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posted by mrpg on Tuesday June 26 2018, @02:12AM   Printer-friendly
from the much-ado-about-nothing dept.

A month after the enforcement date of the General Data Protection Regulation – a law that businesses had two years to prepare for – many websites are still locking out users in the European Union as a method of compliance.

[...] Another retailer that failed to get its house in order is posh homeware store Pottery Barn, whose notice says that "due to technical challenges caused by new regulations in Europe" it can't accept orders from the EU.

"The pace of global regulations is hard to predict," the shop complains about the legislation, which was adopted on 14 April 2016. "But we have the ultimate goal of being able to offer our products everywhere."


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by janrinok on Tuesday June 26 2018, @07:14AM (3 children)

    by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 26 2018, @07:14AM (#698628) Journal

    I feel that some of the points being made in the original submission are lost by our need to provide a much shorter and concise summary for the front page.

    For example, when discussing Forbes' poor attempts at complying:

    Forbes’ GDPR opt-out is one of the darkest design patterns I have seen in a while [...]

    Once users click the (much less prominent) button to change their preferences, they're offered a set of clear, granular options for cookies. However, those who choose "required cookies" only are faced with a wait while Forbes sort tries to handle your request – which some report can last for days...

    It appears that @Forbes [twitter.com] just deactivates their site for people who opt out of advertising cookies. I tried all the possible privacy settings, waited for days, and then the only working option is when you allow really shady characters to spy on you. "Thanks."

    However, there are also some wins:

    Other sites, meanwhile, have taken an altogether different approach, running separate versions that are stripped of tracking – and thus actually allow people quicker access.

    Because of #GDPR [twitter.com], USA Today decided to run a separate version of their website for EU users, which has all the tracking scripts and ads removed. The site seemed very fast, so I did a performance audit. How fast the internet could be without all the junk! 🙄

    5.2MB → 500KB

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
       Interesting=2, Informative=1, Total=3
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Kawumpa on Tuesday June 26 2018, @07:54AM

    by Kawumpa (1187) on Tuesday June 26 2018, @07:54AM (#698647)

    Because of #GDPR [twitter.com], USA Today decided to run a separate version of their website for EU users, which has all the tracking scripts and ads removed. The site seemed very fast, so I did a performance audit. How fast the internet could be without all the junk! 🙄

    5.2MB → 500KB

    It's fascinating, isn't it? A lot of people complain about the inconvenience GDPR causes them, delaying and sometimes even hindering access to information they need, when in fact a much bigger problem is the unbelievable amount of crap, like ads and tracker scripts, slow down and often hinder access to information in pretty much the same way (like for example you wanting to click a lick or read and story, but the page reformats constantly as ads are being loaded). The majority appear to have become so used to being constantly tracked and presented with poorly designed shit that they either weren't around or can't remember when the web wasn't almost exclusively an advert delivery system.

  • (Score: 2) by choose another one on Tuesday June 26 2018, @08:22AM

    by choose another one (515) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 26 2018, @08:22AM (#698655)

    However, those who choose "required cookies" only are faced with a wait while Forbes sort tries to handle your request – which some report can last for days...

    The process completes for me in testing, however the interesting thing is that while "processing" your request the site is sending http requests to dozens of advertising sites, it's probably waiting for responses too so my guess is that an adblocker could stall the process. I haven't dug into what it is doing, maybe it is sending an "awkward ****" tracker to every advertiser before it turns the cookies off, for me it is enough that the sites' first action when you say "required cookies only" is to contact a bunch of ad servers.

    Because of #GDPR [twitter.com], USA Today decided to run a separate version of their website for EU users, which has all the tracking scripts and ads removed. The site seemed very fast, so I did a performance audit. How fast the internet could be without all the junk!

    Yeah, I noticed that one too. I think there is a web equivalent of Parkinson's law - the ads always expand to (over)fill the bandwidth available.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 26 2018, @11:19AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 26 2018, @11:19AM (#698692)

    I've had so much trouble with Forbes that should I see the link is to that site, I no longer bother clicking on it. Its just a pain in the ass site.

    I know they cater to rich people, but so do doctors treating gonorrhea, and computer techs ridding their machines of malware.