When I was young adult, when visitor counter on a website was en vogue, I was building a system that would take note of where user came from, which pages they visited how long have stayed there, which page they exited through. What paths they took through a site.
It didn't go that far. But when I saw people plastering Facebook like button everywhere I knew exactly what that meant. That one random corp now can know everything about everybody's behaviour everywhere.
Then Google put out Google analytics and I just switched my sites to this thing. I didn't mind all that much because it was Google and do no evil was still a thing.
But GDPR is something that reminds me of how ridiculous things we accepted as if they were normal just because they were technically feasible.
The industry standard is to show utter contempt for the user. It's expected that every site will show you tacky and distracting ads and will dump 90 third party cookies on you. It's beyond belief.
Imagine going into a travel agent to inquire about a flight. The moment you step through the door 50 people attach themselves to you. Some start recording your every action in a notebook, others flash torches in your eyes, two of them start showing you a video at the same time. And the rest follow you around holding up large ads. And they carry on following you around even after you leave the store!
Imagine there is another travel agent not doing all that, but it costs money while the first is free. Wouldn’t you like to have the right to choose which one to visit, or do you prefer that choice to me made for you by politicians instead?
I would absolutely like the ability to pay for services which do not track or advertise to me. But they don't exist for the most part, and the existence of those services does nothing to diminish the requirement of the ones engaging in poor practice to make their service "free" to obtain _consent_ for what they are doing.
Then focus on the people that do want it - which by the count of the number of people who say no to Facebook tracking on iOS, is a very high number. Enough to be of material impact to Facebook's bottom line.
The law does not allow Facebook to refuse service to those saying no to tracking. If they were faced with that choice, I am sure most users would've made a very different selection.
It didn't go that far. But when I saw people plastering Facebook like button everywhere I knew exactly what that meant. That one random corp now can know everything about everybody's behaviour everywhere.
Then Google put out Google analytics and I just switched my sites to this thing. I didn't mind all that much because it was Google and do no evil was still a thing.
But GDPR is something that reminds me of how ridiculous things we accepted as if they were normal just because they were technically feasible.