There are explainers, compliance checklists, whatever you want to implement it. It was three years before it went in effect, and it's been 3 years since it went into effect. If you don't understand it by now, you definitely don't deserve to be handling personal data.
The cost of implementing it was in the billions. The human time cost paid for all those damn cookie popups we keep having to click on is probably already in the thousands of life-times wasted, and it keeps on growing.
Cry me a river. If you was careless with users' data, who cares?
> The human time cost paid for all those damn cookie popups we keep having to click on is probably already in the thousands of life-times wasted, and it keeps on growing.
Ah yes, and the problem is the law that protects users' data, and not the companies who couldn't care less about privacy.
When everybody breaks a law, including its creators, it's the law that is broken.
The one on https://gdpr.eu/ is very well done. It does not break the law.
It's an example of excellence others should follow. Unintrusive. As easy to opt out as to opt in. Clear buttons, simple language. Clear text. If you prefer to ignore the banner that's fine too. On desktop it's unintrusive and you can just ignore it. I tried scrolling, it just stays out of the way. Each button is clear: "Ok", "No", "Privacy policy". Perfect. (It could be better on mobile for size, but it's still easy to click away.)
No dark patterns, dirty tricks, misleading controls, no "yes means no" controls, no "visit our 1000 partner sites to opt out" insanity, no other dirty tricks. You will not "accidentally" end up tracked when you didn't want to be. You will not be misled into believing a 70% screen size, deliberately slow panel is required.
Panels on other sites are deliberately slow and harder to opt out of. They want you to be annoyed. That's because they want you to believe the GDPR requires stupid, slow, large, intrusive, complicated banners. So that you will tell everyone how bad the GDPR is. But the GDPR doesn't require those things. In fact, when you see a banner that says "due to the GDPR we must..." it is often a straight up lie, and parts of the banner are against the law, not required by it.
https://gdpr.eu/ - thanks for highlighting that great example. I will take that as inspiration next time I need a good quality, sleek, fast, easy, compliant and user-friendly banner.
Such banners are not required, though. My sites don't have cookie banners and that's fine. They don't track users against the expectations of the users. My sites do have optional logins, user identification, and use cookies for those things, but logins don't require cookie banners because people expect their identity to be tracked by the act of logging in. And, importantly, their identity used only for what users would expect. My sites do have basic request logging and monitoring too, as you would expect for security and ops, but again those don't require cookie banners if they are done respectfully.
Check out https://ico.org.uk/ for a correct implementation. And cry...
Cookie banners ARE required for something as simple as logs analytics. That is the spirit of the GDPR and it is what makes it a broken law.
Then again, I am not running shady websites and selling user data
It is enforceable, and there have already been fines.
> A law that requires some agency in Europe to police all of the websites
No, they are not going to police every website in the world.
Once again, if it 6 years later you still couldn't read and understand a rather reasonably written law with multiple explanations and examples, you are a part of the problem.
It’s not reasonable if it’s written in a way that’s so easy to misinterpret.
People still don’t understand - shit law.
OR
People do understand and implement bad pop-ups and EU doesn’t enforce - shit law.
A law that is not enforced or has been written in a way that isn’t reasonable to enforce is absolutely a shitty law. Pie in the sky laws that have no teeth are worse than no law at all. It just gives room for lots of selective enforcement which is a great way to encourage corruption and shakedown schemes.
The problem is the law. It's a crappy law.
Because Google is in the business of dark patterns and wholesale data collection. They couldn't care less about user privacy.
Besides, their entire system is built on the premise of wholesale data collection. Their own engineers admit that they don't know how and where the data is collected and de-google their phones. [1]
> The problem is the law. It's a crappy law.
As I'm saying, you are a part of the problem.
[1] https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1398353211220807682
Are they gonna sue every single website who had to put up a cookie popup just because they run analytics?
For over a decade there have been laws in each country protecting people's private data. Companies kept on ignoring those laws. The countries came together and created a single law for the entirety of the EU.
