It's just a really disingenuous and dismissive comparison. Nobody is complaining about flashlights.
GDPR may have been necessary, but the complete garbage heap of an experience the popups have turned the web into is worth lamenting.
I don't make that comparison lightly. I'm not dismissing the issue: it is a serious problem that is widespread over the internet. It's not disingenuous: it describes a series of institutionalized behaviors that are directly parasitic on the user.
Now the reaction is to be angry at GDPR because of the pop-ups, which aren't even GDPR compliant in the majority of cases as directly evidenced by the OP link. This reaction is comically absurd, hence the comparison. This garbage heap is the result of shitty implementation by the websites, and ironically a lack of enforcement of the law.
But, nobody here is complaining about GDPR. They are complaining about the terrible UX, and wasted time, and attention, which the non-compliant implementations have caused. That is not an absurd reaction, it's perfectly reasonable. That's why your comment comes off as dismissive.
If anything, it's more akin to complaining about the shitty, half-rate pest control person your landlord calls to get rid of the rats. They do a bad job, poison your house, waste your time, and the rats never go away.
>If anything, it's more akin to complaining about the shitty, half-rate pest control person your landlord calls to get rid of the rats. They do a bad job, poison your house, waste your time, and the rats never go away.
I don't want to stretch the analogy further than it can work, but a more apt comparison in my view would be this: a person discovers that every inch of their floorboard and walls are filled with highly intelligent rats. The pest control comes, creates some measures that have a small effect but does not enforce everything at the outset. It's likely they will come back for another round since they are still learning the ropes for such an enormous job. The rats have been there for decades and it is the only pest control service even trying to fix the problem in the entire city. The rats scurry around in a panic, but keep infesting the apartment. In this scenario, would the person try to get the pest control to enforce the measures and get better at it over time, or would they simply carry on as usual and feel comfortable with the infestation?
Yes they are, everyone here is blaming the GDPR.
You're right that the issue isn't the GDPR, it's the tracking industry trying to figure a way around it. The EU learned a lot from the original cookie law, but the industry have not, they still try to continue as normally, until someone is hit with a crippling fine.
Those banners are merely the effect of shitty companies trying to cover their asses and being non-compliant to a law that's actually sane.
You can complain to your country's data protection expert, and they will tell you this or that company blah blah but not act. Nothing ever happened. I filed 3 complaints in 2 countries. 2/3 took over a year to receive a response. 1 took about 6 months and nothing changed.
All this talk about how the problem is lack enforcement is an absolute riot. Hey, I've got an idea! Let's write another law to address the lack of enforcement. Uh, even better, a third one to address the dark patterns!
(I'm very sorry for the low value comment but I've apparently got a condition where I am physically unable to resist the urge when the topic is rage inducing enough.)
Sometimes I hit a USA based news website which simply denies access, because I'm in the UK, on GDPR grounds. Which seems an overreaction.
I doubt it actually does a @#$@$ darn thing.
Location of the host is irrelevant, it depends on the target audience. Serve pages to the EU? You get to follow it.
> simple cargo-culting "everyone is doing it so we must do it also".
If your site is cargo culting everything it probably also has a ton of third party trackers for the same reason.
What can the EU do about it if the company has no physical or legal presence in the EU? Have there been any serious attempts at such enforcement?
No one says that all sites should honor China's laws for visitors from China. No one claims that all sites should honor Saudi Arabia's laws for visitors from Saudi Arabia.
But magically the GDPR must be followed by the entire world if a visitor shows up from France.
Also a lot of people speaking out against China had to find out the hard way what some western companies will do when you speak out against a cash cow that will happily kick them out if its rules are enforced.
It would be like Wendys slagging off the Thai king on a billboard in Dakota, then an employee of Wendys went on holiday to Bangkok and was arrested.
In this case you are arguing that Russian law should follow a citizen, where as the US said it shouldn't. So the "precedent" that was set (if in fact there was one set) in a case from 20 years ago in which the case against the accused was dropped, was actually that your laws don't follow you around.
The Meng Wanzhou case had the EU being able to extradite a US citizen from the UK for breaking EU law.
This is completely false. Your laws do not follow you around on the internet.
No, merely serving pages to the world (that happens to include the EU) does not mean you have to follow the GDPR. That is only the case if you cater to EU residents specifically (e.g. by taking payments in Euros).
GP isn't talking about deceptive patterns. Point is that no one really understand what these popups are for and everyone just blindly clicks ok.
I don't think i've ever declined a cookie popup. have you?
It has become such a chore, when ever I visit a new site on my phone and see a cookie screen, I navigate back and/or open an incognito window.
What the EU should do is disallow those cookie full page modal consent windows.
Many use overflow: hidden when showing it so you can't just adblock it without having to modify the markup. It has all gone out of hand.