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A comment on Internet's Biggest Annoyance: Cookie Laws Should Target Browsers, Not Websites. Parent comment

Re:Internet's Biggest Annoyance: Cookie Laws Should Target B... by ajsnigrutin on Wednesday October 22, 2025 @10:19AM (#45669555)
In my opinion, it would be best to regulate the browsers themselves... preinstalled browser on a device sold in EU? Cookies are silently stored to a temporary jar, deleted on tab/window close. One jar per domain. Then add a button by the address bar to enable the "I want this site to remember me", and it'll make the cookies from that domain 'permanent' (with an additonal 'advanced' setting if you want to allow 3rd party cookies too or not).

But hey, when the regulators are lawyers who have no idea what cookies and browser are, we get consent forms on every domain visit.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Internet's Biggest Annoyance: Cookie Laws Should Target B... by 1718627440 on Wednesday October 22, 2025 @11:09AM (#45670322)
Tracking now happens with fingerprinting, focusing on cookies won't provide a benefit.

> when the regulators are lawyers who have no idea what cookies and browser are, we get consent forms on every domain visit.

In this case the regulators have considered the problem and implemented the law independent of the used technology. The software developers/companies were the clueless/malicious ones here.

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Re:Internet's Biggest Annoyance: Cookie Laws Should Target B... by Thiez on Wednesday October 22, 2025 @10:58AM (#45670128)
That is a terrible proposal. The GDPR is not about cookies, it's about tracking. Websites can track you through cookies, through browser fingerprinting, through your IP adres, through your login, through your local storage, and various other ways. They could probably find ways to track you by your mouse movements or how you type, if all other methods were somehow made unavailable.

That websites track you and then sell that data has nothing to do with how long your browser stores cookies. Cookies are just one of many, many ways that websites do tracking.

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Re:Internet's Biggest Annoyance: Cookie Laws Should Target B... by bschwindHN on Wednesday October 22, 2025 @12:03PM (#45671192)
That's true, but at least then we could rid the internet of all those shitty cookie consent banners plastered all over. Those are almost more annoying to me than some company making a fraction of a penny on selling my mouse movement history to some chump.
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Re:Internet's Biggest Annoyance: Cookie Laws Should Target B... by pasc1878 on Wednesday October 22, 2025 @01:02PM (#45672033)
And that is a different view - I prefer the privacy and no tracking unless I give explicit permissions.
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Re:Internet's Biggest Annoyance: Cookie Laws Should Target B... by icedchai on Wednesday October 22, 2025 @05:38PM (#45675489)
You should ask if true privacy is really possible. Cookies are just the tip of the iceberg. Between IP addresses, browser fingerprinting, unique URLs, and the existence of third parties that correlate information across web sites (mainly ad networks) I'm confident it isn't.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Internet's Biggest Annoyance: Cookie Laws Should Target B... by pasc1878 on Thursday October 23, 2025 @02:05AM (#45678665)
Well then the tracker is breading the GDPR keeping personal identifiable information

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-re...

Yes US sites will be doing that

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Internet's Biggest Annoyance: Cookie Laws Should Target B... by icedchai on Thursday October 23, 2025 @09:05AM (#45681341)
Some US sites may bother, many won't. At a small startup, whenever this was discussed, it was decided we had better things to focus on since we had no paying EU customers.
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Re:Internet's Biggest Annoyance: Cookie Laws Should Target B... by Thiez on Thursday October 23, 2025 @07:16AM (#45680549)
True privacy is not possible if websites truly want to track you. The point of the GDPR is ensuring that legitimate companies operating in the EU will refrain from doing so without consent, because it's against the law and the punishments can be pretty severe. Sadly enforcement has room for improvement.
[ Parent | on HN ]