Look, Jeff Atwood, it is difficult to take you seriously when you write authoritatively on a subject you clearly don’t understand.

GDPR doesn’t mandate cookie notices.

Cookie notices are *malicious compliance* by the surveillance-driven adtech industry.

If you’re not tracking people, you do not need a cookie notice, period.

If you’re only using first-party cookies for functional reasons, you do not need a cookie notice, period.

If you’re using third-party cookies to track people – i.e., if you’re sharing their data with others – then *you must have their consent to do so*. Because, otherwise, you are violating their privacy. Even then, the law doesn’t mandate a cookie notice.

How would you conform to EU law without a cookie notice if your aim wasn’t malicious compliance?

You would not track people by default and you would make it so they have to go your site’s settings to turn on third-party tracking if, for some inexplicable reason, they wanted that “feature”.

Boom!

No cookie notice necessary.

What’s that?

But that would destroy your business because your business is founded on the fundamental mechanic of violating people’s privacy?

Good.

Your business doesn’t deserve to exist.

Because the real bullshit here isn’t EU legislation that protects the human right to privacy, it’s the toxic Silicon Valley/Big Tech business model of farming people for data that violates everyone’s privacy and opens the door to technofascism.

https://infosec.exchange/@codinghorror/115120175033311443

Jeff Atwood (@[email protected])

Look, EU, it is difficult to take you seriously when you forced all this cookie notification bullshit on us. That feature a) should not exist and b) if it did, should be a BROWSER feature not "every website in the entire world now has to bother everyone forever about this stupid thing" https://blog.codinghorror.com/breaking-the-webs-cookie-jar/

Infosec Exchange

@aral

I'm running a website for a science consortium and we don't track, we don't sell anything, and we don't have to worry about visitor data storage and protection, and we do not need any cookie clicked on the site. Very simple, very relaxing.

It also prevents the need for a data protection responsible person, because no data is being collected.

@knud but even if you sold something, you would not need to put up a cookie banner : to sell something you require some information to complete the sale (address where to ship, and/or info about the means to pay for the good or service sold). None of that would be illegitimate.

@aral

@jenesuispasgoth @aral

Absolutely. And the best online shops for me don't even require me to provide data - they take name and address from Paypal (yes, I know, that company has it's own issues) and use that to send me stuff.

The bad ones want phone numbers, some birthdates and whatnot. Nothing to do with my purchase.

@knud lots of physical, brick-and-mortar shops also try to ask me for my email address or phone number. I either give a wrong one or flat out refuse (depending on the urgency of what I'm trying to purchase – sometimes I the cashier tells me they *have* to input something, and they're not responsible for terrible customer care practices where they work).

@aral

@jenesuispasgoth @knud @aral
I will not jump through hoops for retailers. My response to requests for my email or phone number is always “absolutely not.”

@freediverx @jenesuispasgoth @knud @aral
(Some part of that is that occasionally the manufacturer realises that under certain circumstances the Evaluatronic Instantiator(TM) you just bought might develop a fault in its Ingenuity Engine causing it to catch fire, and would like to/has a duty to tell you that and provide an Imaginative Dedeflagrator to plug into it to prevent that.

#SafetyNotice #dedeflagrator #Evaluatronic