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Analysis of economic and productivity losses caused by cookie banners in Europe

(legiscope.com)
332 points vegasbrianc | 1 comments | 14 Nov 24 22:23 UTC | HN request time: 0.2s | source
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uniqueuid ◴[15 Nov 24 08:34 UTC] No.42144954[source]▶
I am kind of frustrated by the widespread misunderstandings in this thread.

Laws are best when they are abstract, so that there is no need for frequent updates and they adapt to changing realities. The European "cookie law" does not mandate cookie banners, it mandates informed consent. Companies choose to implement that as a banner.

There is no doubt that the goals set by the law are sensible. It is also not evident that losing time over privacy is so horrible. In fact, when designing a law that enhances consumer rights through informed consent, it is inevitable that this imposes additional time spent on thinking, considering and acting.

It's the whole point, folks! You cannot have an informed case-by-case decision without spending time.

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mpeg ◴[15 Nov 24 08:45 UTC] No.42145020[source]▶
What I find funny about the whole thing is that the grand majority of companies with cookie banners are not implementing them correctly, and therefore are still in breach of the law.

I see constantly banners on sites that set tracking cookies by default, and delete them if you reject them in the banner (or even worse, not delete them at all!) – this is not compliant as the cookies were set before consent was given

Also see banners where there is only a big "OK" button, with no visible option to reject, this is also not compliant!

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1. Cthulhu_ ◴[15 Nov 24 14:26 UTC] No.42147228[source]▶
You'd think that the $160+ million fine given to Google for incorrectly implementing their consent thingy would be a deterrent, but clearly not.

While the OP of this comment chain stated that laws are best if they are abstract, I think in this case the EU should have mandated an implementation as well, for example a browser based consent setting. Can be global, can be per-website. But the (ad)tech companies wouldn't like that, because as it turns out if given a fair choice, the majority of people would not opt-in, and they don't like that. Even though a small percentage of visitors that do opt in would already generate statistically significant results.

It's the same with the alternative, e.g. US sites simply not allowing access from the EU. They could just not have tracking. Advertisers could serve non-tracking ads, based on e.g. IP geolocation. But they don't like that because it's not as targeted as before the EU laws.