Cookie popups, privacy warnings, GDPR...all driving me nuts!

[Jon]

Back in the day, I used to enjoy a frictionless internet experience. Click a link, go to a site and just read the content. Nowadays, everytime I go somewhere, there is a damn popup I have to click, and quite often multiple popups. Yes, I know just about every single site out there has cookies, but really, do we need to say this EVERY TIME?

I personally feel that a small vocal group of privacy activists have ruined the smooth flow of the internet, all in the name of personal privacy rights. The few have ruined it for the many. I don't care if some corporation has knowledge that I was on their site at 10pm on Tuesday the 7th of March. They just get my IP address anyway, in most cases. I don't care if ads are targeting things that are more likely to interest me, than ads that have no relevance to me.

What are your thoughts on this whole privacy debacle? What about the popups...do they annoy you? Finally, any solutions? e.g. Chrome plugins to auto-click the damn buttons?

[Edit: I know I seem to be on my own on this one, since everybody is talking about privacy nowadays. Personally, I feel the friction far outweighs the privacy.]

 

[Bee]

Nope - I agree with you. Companies are going to send adverts my way no matter what. I'd rather they were something I might be vaguely interested in and I just can't get excited about the government spying on me digitally.

I'm doing nothing wrong. I'm not a terrorist. I don't (knowingly) have links to any dodgy organisations.

I hate popups. And I hate autoplay video ads on websites.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I wonder, Jon, if some of that is self-inflicted. From your discussion, it sounds like you are being barraged with pop-ups for cookie warnings. If that is not correct, then OK, I read something into it that wasn't there. But what I did was that I found settings for my browser to tell it to accept 1st-party coookies and reject 3rd-party cookies - but never ask because with those two cookie policies, there is nothing left to ask from my machine.

Of course, every now and then you see something from a site kvetching (an old Yiddish word) about how they rely on advertising dollars. Which means they tried to drop a 3rd party advert cookie on me and got rejected. My response is that if they have to be that aggressive on advertising, I've just found another site to avoid.

 

[Bee]

GDPR (General Data Protection and Regulation) applies here, Doc. It means companies have to ask us if we are happy to have our data stored/used/harvested. That's why we are getting so many cookie warnings.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I would think that in such cases, the "1st party cookie" rule would apply and they would remember your decision. But I don't know the inner workings of GDPR so can't be sure. In essence, that rule would allow them to remember your answer and not have ask again since they already know you said "Not only no but HELL no."

 

[Jon]

Doc, I think it depends on how many new sites you go to. If you are going to familiar sites all the time, there is less chance of seeing the popups because you have already given your authorisation. They have a time expiry on them, but most new sites will ask for cookie acceptance on the first visit.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Now that, I can understand.

 

[Bee]

Doc, I think it depends on how many new sites you go to. If you are going to familiar sites all the time, there is less chance of seeing the popups because you have already given your authorisation. They have a time expiry on them, but most new sites will ask for cookie acceptance on the first visit.

This is mostly true. The exception being those of us working for The Man. We have dynamic desktops so every time I log in, it forgets all of my settings and cookies. It's. Driving. Me. Mad.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Wow, Bee. And here I thought working for the U.S. Navy in a facility requiring Secret clearance would have strict setups, but that is even worse than we had for the Navy. We could at least keep cookies on the system under our desktop profiles (though they would not work for our roaming profiles).

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

What I don't understand is that according to an article I read today, Facebook gathers all of this information on me through Facebook, WhatsApp, god knows what else! And they pass it on to the advertising companies. Now, Considering they have all that information, how on earth can the idiots server me up so many pointless of the mark, irrelevant adverts? Even to the degree that I sometimes get stuff related to women! Mind you this might be due to the fact that I occasionally look up things for my wife. But if the algorithm can't understand that I am male, (a fundamental fact) and server relevant adverts accordingly, then to my mind they are pointless, and we are in no danger from them! Actually, I would value seeing on point, relevant adverts. But it just doesn't seem to happen, well it does occasionally, but it's few and far between.

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

And you've got my Gander up now! I'm just recollecting watching YouTube videos, they pop in these bloody adverts, and they repeat the same damn WIX advert time and time again. I do my own WordPress sites on a small hosting service which have been very good up until now! That's the story! Why the hell would I want WIX? And why keep having the same bloody advert shoved in my face Time After Time, at least let's have a bit of variety, they could surely show me what, one of a set of 10 adverts, not one of One advert Time After Time! "Rant mode off"

 

[The_Doc_Man]

A recent news item I saw online is that Alexa, the Amazon "digital assistant" system, is under fire. Ten different states in the USA have filed lawsuits for breach of privacy. Seems that Alexa makes digital recordings of the voices it hears around it and sends it "home." Amazon somehow uses that info to know where else you have been (since Alexa is always listening). Apparently they can generate a profile based on voice recognition if you speak near an Alexa other than your "home" assistant. When that Alexa checks in and uploads its voice profiles, they can use it to correlate your movement. It has already come out some time ago that Alexa records everything around it because Alexa's recordings have been subpoenaed in a couple of court cases.

But ... they do this kind of recording for children in the household as well as the adults, and a child in the USA cannot give legal consent for business-related activities. A parent or guardian must do so. Since Alexa does not ask for consent or attempt to determine when the speaking person is a legal minor, it violates laws in the 10 states in question regarding one-sided recording. The 10 states that filed require consent from both parties. Some states do not. The suits in question are based on the fact that children cannot give consent and the law requires separate and explicit consent from a parent or legal guardian. Therefore, a breach of privacy has occurred.

We always knew that one day "big brother" would be watching. But who ever anticipated that "little sister" would be just as nosy?

 

[Bee]

Such a peculiar thing. Spending all that time and effort worrying about The Man eavesdropping on ordinary citizens, who then go and let an electronic listening device into their homes...

Cognitive dissonance. I'm saying that a lot, lately.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I solved that problem another way. I never bought an Alexa.

But there is another way to avoid cognitive dissonance. Sadly, it speaks ill of those use this method, though.

To avoid cognitive dissonance, you just have to be non-cognitive.

 

[Bee]

Doc,

 

[The_Doc_Man]

What really gets me is that (in the USA, and I don't know about UK) we can now get charged even for home hard-wired service based on volume of usage. That became a stronger issue when the USA FCC revoked "net neutrality" policies. But involuntary advertisements count against that usage. And it pays the ISP to allow advertisements since they get paid by the megabyte of usage. That's not necessarily like someone's ear in my house listening in via ads (though the feedback DOES drive some analytics), but it IS someone's hand in my wallet.

 

[Jon]

Well, let's hope that the cost of data eventually plummets to near zero. I had a warning from my mobile phone supplier that I am on 75% of my data allowance for the month already, and that if I go past 100% I get charged premium (read extortionate) rates.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

On our wireless phone plan, we have that problem because our grandson rides our plan and he is always hitting the monthly limit with a week or more to go before the start of the next billing cycle (and reset of the limit).

 

[Jon]

Hurrah! I found myself a privacy/gdpr/cookie popup blocker. Now I am back in heaven again!

 

[fatmt]

Hurrah! I found myself a privacy/gdpr/cookie popup blocker. Now I am back in heaven again!

Does it block the Quantcast-type pop-ups that slide from the bottom?