edit: I looked it up and wwe.com uses TrustArc, which seems to be a shady org certifying privacy. Mired in controversy, they have even settled a case with FTC in 2014 for $200,000. I'm guessing when push comes to shove and EU actually decides to prosecute they will pay a similar amount. I bet that amount is already in there books, set aside as "future risk management" or something like that. Just the cost of doing business.
How desperate does one have to be to work as a developer on projects like this?
* just be a nihilist and not give a damn
* Think its fine because they are encouraging people to do something they see as good.
* Think its fine because 'its just ads'
* Think it's someone else's responsibility to make decisions about ethics (as an engineering prof, I see this all the time...students who say engineers' jobs are technology not ethics/morals)
The problem is that they're correct in a practical sense.
The company they work for might get fined, but all the engineers see is the performance review. This system encourages engineers to think of compliance and morality as someone else's problem because: it is.
Many will justify this as "if I don't do it, someone else will" and again: absolutely correct.
Pass a law where engineers themselves may face fines or jail time for implementing immoral code, and they will suddenly discover a keen interest in the ethics of what they do.
Didn't work so well for the VW guy: https://www.theregister.com/2017/08/25/vw_engineer_gets_3yrs...
> "if I don't do it, someone else will"
Maybe, but at the very least it raises the price for companies to buy unethical people.
Now add to that the constant reminders that morality doesn't stop a lot of people at the top from immoral behavior. Banks, politicians, Wall-Street, celebrities, billionaires etc. are in the news all the time for pulling shady shit. When they get caught, they say OOPS! They hear: 'don't do that any more, where people can see you' and they're free for another round.
Many people tend to adopt behavior that's rewarded. It takes a strong moral compass; some people never got magnetized. Show people a society that rewards moral behavior (they exist) and they might go there. (Some countries have low recidivism rates because of how well they treat people in prison.) If people can afford to move, they might. Else they may just say screw it, XYZ throws toxins in the river, I'll do it too. Choice: track people or go shoot 'terrorists'. Hmmmm.
Also this whole argument is distracting from the fact that this is TrustArc we are talking about. Its an american company with 340 employees and over 20 million american dollars in annual revenue. When a company out of India does this same thing we can argue impact of means on morality then.
1: https://privacyinternational.org/long-read/3196/no-bodys-bus...
> This page transmits information using https protocol. Some vendors cannot receive opt-out requests via https protocols so the processing of your opt-out request is incomplete. To complete the opt-out process, please click here to resubmit your preferences.
Here sends you to the same loading popup
Given that the accept is our default just send off the accepted token = ok and don't wait for the response.
Send array of opting out info and then wait for all responses are ok so you can tell the user that it worked to opt out, the user must see opting out worked! response before going on to next step, because for GDPR reasons we need to tell the if there is a problem so they can try again!
- but that means we will be stuck at 98% for about a minute!
- sorry developer bro, GDPR says.
- (small voice) ok, manager.
Easily and without issues. Humans are very good at making sure they do not feel themselves to be evil. A mass murderer will blame everyone except themselves or rationalize their actions as just.
Things which come to mind in 30 seconds:
"The regulation is draconian and it is just to fight it in any way possible."
"Our business helps people and working around this helps our business and thus helps people."
"If people really wanted and weren't simply mindlessly clicking buttons this won't stop them so we're actually helping user's enact their will."
"We put all this effort into the business, it's evil for the government to interfere for wishy washy reasons."
This one drives me nuts! It's just such a brazen and blatent piss-take - "you won't let us hoover up your data and sell it to everyone we can? Then we'll punish you".
Proximus [0], the partially state-owned and largest telecom provider in Belgium, uses this pattern too.
Additionally, on mobile, scrolling through the cookie-usage options automatically selects the maximum invasive option. The 'scroll-touch' is registered as a regular touch selecting the option.
It's hard to believe this is by accident.
Looking at their Javascript code and Timeline in the inspector it is 100% fake. It is all implemented using setTimeout and there's no communication with the server in the meantime.