The essence of the law:
- if you need some data for the functionality of your service, you can collect it
- if you don't need some data for the functionality of your service, you can't collect it unless you explicitly ask the person. And "opt out" has to be the default option, and cannot stop the person from using the service
How is that a problem?
Those popups? Yes, they are annoying, but they also show how every single website sells the data they don't need to hundreds of companies without your consent. And they keep trying to trick you into providing that data. Now this is a problem.
However, you think that it's all fine, everyone should just hoover up all the data they can possibly get their hands on.
> Are they gonna sue every single website who had to put up a cookie popup just because they run analytics?
Yes, theoretically they have the authority to do that. However, no, they are not going to do that. And no, that doesn't mean that the law is bad.
Look at the bottom of the page. It's a cookie banner. It was their law. They had 6 years to implement it on their own website. This is the result. The law is broken.
Sorry, but I don't agree. I consider them a scourge on today's Internet. And I find them a horribly steep price for the "privacy" (really just a lousy IP address obfuscation) you gain in their stead.
The choice can be perfectly well saved in a cookie because it's a cookie necessary for site operations. They don't even need approval. Only unnecessary ones do.
The GDPR spells out when you're allowed to collect data; asking for consent is basically its emergency escape hatch. You only need to do that if there is absolutely no (functional) reason to get that data, but you want it anyway.
6 years later there is no consensus on simple questions like website analytics which is probably the most common usage scenario for the kind of data GDPR covers.
This law is beyond bad.
There are both definitions and guidelines. You just didn't even care to read it.
For example, cookies: https://gdpr.eu/cookies/
Popups: https://gdpr.eu/recital-32-conditions-for-consent/
=== start quote ===
Consent should be given by a clear affirmative act establishing a freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data subject’s agreement to the processing of personal data
...
Silence, pre-ticked boxes or inactivity should not therefore constitute consent.
=== end quote ===
> there is no consensus on simple questions like website analytics which is probably the most common usage scenario for the kind of data GDPR covers.
The consensus is there. And it's spelled clearly in the law.
Please tell me the consensus and guideline on how to store the rejection for using cookies so I don't ask the website visitor every time he visits.
Please tell me the consensus and guideline on what "legitimate purposes" are. With examples per industry please.
And most of all, please tell me the consensus and guideline for cookie banners and popups, considering they are used on the EU's websites themselves.
Literally described in one of the links.
> Please tell me the consensus and guideline on how to store the rejection for using cookies
You can use a cookie for that. If it's for a logged-in user, you can store that in the user profile.
> Please tell me the consensus and guideline on what "legitimate purposes" are.
Text in one of the links literally contains a link to further reading on legitimate interest.
> And most of all, please tell me the consensus and guideline for cookie banners and popups
Literally described in both links.
Once again. It's painfully clear that you never bothered to read and understand anything about the law in the past 6 years. Your clueless questions about "why does gdpr and europa sites have cookie banners" only serve as further proof.
The https://gdpr.eu/ website is not official. Its description of "analytics cookies" cannot be found anywhere in the actual GDPR & Co regulations.
> You can use a cookie for that.
Use a cookie to store the literal "No cookies" preference? Great example of the contradictory and irrational text of the GDPR.
> Text in one of the links literally contains a link to further reading on legitimate interest.
More vague and contradictory BS.
> Literally described in both links.
Too bad that description is not actually valid and if you'll actually check the GDPR text (not the non-official gdpr.eu website) you'll find no such descriptions.
Moreover, the cookie banner on both websites is actually illegal under GDPR. Check out https://ico.org.uk/ for a correct (but horrifying) implementation.
You are correct, I am not an every-day GDPR expert. I only encounter it when implementing on various websites and there only for analytics - no ads or anything more.
But its requirements were always for the worse. Because of its vague and contradictory definitions everybody (including me) adopted the safest implementation and thus the current web of cookie banners and popups was born. I hope you are happy with it, it solves nothing but it makes everybody's life worse.
There are multiple guides and explanations for the law. You complain that those are not official.
One thing is definitely clear: 6 years later it's not a problem with the law. It's the problem with you and other people like you who diss GDPR without taking a single step to understand it.