Internet's Biggest Annoyance: Cookie Laws Should Target Browsers, Not Websites

Re:Internet's Biggest Annoyance: Cookie Laws Should Target B... by aleph_minus_one on Wednesday October 22, 2025 @06:49PM (#45676149)

> Another is to give people a way to get clarification ahead of time. This is called advisory opinions and governments generally hate them because as soon as you allow it, the government is going to be absolutely swamped with requests for clarification because everybody wants to pre-clear everything they're going to do rather than take the risk of getting punished for doing something without clearing it. But in order for this to work, getting a clarification has to be cheap, because "pay a million dollars for an advisory opinion to avoid the risk of a million dollar fine" isn't a real solution to the problem of people getting punished when the law is unclear.

A partial solution to this problem is: write laws in a way that need a lot less clarification because there is rarely a need for it because the laws are thought out so well.

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Re:Internet's Biggest Annoyance: Cookie Laws Should Target B... by AnthonyMouse on Thursday October 23, 2025 @01:14AM (#45678362)

I too would like a free pony.

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Re:Internet's Biggest Annoyance: Cookie Laws Should Target B... by aleph_minus_one on Thursday October 23, 2025 @02:54AM (#45678969)

This is rather about free ensurance that the country won't use violence (the state authority) against you.

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Re:Internet's Biggest Annoyance: Cookie Laws Should Target B... by AnthonyMouse on Thursday October 23, 2025 @03:09AM (#45679067)

It's pretty obvious that they don't currently write laws that way, so the question is, what do you propose to change that would cause them to?

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Re:Internet's Biggest Annoyance: Cookie Laws Should Target B... by aleph_minus_one on Thursday October 23, 2025 @05:29AM (#45679930)

A very first step could be to to brutally expose every politician who voted for such shittily designed laws.

Not doing that is a civic duty that I expect from every politician who wants to be considered to be more trustworthy than a child molester who has relapsed several times.

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Re:Internet's Biggest Annoyance: Cookie Laws Should Target B... by AnthonyMouse on Thursday October 23, 2025 @04:23PM (#45686584)

Nope, you need something more systemic than that. Every incumbent politician has voted for shitty laws because if you don't vote for the omnibus full of shitty laws when your party is in the majority and they need your vote then you become a pariah and then your constituents vote you out because pariahs can't accomplish any of the other things they want. And fresh faces wouldn't inherently change the incentives there.

You need something like, ban omnibus bills with a single subject matter rule. Replace first-past-the-post with score voting to dissolve the two-party system. Add new checks and balances so that someone with a better structural incentive to reject bad laws is in a position to veto them, like the US Senate used to be before the 17th amendment.

Or in the EU the structural problems will be different and you may need something different, but you still need something or the status quo tomorrow will be what it was yesterday.

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