Shows a popup, saying "we collect your data yadda yadda yadda". Then there were two buttons. One to agree to that. One to manage it. But clicking on the manage button just took a user to screens and screens of garbage information mainly listing the companies that used the information. Without any option to opt out (you could contact them to opt out, I assume individually). There was a button (if you drilled through the screens) which seemed to imply that it would link to a page that allowed opting out, but all it did was take you back to the first screen of the popup. Unreal. Somebody has thought about that; absolute cretins.
They've changed that so that now there is opt out toggles (which are obviously all split into groups and are all on by default and so on), I assume because of someone in legal tapping them on the shoulder?
You're better off finding a good cookie/GDPR banner blocker
[1] example: https://www.wp.pl/
Do you have tampermonkey or anything like that? Maybe you could make a JS snipped that get's rid of those elements...
Tried to deny some google apps access to fine location, and it would ask at every single opportunity, it was so easy to accidentally enable it as well, which I guess is the point, wear you down until you press the wrong thing or just give in.
Surely the GDPR has to have the foresight of dictating that my choice to accept or decline has to be valid for an equal amount of time, doesn't it? If I'm confronted with that popup as long as I'm declining the regulations are worthless.
If you don't accept, but click on "cookie settings" instead, a page will tell you that you can't choose to block 3rd party cookies unless you accept their 3rd party cookie, because they need to save your setting of not accepting 3rd party cookies in a 3rd party cookie. It's not a Monty Python episode, it's real: https://ibb.co/6YFpGWK
alternatively, if you click on the next link, you will be taken to a page that explains how to disable cookies in all latest-gen browsers such as Netscape 3 or IE 4.0:
http://www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies/
Needless to say, I now exclusively use Sherdog's competitor, Tapology.com
You're 100% correct in your assumption. Der Spiegel is treading on thin ice here, or at least I hope they are.
Here's the relevant GDPR text:
Consent should not be regarded as freely given if the data subject has no genuine or free choice or is unable to refuse or withdraw consent without detriment [1]
Sucks to be them I guess, as I pay for news (and run Ublock) but won't reward this mendacious behaviour.
Browsers could still provide a consent API but without strict enforcement it would be pointless - and with proper enforcement you don't need it.
I have to wonder whether it was an intentional effort by Microsoft to discredit DNT and to stop people from respecting it... On one hand, the same outcome (almost ignored everywhere) is likely to occur regardless of whether Microsoft made its move, on the other hand, it may have gave it a greater push.
[0] I have my cynical Fundamental Law of Privacy - it must not be enabled by default, so that the industry will continue profiting from it, while giving the user the illusion of choice. But at least those who enabled it enjoyed privacy, although only to a very limited extent.
> It's essentially them hoping that when fines get handed out, they just get a warning because they tried.
I believe it's against the letter of the GDPR, but as it isn't being enforced, we can expect this kind of thing to continue.
Everyone is obsessed with improving page loading time but what does worth that the page loads instantly if I have to navigate a maze of banner consent screens before I can see the content behind it
Why can't everyone at least agree on the same banner format / ui or have it delegated to the browser behind some native browser functionality like autocomplete
The reason is that if it's done in the browser then a person's preferences will apply to every website they use with that browser. Publishers will not want that as they hope that users will give them more consent than other web sites (I certainly do give some websites full permissions if I like them, others are a 'reject all' and 'object all')
Also, your consent preferences are stored under that website's cookie. There is the option of a global cookie but nobody uses it. This cookie data is then sent to everyone involved in the adtech chain (which is causing issues since it can be multiple KB's in size). It's format is described in [0]
[0] https://github.com/InteractiveAdvertisingBureau/GDPR-Transpa...
They want to track you to death, and put the burden of tiptoeing the law on you.
It's only the unnecessary tracking that needs explicit consent. So it's a good thing if such sites are slow to load and have to present irritating banners for legal reasons. This will hopefully put them at a competitive disadvantage compared to sites that don't insist on tracking their customers.
* sorry I meant strongly advising using legalese
P.s. I'll throw an internet party when Hotjar go out of business. Creepy fucks ruin the load time of every site they tarnish.
On a related note: Since most US companies base their EU subsidiaries in Ireland for tax purposes, it's actually just up to the Irish regulator. There are... concerns.
They are somewhat under-staffed, but this is improving (did you know that they are also suing the Irish Government?)