back to article MEPs vote to update 'cookie law' despite ad industry pressure

European legislation that aims to put over-the-top services on a level pegging with their more traditional telecoms counterparts, and gives users more rights over websites tracking them, has been approved by a committee of MEPs. The proposed ePrivacy rules, which will update a directive that was last amended in 2009, have been …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Holmes

    "Content that must be given away for nothing will ultimately end up being worth nothing."

    Or maybe it was worth nothing to begin with...

    If it was, people would be willing to pay for it wouldn't they ?

    1. horse of a different color

      Re: "Content that must be given away for nothing will ultimately end up being worth nothing."

      Let me know how much you're paying for El Reg content...

      1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

        Re: "Content that must be given away for nothing will ultimately end up being worth nothing."

        I'm paying what they're asking, except that I'm blocking the ads because they make my laptop unusable. (No, really, I had them whitelisted for ages but eventually it was taking 30 seconds or more to open each page and I just thought "Fuck this for a game of solidiers!" and de-listed them.)

        As soon as advertisers wake up to the fact that people smart enough to have money to spend are people smart enough to use an ad-blocker, the whole bubble will go pop and the internet will die simply move to an alternative funding model.

      2. Detective Emil

        "Let me know how much you're paying for El Reg content"

        If El Reg were to give me a means of coughing up, I'd probably do it.

      3. Raumkraut

        Re: "Content that must be given away for nothing will ultimately end up being worth nothing."

        Let me know how much you're paying for El Reg content...

        Well that's half the problem really, we don't know. There's no way for me to know what of mine is being sold, nor for how much, nor to whom.

        From what the business model narrative has been, and as far as most end-users are concerned, the content *is* free. The advertising industry apparently now claim that currently the content isn't free (including that which the end-users themselves provide), but continue to do their darnedest to prevent people from knowing what the actual price they're paying is.

        1. katrinab Silver badge

          Re: "Content that must be given away for nothing will ultimately end up being worth nothing."

          Ad revenue from a regular visitor, eg someone like me who visits every day, is about £1 per person per year.

      4. jmch Silver badge

        Re: "Content that must be given away for nothing will ultimately end up being worth nothing."

        "Let me know how much you're paying for El Reg content..."

        Some people are 'paying' by having ads displayed to them. This being a highly tech-oriented community, I would guess a much larger proportion have ad-blockers than is the norm, but still probably I would guess a fair amount.

        (from the article)

        "... threaten the availability of free online services"

        The (pro-business?) right is complaining about that, and in a way they are right that yes, if online platforms can't make money through adverts they have to make money through subscriptions. However I think that the underlying and real reason that online platforms are lobbying this is that the vast majority of users of their platforms do not understand that they are the 'product' that is being sold to the real customers, the advertisers, nor to they understand the level of tracking being done.

        If users were more aware they might change behaviour, limit their platform usage and thus dent the profits of the platforms.

        1. tiggity Silver badge

          Re: "Content that must be given away for nothing will ultimately end up being worth nothing."

          I occasionally allow ads on the reg, but usually after a brief time of that, there's always some really annoying ad that cripples my PC performance, autoplays, uses lots of (limited) data allowance or is otherwise taking the mickey (being polite!) and ad blocks go back on.

          Like (I assume a not insignificant number) I woudl be happy to support El Reg with some micro payments system, or occasional donation (works OK for e.g Techdirt, with tiered donation system)

          1. Terry 6 Silver badge

            Re: "Content that must be given away for nothing will ultimately end up being worth nothing."

            Yep. I will lift the blocks from time to time. On various web sites. And as long as the ads behave, are not in the way etc I will even click on a few. But as soon as they get in my way, obstruct my view, offend my eyes etc. bang down comes the curtain. Usually pretty quick. No I haven't f***ing well won a competition I didn't enter, nor am I the thousandth visitor and I certainly don't want any "free" spins on your dodgy gambling site.

      5. HieronymusBloggs

        Re: "Content that must be given away for nothing will ultimately end up being worth nothing."

        "Let me know how much you're paying for El Reg content..."

        More to the point of the article, let me know how much tracking El Reg is doing in order to target me as an individual with advertising (other than the general assumption that anyone visiting the site is likely to be interested in technology). I suspect not much.

