t have to ask for permission to store items in the shopping part because that is a necessary part of the online shopping process. In that sense, requiring the consent dialog for all unnecessary purposes is better as you can at least see who’s trying to screw you over. Don’t kill the messenger here.
I think it’s also important to remember that websites can only get away with these annoyances because it a) is easily automatable and b) has been the default mode of operation for decades. If restaurant waiters today started asking guests if they could sell info on what and when you ate, who you were with, and what you looked like, everyone would be creeped out. Before GDPR, it was pretty much normalized to do the same thing on the internet without even asking for consent.
Road to hell being paved with good intentions and all, I guess. The reason sites all have the cookie permission dialog now is because of the GDPR, which has the right idea on data privacy, but the implementation wound up being so terrible that it winds up doing this. Prior to that dialog, they’d just store/read the cookies without permission (though lots of people would proactively sandbox browsers to make it a non-issue). I honestly can’t decide which is worse, at this point.
I like the ones that show the prompt for “we’ve detected an ad-blocker” with the option you can click for “continue without disabling and not supporting us”. Guilt trips work in human to human interactions, but not for random Internet prompts.
Of course I’d prefer the web simply not using cookies on every single site I visit (therefore not needing the prompt), but that’s not going to happen. Sites have to monetize somehow to stay alive.
GDPR is not at fault here though, since it does not require asking for consent if the processed data is necessary for the purpose of the provided service. For example, a web shop usually wouldn’t have to ask for permission to store items in the shopping part because that is a necessary part of the online shopping process. In that sense, requiring the consent dialog for all unnecessary purposes is better as you can at least see who’s trying to screw you over. Don’t kill the messenger here.
I think it’s also important to remember that websites can only get away with these annoyances because it a) is easily automatable and b) has been the default mode of operation for decades. If restaurant waiters today started asking guests if they could sell info on what and when you ate, who you were with, and what you looked like, everyone would be creeped out. Before GDPR, it was pretty much normalized to do the same thing on the internet without even asking for consent.