this post was submitted on 22 May 2025
1164 points (99.6% liked)

Europe

5974 readers
858 users here now

News and information from Europe πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί

(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)

Rules (2024-08-30)

  1. This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
  2. No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
  3. Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
  4. No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism. We follow German law; don't question the statehood of Israel.
  5. Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
  6. If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
  7. Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in !yurop@lemm.ee. (They're cool, you should subscribe there too!)
  8. Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
  9. No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
  10. Always provide context with posts: Don't post uncontextualized images or videos, and don't start discussions without giving some context first.

(This list may get expanded as necessary.)

Posts that link to the following sources will be removed

Unless they're the only sources, please also avoid The Sun, Daily Mail, any "thinktank" type organization, and non-Lemmy social media. Don't link to Twitter directly, instead use xcancel.com. For Reddit, use old:reddit:com

(Lists may get expanded as necessary.)

Ban lengths, etc.

We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.

If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 7 or 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.

If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the primary mod account @EuroMod@feddit.org

founded 11 months ago
MODERATORS
 

The "Accept all" button is often the standard for cookie banners. An administrative court has ruled that the opposite offer is also necessary.

Lower Saxony's data protection officer Denis Lehmkemper can report a legal victory in his long-standing battle against manipulatively designed cookie banners. The Hanover Administrative Court has confirmed his legal opinion in a judgment of March 19 that has only just been made public: Accordingly, website operators must offer a clearly visible "reject all" button on the first level of the corresponding banner for cookie consent requests if there is also the frequently found "accept all" option. Accordingly, cookie banners must not be specifically designed to encourage users to click on consent and must not prevent them from rejecting the controversial browser files.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Irelephant@lemm.ee 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

As usual, this should have been the responsibility of browsers, not individual websites.

[–] Rin@lemm.ee 2 points 1 day ago

this is a GDPR extension as I understand it

[–] MisterFrog@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago (2 children)

You wonder, why do they not just make it illegal to use cookies at all (other than for legitimate purposes like loggin in).

Who actually wants to accept?

[–] DacoTaco@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

As much as i would love to see that, youll be burning down a multi-billion, if not trillion, worth market.
Also, idk if i want the alternative of cookie tracking to be used as much as cookie tracking. Scary stuff

[–] MisterFrog@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (14 children)

youll be burning down a multi-billion, if not trillion, worth market.

Oh no

Also, idk if i want the alternative of cookie tracking to be used as much as cookie tracking. Scary stuff

Here's an idea, you outlaw that also

We have been in the wild west of the internet the last 20 years or so, and you wonder when we're finally going to actively police it

load more comments (14 replies)
[–] Comment105@lemm.ee 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Is that what legitimate interests are, or is that just misleading? I always turn off legitimate interests too, I don't understand the use of the label and I don't trust it.

[–] MisterFrog@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Session cookies for login are legitimate, I'm not really sure about others

[–] kattfisk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

You cannot say no to legitimate interest. That's a valid legal basis for processing the data that you only need to be informed about. Some times it appears like they are asking for your consent (which is a different legal basis for processing data) for legitimate interest, but that's likely just a poorly designed interface.

[–] kamen@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

While we're at it, can we also talk about things that look like chat notifications, but exist only to draw your attention? Those are misleading as fuck and IMO should be ruled out as well.

[–] PieMePlenty@lemmy.world 22 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Also, require its html tag to have an attribute "data-legal-reject" or something like that so we can have browsers auto reject all that shit - while keeping necessary ones.

Better yet, attach this at the protocol level. "X-Cookie-Policy: ImportantOnly" or something like that.

[–] pennomi@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago

Yeah, there’s no reason why this should be anywhere except the browser level.

[–] skisnow@lemmy.ca 61 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 17 points 2 days ago (2 children)

The irony made me exhale a burst of air from my nose before closing the page, never to return.

