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Why you're hounded by pop-ups about cookies, and how they could go away:
If you've ever audibly groaned when a cookie pop-up takes over half your screen, we've got good news for you. A new law could help phase out the annoyances, which often deliver seemingly self-contradicting messages such as "We use cookies to make your experience better."
[...] The California attorney general is tasked with defining a browser setting that will let you automatically tell websites not to share or sell your data. By the time the new law comes into effect in 2023, major web browsers are expected to offer the setting as a privacy feature. At that point, companies will get to remove a button that says "Do not sell my personal information" from their websites if they honor the browser setting without splashing pop-ups across your screen asking you to opt back in to the sale of your data.
[...] The more recently approved law aims for something rare: privacy protection without constant interruption. It may sound small, but pop-ups are already indignities that slow down your workflow or, more likely, chip away at the joy of wasting time online. Pop-ups that simply annoy when they're meant to protect consumers add insult to injury.
[...] The new law, also supported by Mactaggart, updates the CCPA. The law doesn't ban cookie pop-ups, but it creates an incentive that advocates hope will make them far less common.
Companies have a choice. They can honor the browser setting, which will be a simple feature you can turn on or off to tell companies not to sell or share your data and stop asking you to opt back in via pop-ups or other requests. Or the companies have to display a button on their websites that says "Do not sell my personal information."
If companies take the first choice, "you're able to browse and know that the website is not selling your information," said Ashkan Soltani, a privacy expert who has worked with a group of like-minded technologists to develop a browser setting called the Global Privacy Control. Soltani and his colleagues hope California will adopt their setting as the standard in the state's privacy regulations.
[...] The law won't be enforced until 2023, but you'll see some benefit sooner. In the coming year, you can look forward to major web browsers rolling out settings that let you tell websites not to sell or share your data.
Some privacy-oriented browsers and browser extensions already offer this setting, including the Brave browser, the DuckDuckGo Privacy Browser and the EFF's Privacy Badger browser extension.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ShadowSystems on Tuesday December 29 2020, @09:41AM (5 children)
I haven't had a pop up on my computer web browser since I found the security configuration to block all pop up's from unapproved sites. Since I've got zero approved sites, I get zero pop up's.
1st party cookies get prompted to be set (usually blocked), 3rd party cookies get blocked automaticly, and my MVP Hosts file includes so many blacklisted domains that it's a wonder there's anywhere left NOT on the list.
Last but not least, I refuse to run JavaScript. At all. Full stop. And no it is NOT a requirement - my bank doesn't need it, this site doesn't need it, & none of the news sites I frequent need it either; the sites that scream that it's *required* to use their stuff get added to the Hosts file & their content found from other sites. Got a news article behind a JS wall? Do a DDG search for a cached version of the site, ask to see just the plain text, & voila, instant content. Got a shopping site that screams to enable it? Nope, sorry, but you've proven yourself to be a security liability & I'll not be doing business with your insecure butt.
"But we use JS to secure our transactions!"
Pull the other one, it's got bells on. JS is *the* biggest security issue *period*. The more you try to secure it, the more the crims laugh at you when they use your own hardening against you. Don't believe me? Go ask Equifax how their JS security held up.
I refuse to run it, it's no longer an attack vector to my desktop browser, my Hosts file blocks a good portion of the crap sites, I don't allow pop up's, refuse 3rd party cookies, and am An Evil Bastard when it comes to protecting my privacy.
Or is this an issue with *mobile* browsers only?
Can you not navigate Menu>Settings>Security & Privacy, and disable all the aforementioned stuff?
Can you not use a Hosts file to blackhole the scummier bits of the web?
If not then why put up with such treatment?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 29 2020, @12:59PM (2 children)
What bank do you use that doesn't require js?
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday December 29 2020, @09:07PM (1 child)
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 30 2020, @05:59AM
And how many of them are actually web views of the same thing? 🤔
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 29 2020, @04:26PM (1 child)
Javascript sucks, and it's the worst language, practiced by the least skilled of all software developers (web developers) but the worst part is that they force us into it. If an idiot web developer chooses to use javascript, they are effectively forcing me to run their garbage. It's unethical. But I don't see any alternative besides dying alone in my house with nothing to do because I can't go outside and no websites work inside.
I still send messages to web developers of shitty sites asking them to fix them. They rarely respond. And they never agree.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday December 31 2020, @12:43AM
Not that bad as a language. But many of the the accumulated popular publicly available libraries are crap.