Mastodawn

Jan Eckhoff 💉⁷ 🐘5d ago

Richard Littler

Increasingly, when I'm faced with one of those website cookies-acceptance forms, I just close down the page unless there's a 'reject-all' option. I'm certainly not about to scroll through a list of your 2769 fucking vendors to individually consent or otherwise.
And 'legitimate interest'? Of legitimate interest to who? Certainly not me. Fuck off.

MattChippytea 5d ago

@Richard_Littler it turns this interesting thing I wanted to read simply isn’t interesting enough.

@Wifiwits @Richard_Littler it’s liberating to simply decide you don’t need to see the content.

I’d say that I give up watching at least half of the YouTube links I click because they start with a 30s ad.

random thoughts 5d ago

@Richard_Littler
My approach exactly. My attention isn't for sale.

D. G. Marshall 5d ago

@Richard_Littler

One I particularly hate has Accept Cookies, Reject Cookies, and Cookies Options.

AND IT SCROLLS UP THE PAGE AT LUDICROUS SPEED, QUICK, TRY TO CATCH THE OPTION YOU WANT, TOO LATE WE DECIDED FOR YOU, AND ALL OPTIONS VANISH.

@Richard_Littler I use the 'turn into plain text' gizmo all the time to avoid all that. It works fine for most articles but would sod up a page where you're buying or booking something. Forgive me if you already know this, but it's the little page icon in the address bar. I do it partly because I can't stand hectic pages and prefer plain text.

demiromantic_flag

@callunavulgaris @Richard_Littler, I do the same.
The most annoying thing is the absurd size of the ads covering most or all of the content (on the smartphone). Sometimes I close the website, most of the times I click on the reading mode (the almost plain text). If the page doesn't work, I search for another source.
Due to many reasons, I prefer to use the web browser of my computer, one of which is the more reasonable look, provided by the powerful extensions that hold and avoid annoyances.

@Richard_Littler consent-o-matic is good for this but yeah 😞

https://consentomatic.au.dk

Consent-O-Matic

Kara Goldfinch 5d ago

@finitebaffle @Richard_Littler Seconded.

acffh morst 5d ago

@Richard_Littler Safari browser has a "private window" feature which deletes all cookies when the window is closed. Same goes for Incognito mode in Chrome.
Open links a private tab, and consent or not, as it will only persist for the duration of the session.
I do like the ones which ask you to choose, but have an X in the corner where you can just make the question go away.

Fat_Farang 5d ago

@Richard_Littler A fair amount of times, rejecting cookies doesn't seem to affect the article one wanted to read anyways.

I have all links I select open in Tor Browser. If it won't open in Tor, I'm not interested.

@Richard_Littler I don't even see these popups because my adblocker blocks them, but I'm not sure if this is necessarily good since the website might be operating on the mentlaity of "oh, you didn't reject the cookies? guess you consented!"

Bench Mark 5d ago

@constancies @Richard_Littler #gdpr requires consent.

@benchmark I live in the US so I wonder if they do it differently here, though I would assume not since that's probably more work

David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)5d ago

@benchmark @constancies @Richard_Littler

Not just consent. The GDPR requires informed consent. If people do not understand what they are consenting to, they have not given consent under the GDPR. This makes most of these dark patterns entirely silly: they’re just racking up legal liability for the companies involved. And thanks to NOYB, there’s a reasonable chance that this liability will be translated into actual fines.

JustAskRan 5d ago

@Richard_Littler Honestly, “legitimate interest” is one of the most weaponized phrases on the internet. It’s legal-speak for “we’re going to track you anyway.” No one reads 2,000 vendor lists—they know that. That’s the point.

Worse, most cookie modals aren’t even keyboard-accessible or screen reader friendly. So not only are users being manipulated, but disabled users are often literally blocked from making informed choices. That’s not consent. It’s exploitation with a legal wrapper.

Tony Wells 5d ago

@Richard_Littler
There's a huge increase in Reject All = pay for access, and I also just nope out to a better site.

David Culley 3d ago

@TonyJWells @Richard_Littler You can financially support @noybeu (None Of Your Business, an Austrian data protection collective) if you have the means, who sue those outlets pushing this "pay or okay" model as they call it.

@Richard_Littler From my experience, you can practically eliminate all cookie forms by setting ublock origin to hard mode. Hard mode blocks all requests from third party websites by default. It's not for everyone because most websites are guaranteed to break at first, but put a little effort into setting filter rules and you will be sailing smooth seas for a while.

igiverandomfacts 5d ago

@Richard_Littler I wonder how browser extensions like "I don't care about cookies" work, do they automatically consent, reject or just delete the html code that shows cookie form?

GunChleoc 5d ago

@d0yo @Richard_Littler That one will try to get rid of the popup any which way.

If you want to choose what to allow and what to reject, use https://github.com/cavi-au/Consent-O-Matic

GitHub - cavi-au/Consent-O-Matic: Browser extension that automatically fills out cookie popups based on your preferences

Browser extension that automatically fills out cookie popups based on your preferences - cavi-au/Consent-O-Matic

GitHub

igiverandomfacts 5d ago

@gunchleoc @Richard_Littler unfortunately I cannot as I use extensions on Edge mobile. Thanks.

GunChleoc 4d ago

@d0yo I'm not familiar with that version of Edge - does it not allow any extensions, or only a limited selection? Just in case you might have overlooked it, the site links to an Edge version
https://microsoftedge.microsoft.com/addons/detail/consentomatic/eflcfflijdiekjkegjghbchoncjhfkda

@Richard_Littler

Consent-O-Matic - Microsoft Edge Addons

Make Microsoft Edge your own with extensions that help you personalize the browser and be more productive.

igiverandomfacts 4d ago

@gunchleoc @Richard_Littler
They brought uBlock Origin and many others. Everybody told me that uBlock will be removed from Edge too but they did the opposite lol. It is limited at the moment and can be used in the Stable version.

Fish Id Wardrobe 5d ago

@Richard_Littler i'm running an extension that kills dodgy cookies, so I just accept all, knowing it doesn't mean what they think it means.

David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)5d ago

@fishidwardrobe @Richard_Littler

No, it doesn’t mean what you think it means. The thing you are approving is tracking and sharing the results of that tracking. Cookies are the smokescreen. They will also use various forms of browser and IP-based fingerprinting and you have given them consent to share the results of that with 1,742 of their closest friends. You have also given weight to their argument that this should be opt out because most people consent.

Fish Id Wardrobe 4d ago

@david_chisnall @Richard_Littler interesting — thank you

GreenSkyOverMe (Monika)5d ago

@Richard_Littler Legitimate interest to show personal ads should be illegal

Geoffairey 5d ago

@Richard_Littler @nowster That’s the point of legitimate interest, the controller needs to justify the use of the data against the harm to you. As the harm to an average web user is minimal, then business will always see it qas in their favour

Only Ohm 4d ago

@Richard_Littler There's a browser add-on for Firefox/Icecat called Consent-O-Matic, which will automatically choose the least permissive options for you any time you encounter a cookie consent popup.

MostlyTato 4d ago

@only_ohm @Richard_Littler
The Ghostery extension also automatically rejects all.

Methodist_Coloring_Book 4d ago

@Richard_Littler I do the same with sites that have a problem with ad blockers and those that feel a need to embed video.

el Celio 🇪🇺 🇺🇦16h ago

@Richard_Littler what about those sites without a cookie-acceptance form? 🤔