Nothing in the law requires the pop up. It definitely doesn’t require the obnoxious bullshit that most companies put up (aka the dark pattern to get you to agree to every unreasonable part of their terms just to read the page).
The alternative would be to just stop invasive tracking and add the cookie when it’s actually needed.
Yes, there's a lot of cargo culting in web development.
Many US based companies also do this for US visitors, which is absolutely not required by the GDPR and related regulations, because they don't apply there.
The law states:
> Receive users’ consent before you use any cookies except strictly necessary cookies.
Strictly necessary:
> These cookies are essential for you to browse the website and use its features, such as accessing secure areas of the site. Cookies that allow web shops to hold your items in your cart while you are shopping online are an example of strictly necessary cookies. These cookies will generally be first-party session cookies.
You don't need consent for MOST reasonable uses of cookies.
If compliance theatre wasn't such an industry the web would be a lot tidier and we could stop blaming the EU for implementing important privacy and data controls.
You’re shifting the goalposts somewhat, but the thing this misses is that the cookie banners are the least important aspect of EU data regulation. The principle of consent and of minimising data held has actually made a substantial different in European firms, mostly for the better.
The cookie popup also more often than not doesn't satisfy GDPR, since the option to remove consent disappears with the popup. These dark patterns emerged because the GDPR was used selectively as a club rather than properly enforced. That led to what another comment refers to as "compliance theatre" rather than actual corporate compliance.
This is such a shallow take. There are obvious privacy and security tradeoffs here. The EU competition framework is good in many ways, but this is actually something I don’t think we have the regulatory frameworks in place to handle yet , or social norms and understanding about why giving any Tom dick and Harry root on all your data is a bad idea.
It’s paternalistic, but I agree with Apple that free for all access to this kind of data is not a great idea. Ironically, before this could work we’d actually need much more EU style data regulation, and more consistently enforced.
I do too, but in this case the choice isn't between apple and the EU. It's between apple and the <random rapacious vc backed ai startup looking to hoover your data> your non-technical friends foolishly trust, without much understanding of the implications for them or society as a whole.
Ultimately I think it's important for the EU to regulate companies like apple to ensure competition. But in this instance, it doesn't seem like we have all the other pieces in place that would be necessary for a sensible rollout of that.
what's the missing piece exactly? In every other situation where a company wants to launch an iphone app to hoover your data, Apple gives a clear message telling you what types of data you're giving access to. Why is this situation different?
For me, it's real regulations about what data can reasonably be hoovered, what it's used for, for how long. And a culture where the majority don't blindly click yes to all messages like that because the only alternative is not to use the shiny new thing they have been sold. I don't think it could ever appear in the US, which is why it's a good thing apple won't be forced to open up there.
But if the EU does insist, they should be careful what they wish for and plan for the negative consequences of a free for all.
> but in this case the choice isn't between apple and the EU. It's between apple and the
Funny how the word user never enters these conversations. As in user device that the user has paid for and where the user should have a choice of what the user wants to do.
Apple uses "privacy and security" as a cudgel to prevent anyone from breaking into the vendor lock in. To the point that EU actually had to explicitly tell Apple what to do [1], as Apple delayed features, made them extremely hard or convoluted for third-parties to use, and pulled every trick out of the malicious compliance manual.
This whole virtual assistants thing will drag on for another several years.
Edit: I mean they show their models accessing and changing a password on the user's bank site at the same time as accessing and changing passwords on another random site. Which is one prompt away from exfiltrating user data. So spare me the "Apple knows best about privacy and security so they should keep any access to their platforms locked down"
It's shallow because it doesn't acknowledge that there is a real tradeoff. I share a lot of your cynicism about US tech companies, but I think you need to be realistic about the state of the market and how the incentives align.
Apples incentives are not, currently, as strongly misaligned with their user interests as many other tech firms (meta, google, random startups, etc). Going slowly might not be a bad idea for most people here.
That said, I hadn't seen the demo you mention. If they do do that (bank passwords etc) they are stupider than I thought they would be.
Probably true. But that’s not the position we are in now. Apple is much better aligned with users interests than any one else, at least for short/medium term.
I remember people saying the same thing. It was some time ago.
Turns out some markets really aren’t that efficient and corporate capture really is a thing…
The funding bill is never getting past the Senate, and even if it were the money is unlikely to reach Ukraine unless the current admin has a fundamental change of heart.
But this is to privilege 100+ year old origins of these terms over their actual application and development in most of Western Europe. It’s anachronistic and misleading.
No, this was true in USSR so like even 40 years ago, I grew up exposed to that a lot and believe me no one can say for sure which is which.
To keep things fun, USSR was not communist either for most of the time, it was sort of socialist I guess. There are a lot of jokes reflecting the confusion between socialism and communism and how we always go to communism but never reach it
Today there are examples of socialist but not communist countries in Europe. But if you compare them to Venezuela or Brazil you would be crazy.
I think we’re actually agreeing the terms are confusing. The point is that Western European socialism is not the same as the thing that was essentially synonymous with communism in the USSR in the early 20th century.
In the UK at least, the distinction was important because calling oneself a socialist was acceptable, whereas being a communist during the Cold War was not.
The USSR was economically socialist, ideologically communist, and politically somewhere on the autocracy-dictatorship spectrum. (That last varied over time, as is normal for such governments. Underlings always want autocracy, which means more power for them. The top guy almost always wants an absolute dictatorship.)
There were plenty of communists who didn't like that last part - but they were brutally purged by the autocratic-dictatorial faction. Famously: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Trotsky
I'd blame the angry, simplistic Western denunciations of anything vaguely resembling communism (including socialism) on the Western monied classes. Whether Old Money, Plutocrats, Wall Streeters, wanna-be's, sycophants, or whatever - those folks generally hate any idea which might mean less for them, and more for the 99%.
You can’t have it both ways though. The policies enacted in Northern Europe would definitely be agreed on as communist/socialist by the majority of mainstream American politicians, Democrats included.
> definitely be agreed on as communist/socialist by the majority of mainstream American politicians
The US has generous social assistance, just less of it than some European countries. It has unions more powerful than many European countries. Meanwhile the most popular Dem-aligned politician in the US has recently introduced a bill to partly nationalise AI companies.
> You can’t have it both ways
You’re responding to my first comment in this thread
I’m sympathetic to this view, butI don’t see any evidence they actually do know or care though. This (workers rights) gains no traction in US elections. You have this weird macho culture around it, almost like complaining about this abuse would be a sign of personal weakness.
Yes, the one authorities are struggling to contain because of recent withdrawal of resources, and consequently predicted to be more prolonged and at greater risk of wider spread.
They have a head start on you, but you're catching up quickly! Worth remembering they have been shooting peaceful protestors recently in the US too.
Trump and Hegseth are explicit in their admiration for Putin and Xi. So being technically right here is largely to miss the point. The trajectory the US is on is pretty clear.
I'm not from the US and neither do I try to defend the current US government.
Just pointing out that Putin has systematically turned Russia into a full-blown fascist autocracy, but even in Russia this took nearly two decades until all opposition was crushed.
MAGA has the same goal (turning the US into a fascist autocracy), but I bet it will be much harder and would take much longer to dismantle the checks-and-balances system in the US as completely as Putin did in Russia.
The alternative would be to just stop invasive tracking and add the cookie when it’s actually needed.
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