Europe twists YouTube's arm to get better cookie consent popups

Alphabet's Google on Thursday said it has rolled out a new cookie consent banner for YouTube visitors in France and will soon deploy the popup for its online properties throughout Europe. The reformulated cookie consent banner – more of screen-seizing overlay page than a slender banner – follows from discussions between the US …

[VoiceOfTruth]

Cookie banners

-> cookie consent banner – more of screen-seizing overlay page than a slender banner

I've seen a few on these on web sites. Probably written by lawyers, who are paid to write and read things, they are just a waste of time for consumers.

What is the solution to cookies? Automatically deleting them every hour unless it's a session cookie would do more than all the banners in the world. Also make deleting them easier. Mandate a 'delete cookies' button on the main tool bar rather than being hidden several settings deep.

[Alumoi]

Re: Cookie banners

May I introduce you to my little friend Cookie AutoDelete?

[VoiceOfTruth]

Re: Cookie banners

Sure. But my intention is to make it (such functionality) more obvious to end users. It should be built into the browser, and should be a big toggle button where it is easy to find (not somewhere in the preferences which nowadays needs their own search engine).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Cookie banners

Vivaldi has an option to delete some or all data on exit.

[LybsterRoy]

Re: Cookie banners

I have my browser set up to delete cookies on exit and I exit when I've finished using it at the time. I'm surprised by all the people who have the browser open 24x7 with large numbers of tabs. Its a looong time ago that I realised I could open and close it when I wanted - its a bit like some people seem to have not trealised that lights can be turned off and doors closed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Cookie banners

> Automatically deleting them every hour unless it's a session cookie would do more than all the banners in the world.

That's why this is a popover forcing you to make a choice rather than a relatively unobtrusive banner. They're banking on having to click through something like that every time you log in will force you to give up your valiant effort to consistently use incognito mode or self-destructing cookies.

Remember you should not need to make a choice - lack of choice is lack of consent, so they're forcing you to do something on the basis that some percentage will make the choice they want.

The regs should be tightened up to simply prohibit anything requiring additional consents. Functionality is fine. Third party tracking is not.

[jvf]

Re: Cookie banners-why cookies at all?

"...GitHub, which in late 2020 stopped presenting any cookie notification banner because it abandoned non-essential cookies..." Why are cookies necessary at all for a website to function? If you want your information saved (searches, etc) why can't you just make a profile which the website could access when you visited the site. In other words-bake your own cookie when you want to.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dark mode Google search page....and that eye straining WHITE consent op-out form. Deliberate?

Google seems to be trying every which way it can to 'nudge' users to opt-in/consent. The latest seems to be to display the search page in black for dark mode users, and for those attempting to opt out, switch to an eye-straining glaringly bright white background showing the consent options.

Regulators need to look at the whole thing in context, can't help feel that Google is using a deliberate eye straining colour switching technique on the opt-out page as the new way to nudge users to consent to Google's terms.

The game of cat and mouse continues.

[heyrick]

Re: Dark mode Google search page....and that eye straining WHITE consent op-out form. Deliberate?

At least now the "bugger off" option is one tap, not five. So I guess that's progress.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Dark mode Google search page....and that eye straining WHITE consent op-out form. Deliberate?

If you read closely, it says that if you opt out, only a subset of uses is not done, all the other telemetry is still on and fair game. So it is still misleading, and certainly not fit for purpose. Or at least it doesn't do what it says or try to convince you to believe it does.

[Mayday]

This is how I browse a webpage these days

1) http(s - normally):///www.whatever.com

2) Figure out how to navigate the consent window and reject all but "necessary" cookies

3) Figure out how to stop annoying autoplay video with equally annoying soundtrack

4) Repeat (3) when said annoying video and sound pops up in one of the corners and covers half the text I'm trying to read

5) Close popup window which tells me to subscribe to some spam email list

6) Forget why I did (1) in the first place

8) Close tab and do something else

[Mayday]

Re: This is how I browse a webpage these days

Just realised I have three ///s in my URL. Probably why I get too many popups and/or cookies.

[Gene Cash]

Re: This is how I browse a webpage these days

Firefox got rid of annoying audio by helpfully dropping support for ALSA.

Since I don't run that pulseaudio shite, it's blissfully silent.

I use yt-dl to get YouTube videos playing in a decent GUI (mpv/vlc/xine/mplayer/whatever) without stuttering, poorly interpolated off-aspect video, or ads.

[HeadPlug]

Re: This is how I browse a webpage these days

Firefox has builtin settings to block autoplay of audio/video

[Alan Brown]

Re: This is how I browse a webpage these days

noscript helps a lot with the annoying javascript autoplay shit

third party javascript needs to die even more urgently than the bloody cookies

[MrXonTR]

Re: This is how I browse a webpage these days

A new trend these days seems to be popping up a 'helpful reminder' when either mouse cursor or keyboard focus leaves the browser window. Typically it pushes either a newsletter subscription or a chat bot. Both are more reasons to quickly leave that sort of website.

[sabroni]

A "Reject All" button

was all that was needed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: A "Reject All" button

Not just the button, a working button that really does what is intended.

[Mr Dogshit]

Google has a product manager for privacy, safety, and security

And FIFA has an ethics committee.

[codejunky]

Oh god why

So to view the webpage I want to see there will be a bigger and more intrusive message in the way. Exciting.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: Oh god why

Normal for Google.

