As a web developer I've been studiously ignoring this stupid piece of legislation as much as possible but I assume someone complained because the disclaimer is humorously worded (and probably not what the law requires anyway?) :)
As a web developer I've been studiously ignoring this stupid piece of legislation as much as possible but I assume someone complained because the disclaimer is humorously worded (and probably not what the law requires anyway?) :)
Creator of Steam Greenlight LITE
but where is my cookie? I've not received any in the mail
What is the stupid piece of legislation in question?
An effort by the country of Europe to keep terrible cookies (you know, like the ones for tracking purposes by ad providers) of our machines. And I fully support this legislation. Read more about it here. But for now, all it comes down to is that websites are now required to inform you that they use cookies. If you dont agree, well, tough.Originally Posted by Kodeen
Also, fun fact - the Dutch are taking this even further. Next step is for the popular browsers (IE, FF, Chrome) to get features that let you refuse cookies. And yea, FF probably has a few thousand plugins that can do this already. Politicians, right?
I've been seeing cookie warnings like mad from all kinds of sites in the last week or two. I suspect some new legislation went live on October 1.
Denmark introduced a cookie law that is practically impossible for any functioning website to adhere to, and which is broken by all ministries of the Danish government. Nice one. Politicians and tech stuff is a recipe for total fail, but at least it keeps all us residents of the series of tubes entertained.
You may have to turn your spam filter to receive your cookie in your email.
Last edited by Feldspar; 11-10-2012 at 07:03 PM. Reason: 2/3 of a bottle of wine and iTunes playing "Sit on my Face" by Monty Python isn't good for my typing.
Turn it? Clockwise or anticlockwise?
Is the cookie made of Spam?
Yeah, EU regulations and stuff.
Although: Anyone who knows what a cookie is knows that pretty much all sites use them ("How do I speed up my PC? Clean my cookies!")
Anyone who doesn't know what they are is just going to be confused by the word "cookie".
Sad that a piece of legislation, however flawed, should be dismissed when its intention is to make people more aware of their impact on the internet. Like most people who are aware of them, I have no problem with tracking cookies which are then used by 3rd parties to gather browsing information in order to target ads better, but it's something most people are completely unaware of and forcing websites to reveal that they do is, in my opinion, no bad thing. RPS uses the information, the way every other site does, as part of their funding strategy. Why act like spoiled kids when asked to admit that?
Well, its part of the DNT (do not track) movement currently ongoing. I personally think it is a brilliant idea - it will force marketers to actually work for once. If I allow myself to be tracked, they could offer me some incentive. It's an excellent way to return power to the consumer.
It's also important for the thousands of web users whom aren't so familiar with things to understand what these websites do. My Grandad surfs, but I doubt he has any idea how much information they have on him. Is that fair?
However, it's a double edged sword like everywhere else - less accurate results and targetted adverts will have an impact, even if it is small.
But the vast majority of people are far more annoyed by having to click something every time they visit a site than they are by being tracked in the first place.
If only we had some way to save that preference off, and the website would know not to load the warning. Someone should get on that.
That someone should be rewarded with a tasty morsel of some kind.
Ehrm, browsers have that function already by default.
Several issues exists with this idea
1 - in order not to have to annoy-the-fuck out of people about the whole thing - we have to store your preferences in the very 'cookie' (actually browser localStorage, cookies are for the 90s) we're warning you about
2 - it's not just ads - most website simply won't work without some local storage tracking - security systems are weakened and would require far more entry of passwords (which also weakens them and so on)
3 - this legislation misses the core issue by a mile - which is websites which contain content from other websites (e.g. advertisisers, analytics etc.) -the law does NOT require us to tell you about that - only about "our" website.
It's just people who are ignorant of how things work thinking they can control it - and people who are ignorant of just about everything being afraid of it.
Once upon a time it was thought women couldn't read books because it could induce 'hysteria' (which quite literally meant disturbance of the uterus!!) - then there were people who refused to wear hats in public - then rock and roll, punk rock, hoodies - people aren't afraid of things, they're afraid of change...
See the NatWest Cash debacle - it's all about the 'app' apparently, when the scam actually involves ringing them up and trolling them until they give-up a code (and thus has fuck-all to do with the app).
Creator of Steam Greenlight LITE
That would probably make more sense if the sites actually worked without cookies in the first place. As it is now it's more of a "Do you want to enter this site y/n?"
Hell, I know of one site that worked without cookies before the legislation... and doesn't work now, because it won't let you in unless you accept that the site might be using cookies. And of course accepting that is, in itself, a cookie.
It's ridiculous legislation and i'm happy that most sites seem to be either ignoring it or going with sarcastic messages.
It's especially annoying if, like me, your work PCs essentially boot clean from an image every time they restart, so I have to click the agreement box on EVERY SITE EVERY DAY! Gah!
The issue I have with this can be summed up with a single question - what website today doesn't use cookies?
the legislation wasnt very clear, one time they where saying that everyone had to give explicit consent and afterwards, companies just said "we assume you want cookies, click for no" but yes i think most businesses will put this off one of my friends businesses gets government funding so they had to have it in day 1!
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