Posted by rapnie 17 hours ago
instead of building websites and writing laws over the span of decades that just seem to want to ban targeted advertising but don't actually do it. FFS.
1. Making tracking impossible/illegal would NOT kill cookie banners, since you need them to record consent for other purposes as well, such as embedding a video from a third party like YouTube.
2. The GDPR explicitly prohibits site-owners from making cookie banners misleading. The law is already there, it is just not very well enforced.
3. "This results in up to 90% of people saying “YES” – even though only around 3% actually want to be tracked online" This claim is grabbed out of thin air and can be dismissed as such.
4. "The solution: automatically communicate your privacy preference" This is nonsense because it does not actually solve anything, because you need to record consent for a variety of purposes, not just analytics/tracking.
5. Killing tracking would kill the value of ads (since they are not targeted anymore), resulting in a reduced ability for small businesses to advertise and a hugely increased amount of ad spam everywhere. Few targeted ads > Many untargeted ads
Unless you want an internet where advertising is no longer possible, this solves nothing apart from stroking a few activists ego.
I don't want randomnewssite to track me. But a favorite online store...I do want help with recommendations.
It's easier to click a single button than hunt for how to create/access an account for the brand.
Ironically, this has the effect of cookie banners reappearing every time because they cannot place a cookie that says that you have rejected them.
Unfortunately this means you have to view a lot of the web through archive.today or web.archive.org - I would know because I have uMatrix configured this way.
Session cookies for all sites would be fine if passkeys weren't like "We support passkeys. Do you want to use a passkey? Press ok again to use your passkey. Do you consent to using your passkey? Now please authenticate yourself to use the passkey... √ Thank you for using passkeys. Press ok to continue."
I disable cookies for Amazon because I need to login; if a local business wants me to buy from them directly they need to:
1. Not give me a CAPTCHA or cloudflare shit
2. Give me free shipping and a lower price than Amazon minus 5% cashback that I would get on Amazon
3. No registration needed to check out
and I'll buy from the local website. It's really not a high bar, they need to learn to not shoot themselves in the foot.
As for the news websites -- bleh. If they want me to read it, make it easy to read. As in, I click into it, show me the content. If I get a popup, banner, anything that covers up the content, I bounce. I'll get the news from social media anyway. If they'd rather I get it from their news website, they need to learn to not make me bounce.
I'm not opposed to advertising if they want to get revenue from that, but it should not track me, not cover up content, and not load megabytes of JavaScript to do it.
-> not really sensible
https://stateofutopia.com/laws/2/law2.html
This is not a proposal, it is duly ratified international law that applies to "Every Browser Maker making a Browser available anywhere" and "Any site anywhere that receives a valid signal".
The EU Commission had until July 18, 2026 to modify its laws:
>"The site shall not display a banner, modal, interstitial, or other prompt requesting a choice already expressed by the signal. It may optionally provide a “Cookie Settings” or “Privacy Settings” link. This Law overrides all laws requiring such a display. Where any country or supernational entity has a conflicting law, it must rectify the Law within 30 days not to require such notification."
Therefore, insofar as it has not rectified its laws not to require such a notification, the EU Commission is in violation of international law as of 8 days ago.
Under section 7.3, "The State of Utopia may order compliance, require corrective updates, suspend non-compliant distribution, and impose civil penalties. Fines may be levied in any amount for continued non-compliance." so we can fine the EU Commission whatever you guys want ($1 billion? $10 billion? whatever four and a half millennia are worth) and just distribute the collected fines among you all as cash payments.
[1] Here is the announcement of the law 38 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48585778