I've been experimenting with 'normal' user experience, mainly because my replacement games PC still hasn't arrived. So I've been browsing via a PS4.

YT decides that using a console means I should be using some godawful console / mobile overlay. Clicking a YT link opens it in traditional browser view. Bookmarking a video works as a landing page.

If only there was a way to have YT remember my display settings, maybe via a persistent token.

But I can watch cat videos. Well, the first few seconds. Which will probably be of an ad. Then it'll pause so the 'consent' pop-over takes control. That happens every time YT is loaded, so curious what the point is because it obviously doesn't remember settings.

Then there's pop-ups inviting me to subscribe to YT 'Premium', and reminding me I'm not logged in. And then I might get to watch a video with ads every 90s.

Ok, so I suspect the inconvenience is to nudge me into buying Premium, or just signing in. Not sure why signing in is necessary though given all the cookies and profiling Google does though. So the new 'reject all' option sounds nice, but suspect Google will just ignore it.

[heyrick]

Re: Oh god why

Use NewPipe on an Android phone. YouTube without the bullshit.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: Oh god why

Kinda defeats the experiment, ie the user experience sucks when you can't use ad blockers and privacy tools. And the 2 OS titans still seem hell bent on taking control away from users.

[M.V. Lipvig]

Re: Oh god why

They won't ignore it. If you don't accept all, they will simply treat you like a new user every time, with a new user style experience. They won't remember anything until you accept all, which lets them save on your computer. Laws like this are a two edged blade, in that if you don't let them save to your computer they won't. This means there is no remembering your choices so you get to start from scratch.

What the law should have done was allow companies to save the bare minimum necessary to show your choices, require a button on every page to allow you to see what choices are saved, then allow for a 5,000 euro fine for each instance where the company is found to not be in compliance. If they violate the law on 10,000 customer computers they get fined 5,000 euros times 10,000 computers. As this would quickly turn noncompliance into a bankruptcy, companies would comply with both the spirit and letter of the law.

[MrXonTR]

Cookie banners should die

Cookie banners are a consequence of GDPR's loophole which is an EU-only thing but it ruins the web for everyone. Ruin is too strong a word, online advertising and tracking were already terrible, this just makes it a bit worse. NoScript hides the most annoying adverts and popups and banners but that's only a surface level change, besides too many websites now rely on JavaScript (most shouldn't need to but that's another rant for another day). Cookies are not the only means of tracking us and offering "Accept All" and "Reject All" buttons is a false dichotomy and that feeds people a false sense of security. Perhaps it's time to acknowledge the law isn't working? If GDPR were repealed then advertisers would run wild, people would complain and that justifies a stricter law which says "no one may track users for any reason, advertising must be based on context only".

Currently my personal preference is to make incognito or private browsing the default (change the .desktop files to "chromium --incognito" or "firefox --private-window") and now it doesn't matter which banner button gets clicked as the end result is the same. The only time I open a "normal" browser is for the 3 or 4 websites I actually need to be logged in to. And The Register is not one of those, sorry Reg.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Cookie banners should die

Cookie banners stem primarily from the ePD, not GDPR.

[Anonymous Coward]

At work they have decided to sign up to 'Workplace from Facebook'... the only option you get is 'accept all'

(I don't think I'm missing much but not accepting... a few people's pictures of their dogs, someone in marketing has flogged a few more widgets, the top man has visited our Belfast offices, some of the vans have got new branding...)

[Dale 3]

Yup, I would definitely read all of that before making an informed decision.

Hands up everyone who's had to tutor an elderly relative, who hasn't just said "don't worry about that just click 'accept'" whenever it comes up!

[John Savard]

Next Step

Now it's time for Canada to bring in legislation to require that its consumers get the best deal that Google offers anywhere in the world. If Europeans have one button to turn off cookies, Canadians must have it too! If Europeans get to charge their iPhones with a USB-C port, so must Canadians!

Come to think of it, for that last, clearly the European legislation is inadequate, and Canada will have to make its own legislation. While we're at it, how about minimizing electronic waste, too. But if we outlawed the sale in Canada (except on the used market) of any smartphone that didn't have a USB-C port, used for file transfer and the like as well as charging, and a replaceable battery... would the industry rush to comply in order to get access to the Canadian market?

[Ian Johnston]

What I really want is a browser extension which automatically accepts all cookies in such a way that I never have to a cookie consent thingy again. I really don't care about my "privacy" nearly as much as having a smoother online experience, and I simply can't get worked up about all the oogie-oogie-Google-knows-what-you've-bought-on-Amazon-wooooo tin foil hatted paranoia.

[A____B]

What I really want is a browser extension which automatically checks each cookie and does the following:

If the site is on my whitelist then leave it alone

If this is a session cookie or a GDPR consent cookie then leave it alone for now but delete on browser shutdown //effectively what incognito mode does

If this is a cookie for a third party or for a site on my blacklist then replace contents of cookie with random data each time it is fetched //using random data across many users would remove the 'unusual behaviour' fingerprinting and would 'poison the well' making tracking data less valuable to ad brokers

Then all I need do is maintain my own white/blacklists alongside my modified hosts file (which absorbs many cookie / tracking javascript requests from sites I don't like/trust). Oh, and plan how to deal with super-cookies, browser fingerprinting ...

[Robert Carnegie]

The Vivaldi browser has a cookie dialog suppression feature, apparently. I'm not clear if it rejects all the cookies or accepts them all.