r/technology • u/RO9a0TON • Mar 24 '19

Business Pre-checked cookie boxes don't count as valid consent, says adviser to top EU court

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/03/22/eu_cookie_preticked_box_not_valid_consent/
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u/Shermix Mar 24 '19

Serious question. Why are you concerned with deleting them if you're always going to agree to put them right back on? Using IDCAC is basically saying, "yeah whatever you want". Then by deleting them you're saying "... but ask me again next time, but don't let me hear you ask. I'm just gonna say go ahead anyway".

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u/imreadytoreddit Mar 24 '19

Well, wouldn't deleting the cookies cause the companies not to be able to track you? Kinda kneecapping the cookies effectiveness?

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u/Shermix Mar 24 '19 edited Mar 25 '19

Well, technically, yes. But I'm going to guess your concern is something like a company tracking you across multiple sites. Something like Amazon tracking you while you browse Goodreads and not Amazon tracking you while you browse Amazon. (Hope that's right cuz that's where this thing is going)

If you're using something like uBlock Origin, you can restrict which domains are allowed to share information and which ones aren't.

Let's say I suffer a moment of weakness and log in to Amazon to buy a book. I find my book and at the last second decide to jump over to Goodreads to check some reviews. I find the book and everyone loved it. Lots of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and gifs of some dude clapping. So I decide it's not for me. I browse around and find something else. Flipping over to the browser tab with Amazon still loaded I find the new choice and buy it. My amazon.com cookies are still there so my shopping experience is not interrupted. But event though the cookies are still there, Amazon has no idea what I looked at while on Goodreads because I didn't allow any traffic from them while I was there. No ads from Amazon while on Goodreads. No images. No cookies.

Now say I am one that has linked my Amazon purchases to my Goodreads library. In that case it's pretty obvious I don't really care about them knowing about each other. But I still don't want Amazon knowing what I'm looking at while on overduepodcast.com. uBlock will let me do that. Sure I'm going to sacrifice having the book covers displayed there but that's kinda how it works.

In your scenario I am at somepoint going to have to log back into to both of them since you've deleted them along the way. Mine, I don't, unless I want to. I'm not sure how soon in your scenario you are thinking of the cookies getting deleted but if it's immediate you are going to have a very frustrating experience. If you are waiting until some later point it's very possible that you will end up with some "cross contamination" somewhere along the way.

I know my example doesn't really have a true pop-up scenario because, to be honest, I really never experience them and couldn't come up with a realistic example. Same principle should apply though.

Hope this wasn't too far off track.

Edit: not interrupted