> Ads were never as intrusive as that damn cookie/gdpr banner.

The poison slipped into your morning coffee is also less intrusive than the antidote shot into your arm with a syringe.

> In case you didn't know, there are no sites without tracking cookies.

And thanks to the GDPR, they might make a comeback now.

I'm afraid in this case the antidote was worse than the disease.

GDPR is here already and the solution chosen by websites is either the obnoxious banner or blocking Europe. No cookie-less I am afraid...

So ban the EU then. The market will find another venue if the service is useful enough.

If a website is obnoxious about its GDPR compliancy, I just close it. Coincidentally, it has never happened on something I really needed (technical documentation, scientific journals, etc.)

I don't necessarily agree with how the GDPR was created, or maybe even why, but to say it's worse than the information tyranny being built in the world today? Pft.

>I'm afraid in this case the antidote was worse than the disease.

You're confusing "harmful" and "visible".

There are lots of sites without tracking cookies.

HN doesn't set tracking cookies, for example. The only two cookies set are the cloudflare uid and a user login cookie, both of which are hardly meant for tracking.

What about analytics?

As long as analytics don't produce any personal data of an individual and only aggregate data or even anonymized data, it should be perfectly fine to do without any banner.

Of course, if you use Google Analytics, you can't guarantee what Google is doing, so you'll need some banner to get consent before you can perform any analytics through GA (which means you need to disable GA until the user agrees, which barely any site does anyway).

If you can guarantee that the analytics won't produce or store personal data, you don't need to disable it or produce a banner.

> As long as analytics don't produce any personal data of an individual and only aggregate data or even anonymized data, it should be perfectly fine to do without any banner.

Even if they did produce personal data, they very likely wouldn't need a banner. For processing personal data you merely need a lawful basis and documented processes, and asking consent is (intentionally) the least attractive lawful basis for using personal data. Consider for example the "legitimate interest" lawful basis:

> processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the controller or by a third party, except where such interests are overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject which require protection of personal data, in particular where the data subject is a child.

If you're using analytics to, say, optimise accessibility/usability of the site, then it should be fairly straight forward that the legitimate interest of both you and user (of improving the site) outweighs the "privacy harm" of processing that personal data. (Of course, using it for anything else will land you in hot water if you argue this).

Even a 3rd party data processor like Google Analytics would be fine, if they're 1) GDPR compliant and 2) you have a data processing agreement with the provider.

90% of websites who don't do shady things with your personal data should never require any banner or opt-in prompt. The fact that most of the web now does is incompetence, ignorance, intentional annoyance to provoke legislation change, or a mix of these.

I think a decent portion is also because they actually do shady shit.

Do you need banners for self hosted analytics not shared with 3rd parties? I'd be fine with clicking through countless banners if that pushes the industry even just slightly in that direction.

nope.. that is the point of these laws - if you are doing decent stuff they don't really make a difference. if you are doing dodgey stuff you just have to tell people you what you are up to.. but dodgey people don't like telling people they are dodgey - hence all the moaning!

I'm sorry, what? Did you forget the page-covering adds with fake close buttons? The hidden adds which played incredibly loud music at random intervals? The seizure-inducing flashing colours?

And it was easy to escape them: just don't visit the offending sites. Free markets at work.

There is no escape from GDPR... Bureaucracy at work.

It's just as easy to escape GDPR banners: Just don't visit the offending sites. Free markets at work.

And similar to ads, I expect automated tools to emerge that eliminate most GDPR banners by granting the minimum consent required (optionally alerting the relevant regulator if that's excessively broad) and then revoking it immediately afterwards.

You can't escape bureaucracy, but you can escape the lazy companies who can't think of a better way to deal with bureaucracy than pushing it onto the user.

The EU version of USAToday has 0 tracking cookies. Go and check. Also check the speed!!

Not my favourite newspaper but the website design is great. Simple, fast, works with my default uBlock, Noscript,Privacy Badger settings! I wish more sites were like that.

Look at what uBlock is blocking... It's insane. I <3 it so much. :D

Ghostery also doesn't report anything. :)

Ads are intrusive by design.

GDPR is worse, much worse. Also by design.

I can’t say I’m bothered by a banner that gives me more control. Ads are the opposite: negative value.

You obviously weren't on the internet in the late 90s!

Punch the monkey!