Basically every cookie acceptance agreement popup is just a 404 to me. No webpage has important enough information anymore for me to sign any kind of agreement. It's absurd. If you passed by a shop and wanted to go in and purchase something, but a clerk stopped you at the door and made you sign a fucking agreement that store would die in a month.

[–] SoGrumpy@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago

After reading one of these pop-ups the first time I saw one, a switch was activated in my brain. Now when I see one, I hit the back button on my mouse before the last scan line of the page has reached the end.

I don't need the information that bad.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 76 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Can we ban the "Pay to have privacy" option as well.

Fuck every site that tries to pull that shit.

[–] Gladaed@feddit.org 14 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] General_Effort@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago (2 children)

It's not banned. Meta isn't allowed to use that option, because it has monopoly power. IE in the view of the court, you can't avoid using Meta. For any ordinary site, there is always the option to refuse either and leave.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 176 points 3 days ago (7 children)

We and our 908 partners store and access personal data, like browsing data or unique identifiers, on your device.

Absolutely, we need a Reject All button!

[–] Jajcus@sh.itjust.works 61 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (6 children)

And it should include this mysterious 'legitimate interest', or whatever it is called - always on by default in 'my choices', even though no one seems to be able to explain what this means. How can I make an informed consent on something that vague?

On the other hand, not 'Reject All', but 'Reject All except functionally necessary' (which should be precisely regulated by the law), otherwise there will be no cookie to remember our 'reject all' choice, which I am sure the corpos would happily use do discourage us from clicking that.

[–] jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de 20 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Rejecting cookies without asking every time requires a cookie and that is clearly legitimate interest. The problem with legitimate interest is that it's not well defined enough and then you have companies claiming that Adsense personalization is an absolute necessity for their website.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] rmuk@feddit.uk 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Okay, so I'm going to copy-paste an answer I got from someone I know who works in a legal department:

Basically, Legitimate Interest lets them track you as if you clicked Accept All, then subsequently they can decide if they think you would benefit from the tracking by their own metrics, which includes things like targeted advertisting which, of course, they do. So "Legitimite Interest" really means "Reject, But Actually Accept".

[–] Jajcus@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

That is what I always suspected and why I take my time to uncheck all these.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (6 replies)
[–] selokichtli@lemmy.ml 52 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

The kind of stupid shit societies have to invest money in. Don't get me wrong, it's good news, it's just baffling that money had to be invested in order to get these bastards to do the civil thing.

[–] sudo@lemmy.today 21 points 3 days ago

'its baffling in a capitalist society, corporations do everything they can to squeeze the most money out of their users with zero regard for the users wants or needs, and do whatever they can to skirt legal obligations that protect consumer privacy and security'

Yeah. I'm baffled.

[–] ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 55 points 3 days ago (4 children)
load more comments (4 replies)
[–] Geth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 24 points 2 days ago (1 children)

A disgusting behavior that I've seen in Spain is for websites to direct you to their subscription page if you say you don't want to be tracked, either you pay for the content or you don't get any content. Apparently the Spanish courts have deemed this legal.

[–] rinze@lemmy.ca 14 points 2 days ago

If you use uBlock Origin, add the following rule:

* privacy-center.org * block

This kills 99 % of the "accept or pay" modals, an you can still access the page normally.

[–] x00z@lemmy.world 37 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Fuck you pieces of shit.

Go track this:

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] altphoto@lemmy.today 19 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Make it opt-in where you must purposely click somewhere. And just hide that away where they have their unsubscribe button.

[–] pupbiru@aussie.zone 35 points 2 days ago (1 children)

afaik the wording of the gdpr says that rejection must be as easy as acceptance

[–] rmuk@feddit.uk 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Not just "as easy" but "at least as easy". The assumption should be that the user does not consent. And there have also been a few cases where the courts have - quite rightly - rules that "pay for privacy" offers aren't good enough.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 18 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Cookie banners need to piss off forever. You may set some functional cookies only if I log in.

load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments
view more: next β€Ί