Yes popups are not part of the law. they are an implementation choosen by the websites.

Also I put a bit of responsibility on us, the consumers. It does not seem to me that popups are such a real issue since no website reported: we are removing popups because users are so annoyed that they stopped visiting our website.

> The law says user should be aware and able to do informed changes, not that they should be annoyed.

Then tell us how companies should implement this law both

- without annoying the user

- not being in a risk of getting sued

If the law does not make this relatively easy, one has a right to be furious about the EU.

They could just not track users? I seem to remember coding a lot of websites that totally failed to track users.

Your websites have no logging at all? Remember, even an IP address is PII under GDPR.

You don't need to ask if the information you collect is necessary for your site to work.

> You don't need to ask if the information you collect is necessary for your site to work.

Shysters/pettifoggers are very "flexible" (in a negative way) in the interpretation what is "necessary for your site to work". :-(

You don't have to log IPs. And if you need them for rate limits / abuse prevention, that falls under the "necessary / legitimate interest" rule.

Security, debugging and audit logs all fall under "legitimate interest".

Just keep them out of hands of parties that might want to use them for other reasons.

It's written in plain English: you can read it yourself. Articles 5, 12, 24 and 25.

The main problem, and the reason certain parties are working so hard not to comply, is that GDPR makes several business models illegal. (Not that I see that as much of a problem.)

> It's written in plain English: you can read it yourself. Articles 5, 12, 24 and 25.

This is what the law says, but not how shysters/pettifoggers interpret it. :-(

> It's written in plain English: you can read it yourself.

That isn't how the law works for things like this though; what is plain to a lawyer is different to an untrained person. People make that mistake with tax law all the time; they read something and come up with a plain interpretation that shows they don't have to pay their taxes and that delusion persists until someone explains the actual, less plain, reading.

It isn't the worst starting point but winging the law with untrained readings is not really acceptable for running a business.

People also come up with "plain interpretations" of the laws of physics that allow them to construct perpetual motion machines. Arrogance and wishful thinking are a bad combination, no matter the field.

> People also come up with "plain interpretations" of the laws of physics that allow them to construct perpetual motion machines.

But you don't (typically) get into trouble with the law enforcement agencies if you don't/didn't understand the laws of physics correctly.

If I go to the EU website ( https://european-union.europa.eu ) and see a pop up, surely there's a better way of implementing that it if it wasn't the best way to do so.

If there is a pop up there, for just accessing the home page of the European Union, is that site collecting too much data?

There's even a bit at the bottom of https://gdpr.eu

> We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.

GDPR.eu is operated by Proton AG, a Swiss technology company offering privacy-focused online services.

It’s not an EU site.

Nonetheless, is it possible for the site to fulfill its obligations under the GDPR without needing a cookie or other tracking information that would warrant needing to say "you are being tracked"?

    GDPR.EU is a website operated by Proton Technologies AG, which is co-funded by Project REP-791727-1 of the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme of the European Union. This is not an official EU Commission or Government resource. The europa.eu webpage concerning GDPR can be found here. Nothing found in this portal constitutes legal advice.

The "here" link goes to https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-topic/data-protection/r...

Would you be surprised if there was a big banner at the bottom of the page that read

    This site uses cookies. Visit our cookies policy page or click the link in any footer for more information and to change your preferences

As far as I can tell, yes. If cookies (or other means of storing data on the users computer) are strictly technically necessary, and no data collection takes place as a legitimate interest, and you do not process data requiring consent, neither the ePrivacy directive nor the GDPR requires you to create a cookie banner. Needless to say, I'm not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.

On a technical level this would likely mean turning off access logs and other tracking mechanisms. (IP addresses are considered personal data last I checked.)

I'm being a bit snarky, but maybe the better way involves not tracking people to death.

Under the GDPR, an IP address is PII and recording the IP address of a visitor can be problematic.

https://gdpr.eu/eu-gdpr-personal-data/

    Looking back at the GDPR’s definition, we have a list of different types of identifiers: “a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier.” A special mention should be made for biometric data as well, such as fingerprints, which can also work as identifiers. While most of these are straightforward, online identifiers are a bit trickier. Fortunately, the GDPR provides several examples in Recital 30 that include:

    Internet protocol (IP) addresses;
    cookie identifiers; and
    other identifiers such as radio frequency identification (RFID) tags.

    These identifiers refer to information that is related to an individual’s tools, applications, or devices, like their computer or smartphone. The above is by no means an exhaustive list. Any information that could identify a specific device, like its digital fingerprint, are identifiers.

The trick is to read through and understand what falls under "Legitimate Interest" (important note: it never involves giving other services access to it!).

A very common example is recording the IP address for technical (debugging, ensuring site functionality) and legal (security, audit logs) does fall under Legitimate Interest.

Worst case you have to mention it in privacy policy.

The thing you can't do is let your marketing team or others grab at it in any way, or sell it to other vendors, and arguably you should not move outside of safe countries.

That popup is not the half-height YOUR PRIVACY IS IMPORTANT TO US blocker, it's a banner at the bottom. Totally different (but still worth a block from my side if possible)

That, the whole pop-up idea was just copy&pasted. It's possible to make commercial websites without it when turning off tracking without logging or having to explicitly opt-in, possibly for added value. There's a lot of confusion while the law is mainly about differentiating which data is needed to operate and which is purely nice to have. That said, there are plenty of GDPR-compliant services that keep data for 10 years mostly in finance or auditing related use cases and nobody bats an eye