Internet's biggest annoyance: Cookie laws should target browsers, not websites

"Spend Five Minutes in a Menu of Legalese" is not the intended alternative to "Accept All". "Decline All" is! And this is starting to be enforced through the courts, so you're increasingly seeing the "Decline All" option right away. As it should be. https://www.techspot.com/news/108043-german-court-takes-stan...

Of course, also respecting a Do-Not-Track header and avoiding the cookie banner entirely while not tracking the user, would be even better.

Of course. The law is clear, the intent is clear and the guidelines are clear.

I think the biggest challenge (and the reason why it feels this is everywhere) is because of the handful of "big corporations" controlling the browsers. Neither Apple nor Google have any interest in making tracking opt-in or working to make this into a standard.

In my view, the situation will be greatly improved with policy like the DMA being amplified even further to prevent cartel-like reactions from the FAANGs (whatever the acronym is today). We have a deep "culture difference" with the US, where everyone expects everything to be spelled out for them in the law so they can sue each other into oblivion, but the reality is this doesn't work. We need to reduce the influence of bigger players and install guardrails so it will never be possible again for a single company to have such dramatic influence over the world.

Imagine how many of these consent prompts can be removed if it wasn't for the fact that even loading a Google Font exposes one to a few hundred "partners"?

Apple has taken steps to make it harder to track, both in iOS apps and in the browser.

It's Google whose revenue depends entirely on surveillance advertising.

The problem is that the technical methods surveillance ad networks use within the browser to track us are features that are useful for many other things.

Trying to redefine this as a technical problem, that can be solved purely by getting the browser makers to change how browsers work, rather than a sociopolitical problem, will fail. Sure, there are more things that Google—and probably Apple—could be doing to protect us, but they can't completely stop the tracking.

The way to stop the tracking is to make laws banning targeted advertising.

Apple engages in “privacy washing” - they take steps in the name of privacy when it disadvantages their competitors. At the same time, Apple has no problem collecting say Spotlight and Safari search terms … or “features” from Photos etc.

I agree that ads as a monetisation channel were a mistake. But beyond that, privacy is a human right and should be applied without exception.

If there is, I'll be the first to say they shouldn't be doing that, and I would definitely prefer them not to be collecting it in the first place, but there are different kinds and purposes of data collection.