    2. Dwarf

      Re: "Content that must be given away for nothing will ultimately end up being worth nothing."

      @malle-herbert - I was about to post exactly the same thing !

      Worth is very difficult to measure since there are lots of indirect channels between the publisher and the potential consumer.

      Adverts being a good example. I don't need adverts for cars every day since I've already got two (his and hers). so don't expect me to want to buy another since yours has got glitter on it. I will pay someone at some point when I replace and old one with a newer model, but much of the decision is based on service and reliability, not how many adverts I've seen in the last 4 years. This is likely to p**s me off and make me not buy from you.

      There's also a big difference between content and quality content. How many videos on YouTube are just re-posts of existing videos. how many click-bait windows exist on web sites.

      If the result is that people think twice before spinning up a new web site to peddle junk content, then that;s got to be a good thing. Conversely, if people think that pay walled sites will result in lots of extra profit, then think again - until I can see that the content is worth it, the wallet stays closed.

      As for those who want to try and monetise me or ignore my on-line preferences - which BTW must be opt-in for anything like tracking or analytics, location, etc and for which there will be a monthly fee payable to me for each type of use and recipient organisation, since the concept of payment for content thing runs both ways.

      Oh and getting rid of the pointless cookie pop-up has to be a big plus. Nice idea, but a rubbish implementation that achieved nothing for the consumer.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Adverts

        Adverts being a good example. I don't need adverts for cars every day since I've already got two (his and hers). so don't expect me to want to buy another since yours has got glitter on it. I will pay someone at some point when I replace and old one with a newer model, but much of the decision is based on service and reliability, not how many adverts I've seen in the last 4 years. This is likely to p**s me off and make me not buy from you.

        Never a truer set of words posted here.

        I recently bought something from Amazon. Then I got a request to review the purchase (denied) now I get 2-3 times a week adverts from them for the same thing I bought. Doh!

        This (and many other things) are the reason why I hate all frigging adverts.

        I spent 18 months working at an Ad agency. I came to despise them so much, I left a pretty well paid job and took one at £10K a year less. Mad Men was just the tip of the iceberg.

        Ad people think we are total idiots with an IQ of a lot less than 50. i.e. Moron level.

        I hate Adverts and Advertisers and the worst of the lot are the Ad slingers like Google

        Yours, disgusted of Saffron Walden.

    3. katrinab Silver badge

      Re: "Content that must be given away for nothing will ultimately end up being worth nothing."

      Back in the days of paper magazines, they managed to make money showing the exact same adverts to everyone. Why can’t they do that now?

      When I visit this place, I don’t want to see ads for the shoes I bought last week, nursery schools for my imaginary child, or pregnancy testing kits. Also, you may have figured out that I’m a woman, but that doesn’t mean I have or want a boyfriend.

      1. Terry 6 Silver badge
        Flame

        Re: "Content that must be given away for nothing will ultimately end up being worth nothing."

        Paper magazines had nice shiny ads between the pages/columns. They were mostly well produced ads for quality items, with the cheap stuff stuck somewhere else. And they did not usually intrude.No one seemed to have a problem with these. Pop-up ads, flashing banners, ads for dodgy gambling sites, overlays that require the reader to interact with them before the content can be seen, ads that slow page changes ( or stop them) are a totally different matter. The reality is that on-line advertising has built a business model on the trashy end of the market. Stuff that should be relegated back to the newsagents' windows.

  2. Wolfclaw

    I'm sure non-EU hosted websites or companies would just ignore the ruling and continue to track.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "I'm sure non-EU hosted websites or companies would just ignore the ruling and continue to track."

      And that would be who? Aren't the biggest advertisers Facebook and Google, both firmly implanted in the EU?

      Of course this is not going to be absolutely perfect, and some will get through. But why argue that nothing must be done until a mythical absolutely perfect solution satisfying everybody is found?

  3. Voland's right hand Silver badge

    who argue that it equates to giving away content for free.

    Free - not really. It simply puts ad-funded model back to where it belongs as AN OPTION instead of it being the ONLY option. So the AD lobby can go f*** off, it is high time for alternatives to the ad-funded model.

    1. Mage Silver badge
      Coat

      Adverts

      Adverts DO work without malicious javascript, unique tracking pixels and cookies.

      Malicious privacy invading advertising is immoral.

