[Guest0918231]

I think the following should happen...

1. Do a study and check how many people want to be tracked. Don't trust the data from websites because everyone is currently being tricked into accepting. Go out on the street, talk to someone for 5 minutes about how tracking works, how it can lead to more relevant advertising and a potential increase in revenues for the service they're using, but in return their browsing history, purchases, and communication will be tracked and associated with them. How many want to be tracked?

2. If 80%+ of people do not want to be tracked, then just create a law saying it's not allowed. That's it, we're done.

3. If less than 80% of people don't want to be tracked, then force browsers to prompt users on install to ask if they want to accept tracking. Websites, analytics, advertisers, etc, then need to respect that setting or risk being fined. No need for every website in the world to invent their own cookie/tracking pop-up system, and no need for people to adjust their settings on a per-site basis.

[stared]

> 1. Do a study and check how many people want to be tracked.

Ask the same people if they wanted websites to stay free.

I bet 80%+ would want to eat a cookie, a have it too. (No anti-pun intended!)

(Side note: the proposition of banning things if 80% don't want to use them is dangerous. No wanting something personally is not the same as banning it for everyone.)

[whakim]

I'm willing to bet that a lot of HN users block third-party trackers, but the average user has no idea how to do that. Why are we allowed the choice between (as you put it) "websites stay[ing] free" and privacy, and yet the average joe isn't? (To be clear, I don't even believe that's the choice we're facing.)

[SquishyPanda23]

The websites aren't free, you pay by letting others track you.

This seems like it's a silly nitpicking point, but in this context that's the whole point of the discussion: whether your users understand and consent to paying that cost.

[Guest0918231]

Not quite the same, because right now tracking is suppose to be opt-in. Free cookies are not.

A fair comparison would be a law saying people need to opt-in for paying for a cookie. You can't charge the customer or hide the information, they need to agree to pay for the cookies, and they need an equally clear option to not pay for them.

However, stores bend the rules. They have someone stand at the entrance saying, "Thanks for coming to our store, we have cookies for sale at $0.99. Would you like to come in?" If you say yes, then you're charged for cookies you buy. To get the cookies for free, you need to realize you can say "No" to entering the store, and then through a complex 5 minutes conversation, you can get the person to let you into the store for the free cookies every person is allowed to have according to the law.

Most people don't know about the free cookies. Others can't figure out the correct questions to ask to get permission to enter the store for the free cookies. Some people want the free cookies but they don't have 5 minutes to waste talking to the person, so they just decide to pay.

At the end of the day though, of course everyone wants the free cookies. I want them. You want them. The law says the store is required to give free cookies. Why introduce all the complex interactions and rules that businesses will not follow, and customers will find annoying? Just give everyone the cookies and be done with it.

If you don't want a blanket statement allowing free cookies everywhere, what's the ideal process? 97% of people want free cookies all the time. 2% of people want free cookies "sometimes". 1% of people never want free cookies. Asking people at each store for their preference (similar to a website cookies pop-up) is only beneficial to the 2% "sometimes" crowd. For the other 98%, they're just being annoyed and repetitively giving the same answer to every store. Require the banks to allow a setting on credit cards to toggle free cookies on or off, and have stores respect that setting without needing to ask.

[Jare]

> force browsers to prompt users

Given how many people think the EU did a bad job defining cookies, tracking, tracking methods and etc, it would be fun to see what they would think about he definition of a "browser" as something that can be forced to implement a certain feature.

[takeda]

> 1. Do a study and check how many people want to be tracked. Don't trust the data from websites because everyone is currently being tricked into accepting. Go out on the street, talk to someone for 5 minutes about how tracking works, how it can lead to more relevant advertising and a potential increase in revenues for the service they're using, but in return their browsing history, purchases, and communication will be tracked and associated with them. How many want to be tracked?

There's a very popular (it's a bit weird that number of reviews is so drastically different between Chrome and Firefox) extension called Honey. Apparently bunch of people install it because it provides free coupons. I don't believe people that use it know that ultimately they are the product.