this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2023
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Road to hell being paved with good intentions and all, I guess. The reason sites all have the cookie permission dialog now is because of the GDPR, which has the right idea on data privacy, but the implementation wound up being so terrible that it winds up doing this. Prior to that dialog, they'd just store/read the cookies without permission (though lots of people would proactively sandbox browsers to make it a non-issue). I honestly can't decide which is worse, at this point.
I like the ones that show the prompt for "we've detected an ad-blocker" with the option you can click for "continue without disabling and not supporting us". Guilt trips work in human to human interactions, but not for random Internet prompts.
Of course I'd prefer the web simply not using cookies on every single site I visit (therefore not needing the prompt), but that's not going to happen. Sites have to monetize somehow to stay alive.
GDPR is not at fault here though, since it does not require asking for consent if the processed data is necessary for the purpose of the provided service. For example, a web shop usually wouldn't have to ask for permission to store items in the shopping part because that is a necessary part of the online shopping process. In that sense, requiring the consent dialog for all unnecessary purposes is better as you can at least see who's trying to screw you over. Don't kill the messenger here.
I think it's also important to remember that websites can only get away with these annoyances because it a) is easily automatable and b) has been the default mode of operation for decades. If restaurant waiters today started asking guests if they could sell info on what and when you ate, who you were with, and what you looked like, everyone would be creeped out. Before GDPR, it was pretty much normalized to do the same thing on the internet without even asking for consent.
Right; that's actually what I was trying to say, just phrased differently. The majority of sites that prompt for cookie selection do so because they use the cookies for ad targeting, not for critical function of the actual site. They need to do that because it's the only way for them to monetize, in most cases: by selling targeted advertisements.
Prior to the GDPR, this would just happen without the enduser's consent. Now it's prompted on every site, which is an annoyance. From an enduser's perspective, it's destroying the web. From the host's perspective, using those cookies is the only thing keeping their lights on and creators paid (unless they've somehow managed to actually implement a successful subscription model, which is rare; so they often do both, like Wired here).
I'm glad that the GDPR rolled out for dozens of reasons. It's a net positive. It's undeniably also a pain in the ass for web UX, though, because now users need to deal with these crappy dialogs on each new site they visit. Which encourages users to avoid new sites, which also has a bad downstream effect on getting the web back to the glory days of thousands of independent and useful sites versus a small collection of giant corporation sites.
I think a decent solution would be for standardizing these kind of opt-in dialogs into browser settings, somehow, to automatically bypass them based on user profile preferences. That's not a simple effort, obviously, though, and likely wouldn't get site admins to be on board because the majority of users would simply disable cookie usage globally. Or we're just back to the days of niche power users using noscript/ghostery while everybody less savvy continues to have a shitty web experience.
I don't really have a solution to this problem, but I do know we need to get the web in a place where privacy is viable and usability on sites you may only visit once is enjoyable.