      Also the Ad giants (Google, Facebook) etc lie and they don't care when the "system" is gamed by bots. The payment model (clicks / views) is open to abuse and encourages abuse of privacy as well as privacy invading analytics.

      There needs to be a more honest charging model for advertisers and total privacy for users.

  4. nematoad
    Mushroom

    Of course.

    "...a move to the US where their privacy and data protection rules would allow me access to the data ..."

    Yeah, right. A land of milk and honey where due to the current activities of the FCC under Ajit Pai, they've just gutted consumers privacy and that has gone down about as well as a fart in a lift.

    So don't just threaten to take your business elsewhere where it's easier to screw with the lives of your customers. Think of a new way of making money or go out of business. I'm sure there are plenty of others waiting to take your place.

  5. alain williams Silver badge

    Session cookies

    The big problem with the current legislation is that it does not distinguish between session and other cookies.

    Session cookies are used to tie together the pages viewed on one visit and are auto-destroyed by the browser some 20-30 minutes after the visitor has left the site - these are reasonably benign.

    Other cookies have a long life, potentially years.

    1. Mage Silver badge

      Re: Session cookies

      I 100% block 3rd party cookies. That breaks nothing*. Only cookies for login or stateful use of forms are valid uses.

      I'm baffled that 3rd party blocking is off by default on Firefox.

      I block 3rd party javascript that isn't needed for site operation.

      I don't run an adblocker. So simple images with a link are not blocked.

    2. Alexander Hanff 1

      Re: Session cookies

      You should probably read the legislation before making unqualified comments - both 2002/58/EC and the draft ePR take into account session cookies (providing they are necessary and proportionate).

    3. katrinab Silver badge

      Re: Session cookies

      “The big problem with the current legislation is that it does not distinguish between session and other cookies.”

      Yes it does, and it doesn’t actually specifically mention cookies, it mentions any method of tracking visitors to the website. Session cookies to for example store the contents of a shopping basket are not tracking technologies and therefore not covered.

    4. really_adf

      Re: Session cookies

      Session cookies are used to tie together the pages viewed on one visit and are auto-destroyed by the browser some 20-30 minutes after the visitor has left the site - these are reasonably benign.

      Originally, session cookies lasted until you closed the browser, ie lifetime is "browser session".

      Since browsers started offering "When launched, pick up where I left off", enabling this means your browser session never ends, and so your session cookies persist forever.

      What is often lost after 20-30 minutes is server-side state referenced by a randomly generated cookie value, due to a lack of requests providing that value. But the server-side doesn't have to discard this state after any particular "idle" time, it could be designed to keep it forever...

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "He argued that the new rules will stop companies gathering as much data on people"

    Err, I think that's the whole point.

  7. Mage Silver badge
    Flame

    Wrong argument

    "He argued that the new rules will stop companies gathering as much data on people, which is a large chunk of funding, especially for startups."

    Yes, well making phones useless when they are stolen reduces mugging.

    Startups, nor anyone else have ANY right to dishonesty exploit people. If your entire financing depends on evil actions you are a criminal and need to find an honest way to make money!

  8. Alexander Hanff 1

    Not really a narrow majority

    The vote was opposed by members of EPP - the majority of committees approved the draft and compromises were made on many issues which were not approved. EPP were kicked out of the negotiations because they were trying to gut the entire draft and weaken existing laws. There is very little chance this will not pass a full vote of Parliament at plenary next week - the LIBE vote was the main hurdle at this stage.

    The only real difficulty we face now is ensuring this gets through the Council without too much damage.

    I have worked on the draft for the past 18 months and was a special adviser to the rapporteur (some of my text actually appears in the draft) so I have been very close to the discussions at all levels. It has been a tough battle but there is an urgency among many MEPs to introduce a strong regulation which protects our Article 7 rights under the EU Charter.

    The very fact that there is such a tough stance on state interference with encryption is a clear indication of just how important MEPs think these rights are.

    The result yesterday was a very good result for privacy and I know I and many others will continue to drive the regulation through to adoption whilst keeping as close to the current draft as possible. But it will take you guys to do some work to - you need to write to your ministers and MEPs and make it clear to them that this is an important issue and that (providing you agree of course) you will vote for a competitor in the next election if they do not represent your rights in this matter.

