The fact that companies are doing that says more about the bad law than the companies which is exactly Paul Graham's point.

Not even remotely. It's malicious compliance on behalf of companies who would rather exploit their users than give up the profits that can be gained by violating their privacy.

Please stop defending the behavior of shitty companies. At the very least, I hope you're getting paid for these comments.

> Please stop defending the behavior of shitty companies. At the very least, I hope you're getting paid for these comments.

Please don't do this on HN.

So the problem is that the legislator did not expect companies to be even worse assholes than they already were...?

Laws are not borne in a perfect state; very much like programs, sometimes you need a few versions to see how the system actually works in practice and fix a few bugs. The fact that v1.0 has such bugs is not a good reason to just give up, nor it's an indication that the programmer is bad at programming.

> companies to be even worse assholes

All companies? Every single company with a website even if without any trackers or ads?! All companies are evil and the single law that triggered their evil behaviour is good. Sure. Ever heard of Occam's razor?

Companies who don't track don't need any banner or popup.

> All companies are evil

No, but many, many companies are sociopathic assholes that exist just to make a buck. Otherwise we wouldn't need these laws.

All companies exist just to make a buck. And in the process they serve us with literally every single product and service we are using every second of every day. They play by the rules we put on them, making their life easier or harder, and in the process making our life easier or harder. Like this bad cookie law.

The law is pretty crystal clear. In many cases the issue is that websites are outsourcing their tracking to ad companies, which in turn apply those banners indiscriminately because that's in their interest.

That being said, all the dark-pattern banners actually break the law. The problem, if anything, is lack of enforcement of the law.

  The law is pretty crystal clear. In many cases the issue is that websites are outsourcing their tracking to ad companies, which in turn apply those banners indiscriminately because that's in their interest.

You think a small company should roll their own tracking software? A mom and pop website that wants to track its conversion rate on its little eCommerce site?

Come on. Be realistic.

Or it says more about the manipulative intentions of the companies than anything about a good law.

what a ridiculous point of view.

do you think the same thing about laws against murder?

about fraud?

I've got to admit, I'm unclear what the equivalent of a cookie banner for murder would be.

This criminal uses murder! If you continue to interact, you consent to being murdered.

Murders you anyway

What exactly is bad about the law that allows companies to do the annoying cookie banner?

It is the companies that suck, and Paul Graham is (quite literally) invested in the suckage, wherefore this dumb tweet. Which, if one wanted to create an ad campaign for that eternal Upton Sinclair quote, couldn't have been done much better.

(Thanks for the site though, Paul)

Paul is very unlikely to be invested in tracking unless he has some shares in Google/Facebook. Startups in tracking aren’t really a thing

I expect most startups "integrate" their regular revenues (if they have any) with some sort of adtech deal.

Any source for those allegations or is it only your imagination?

"this is what you get for trying to handle us with kid gloves" is an understandable reaction/blowback from advertisers but I don't think it's something we should be giving any real weight or merit.

it's also generally an indictment of the modern neoliberal regulatory approach in general. asking people nicely to follow train safety regulations etc isn't going to get you results. even fines/penalties largely end up just as cost-of-doing-business (even in the EU). if you really want behavior to go away, make it illegal and give people at the top Sarbanes-Oxley-style legal culpability if it happens on their watch.

again, if you want to know the right way to set incentives so that people don't do a thing, you need only look at the way rich people want their money handled. you can bet that ripping off rich people is an ultra-mega-crime and doesn't just get a 1%-of-the-takings slap on the wrist. And lo and behold SOX does actually hold important people accountable as a result, not just some fall guy at the bottom.