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posted by martyb on Thursday May 07 2020, @01:32PM   Printer-friendly
from the clean-your-dough dept.

European Authorities Ban Dirty Cookie Practices in GDPR Update:

When GDPR rolled out across the European Union back in 2018, the sweeping legal framework pledged to bring consumer privacy and protection to the forefront. In the years since then, we've seen the adtech industry at large do its collective darnedest to undermine these laws at every turn, and largely get away with it, thanks in part to the squishy phrasing of some of the legislation's most critical clauses.

Now, European authorities are stepping in to cut that squishiness a bit. On Monday, the European Data Protection Board—the Union's oversight committee for GDPR-related issues—released a 31-page manual (pdf) calling out some of the slimier practices used by adtech companies to fudge consent on an internet browser's behalf.

These new guidelines specifically call out the sites that assume a user's agreement to be tracked and targeted based on say, the way they scroll down a webpage, rather than relying on their explicit agreement to that deal. Also called out in the memo are "cookie walls"—a cute name for the not-so-cute tactic where sites bar internet browsers from accessing their content unless they agree to allowing cookies and trackers on the site.

These are both tactics that directly step on the concept of user consent. [...] GDPR was written to require that websites garner a visitor's consent before they handle that visitor's data, and before they pass that data down the garbled supply chain of third parties in the adtech ecosystem. As you might imagine, the GDPR painstakingly lays out exactly what does and doesn't qualify as consent, requiring that, in short, these websites explain the tech used to track the visitors in a clear and upfront way. It also requires that they offer these visitors an easy way to opt in or out of this sort of on-page tech.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 07 2020, @01:48PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 07 2020, @01:48PM (#991315)

    requires that they offer these visitors an easy way to opt in or out of this sort of on-page tech.

    I've tried to say "No" a number of times, and the process I needed to go through was far, FAR from easy. One site had a checkbox form where I had to remove consent from each item on their list - the list had 100's of items to uncheck. That, right there, is BS.

    Easy is ONE button that says, "yes, I consent", and ONE button that says, "no, I do not consent". Simple. Anything more is pure BS.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Fishscene on Thursday May 07 2020, @01:56PM

    by Fishscene (4361) on Thursday May 07 2020, @01:56PM (#991318)
    My personal favorite are items that use inconsistent phrasing and abnormal sentence logic to trick you in to staying with them. Then at the end, they have a "resubscribe" button that's the same color and placement as the "unsubscribe" button. So if you're clicking through fast, you sign back up for everything you didn't want. oh- the back button doesn't work at this point either.
    --
    I know I am not God, because every time I pray to Him, it's because I'm not perfect and thankful for what He's done.
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by pkrasimirov on Thursday May 07 2020, @01:59PM

    by pkrasimirov (3358) Subscriber Badge on Thursday May 07 2020, @01:59PM (#991320)

    It's even simpler. It should be opt-in only. Then they can put 1000s of switch-boxes if they want.

    Also no question should be asked twice. If I give an answer and change my mind later, it should be by my initiative to find where in the web page to change that answer.

  • (Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Thursday May 07 2020, @02:01PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday May 07 2020, @02:01PM (#991321) Journal

    One site had a checkbox form where I had to remove consent from each item on their list - the list had 100's of items to uncheck. That, right there, is BS.

    Name names! Who put out such a shoddy trap?