    Do not allow the industry lobby to create a privacy underclass. See my plea on this (which I wrote on Monday night before heading to Brussels) and take action yourself to help protect your fundamental rights - we need literally 10s of thousands of people across Europe to take their elected officials to task on this issue, the risk of losing privacy is a very real if you don't. And please (as I always recommend) try to send faxes or paper letters - they cost a great deal more money to process than emails and are far more likely to attract attention when they start eating into MEP and Ministerial budgets. If 100 000 people send emails, they are cheap and easy to process - if 100 000 people send letters and faxes they require personnel and paper to process; when it comes to lobbying and campaigning, paper is ALWAYS better than bits and bytes.

    https://privacy-news.net/news_article/59e5160efd15cc51097e9a47

  9. Alexander Hanff 1

    Umm WTF?

    "MEPs in the European Conservatives and Reformists party have responded similarly, with civil liberties spokesman Dan Dalton saying that the vote "gets the balance all wrong”" and risks the future of online services."

    Dan Dalton is NOT a civil liberties spokesman - he is an industry influenced shill - I can't even believe you typed that - a clear lack of investigative journalism there. Not only is he an industry man, he is completely clueless about technology - I have seen badgers dead at the side of the road with more technical acuity than Daniel Dalton - to call him an imbecile would be an insult to Trumpsters across the world.

    Seriously, change that, it is embarrassing to see such a statement on El Reg...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Umm WTF?

      Probably confusion as he's in the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs but he's a conservative MEP so we can be pretty sure civil liberties don't rank highly for him.

      1. Alexander Hanff 1

        Re: Umm WTF?

        He is in ECR Group (which should be the first alarm bell) and is in LIBE and IMCO (which does not a civil rights advocate make). Being a member of a committee doesn't mean you are pro civil liberties many of the pro corporate people join various committees in an attempt to influence votes - that's politics.

        http://www.europarl.europa.eu/ep-dat/35135_16-02-2017.pdf

        http://www.europarl.europa.eu/ep-dat/35135_23-08-2015.pdf

        https://corporateeurope.org/power-lobbies/2017/10/big-data-watching-you

      2. Alexander Hanff 1

        Re: Umm WTF?

        "Also in June, the Developers Alliance and IAB Europe held a round-table discussion in the European Parliament on “The impact of the proposed ePrivacy Regulation on the data-driven ecosystem”, with MEPs Michał Boni and Daniel Dalton. The event was framed as how the draft ePrivacy regulation would impact upon “innovative companies”, innovation being a key EU policy mantra which is often used to mean that nothing must get in the way of business doing business."

        Having sat in sessions with him at the EP on the draft regulation I can personally verify that he has sang the song of a dutiful IAB spokesperson in every single event he has attended on the Regulation and refused to provide any evidence to support his position whilst refusing to acknowledge the vast mountain of evidence supporting the opposing view.

        Just this week, he displayed his overwhelming ignorance in a series of tweets which were challenged by several long time privacy experts and groups to which he was unable and unwilling to answer or again provide supporting evidence for his position. I even offered to donate £100 to a charity of his choice if he could provide evidence of just 25% public support from a poll on his position.

  10. John70

    Google/Bing/etc should put in their search results the average load time of pages of sites and how much of the site have 3rd party ads so you can avoid poor sites.

  11. Kev99 Silver badge

    As soon as a politician says something will "stifle innovation" it translates to "my masters won't be able to screw the end users as easily and I get my kickbacks."

    1. Martin Gregorie

      my masters won't be able to screw the end users as easily and I won't get my kickbacks.

      --> FIFY

    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      "stifle innovation and threaten the availability of free online services"

      Yeah, I'm struggling to understand how being stopped from tracking people against their wishes could possibly stifle innovation.

  12. BobChip
    Go

    Secretive tracking is fundamentally unaceptable

    Never mind "innovation", the "business model" and the "theft" of worthless content, tracking net users without their consent is utterly unacceptable. Advertisers will of course claim "implied consent", but consent that is not informed, and knowingly and freely given, after sober consideration, is NOT consent. (Think Weinstein-)

    And talking of theft, what about my bandwidth? I pay for this, and advertisers consume large chunks of it without my consent, while slowing down everything else I am trying to do. So I adblock.

    I can only plead for the strongest possible implementation of this legislation.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like