Have you updated your website's privacy policy to meet GDPR standards? (Poll)

mksh

@joepie91 said:

mksh said: Still i see this law as annoying and counterproductive. It did little but giving people a false sense of security.

I agree. But it's important to recognize that that was due to the implementation, and not due to the intention. That's why I'm happy that the GDPR disallows this 'blocking cookie wall' bullshit, as it's basically fixing the implementation, even if a bunch of organizations haven't gotten the memo and still try to do it.

I'd like to see them dinged under the GDPR for that.

I am not sure where i stand on this. On one hand the notices are annoying but on the other hand "Don't like what i am doing? Don't use my site." feels like a legitimate option. That the average end user would rather install a camera on his toilet than lose any kind of convenience is a sad fact but it's also not my problem. Yeah, i am an elitist ass. So what?

mksh said: Might have been better to educate the average user about the various tracking possibilities and how to counter them. I mean who even knew flash cookies were a thing or had any idea how to remove them?

Realistically: it just isn't possible as an end user to counter tracking measures reliably. The simple and obvious ones, yes, sure; but the problem with the marketing industry (ie. the industry behind tracking being a thing) is that it behaves as a malicious actor with deep pockets; they go very far to track people, at pretty much any cost.

The moment fingerprinting is used to track people, you've basically lost the game as an end user, and the industry has failed to self-legislate. And that's where legislation needs to step in; and now it does.

Yeah, i know it's wishful thinking. Specially for fingerprinting. It's not only extremely hard to defend against it's also extremely inconvenient. Hardly any end user would do it even for money. Still, i see the problem in education. End users need to realize that the technology they use is not only something they don't understand but something that's also quite hostile to them. The right decision for most people would be to not use it or at least only use it sparingly and with extreme caution. That being completely unrealistic i have little hope overall.

joepie91

mksh said: I am not sure where i stand on this. On one hand the notices are annoying but on the other hand "Don't like what i am doing? Don't use my site." feels like a legitimate option. That the average end user would rather install a camera on his toilet than lose any kind of convenience is a sad fact but it's also not my problem. Yeah, i am an elitist ass. So what?

This isn't how human decisionmaking works (or can work), due to social pressure. That's why the GDPR exists, to provide a baseline of guaranteed rights such that people cannot be (indirectly) coerced to give up their rights. Same reason we have other human rights legislation.

mksh said: Yeah, i know it's wishful thinking. Specially for fingerprinting. It's not only extremely hard to defend against it's also extremely inconvenient. Hardly any end user would do it even for money. Still, i see the problem in education. End users need to realize that the technology they use is not only something they don't understand but something that's also quite hostile to them. The right decision for most people would be to not use it or at least only use it sparingly and with extreme caution. That being completely unrealistic i have little hope overall.

I agree that more and better education is needed, to be clear. I just don't agree that it's an either/or situation; it doesn't take away the need for legislation against malicious actors.

jh

Completely agree that GDPR is well intentioned but poorly implemented.

We have made changes to our privacy policy and other agreements. Annoying but nothing compared to the cookie bar dilemma...

Rightly or wrongly (probably wrongly), before GDPR, we didn't have a cookie bar at all. The only cookies we use are analytics - GA and Piwik. We've just added one, as slim as possible with just an ok button to dismiss it. I suppose the "right" thing to do would be something that requires a user to choose which cookies they want and actively opt in to analytics cookies.

Aside from the fact that this would make our analytics effectively useless (which is a big deal because we spend a lot on Adwords and are always trying to improve our conversion rate), it is really really annoying to have to click through a form just to browse a website and I would rather not put our visitors through that for their own sake.

Thoughts on this?

I use this for my own browsing... https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/i-dont-care-about-cookies/fihnjjcciajhdojfnbdddfaoknhalnja?hl=en