this post was submitted on 22 May 2025
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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.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 12 points 15 hours 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?

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours 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.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour 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.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 4 hours ago

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

[โ€“] [email protected] 8 points 4 hours 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

[โ€“] [email protected] 10 points 4 hours ago (2 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

[โ€“] [email protected] -2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (4 children)

Ok, lets go down the line of things happening here.
You kill data mining, great, awesome! You have my support!
Oh, but suddenly, worldwide, hundred of thousands of job fall. Data brokers fall first. Their servers drop and the thousands of project managers, database administrators, developers, product managers and all in between get without a job.
Ok but fine, maybe they can find a new job! Positive thinking! It is a big world after all!

Oh, but the data brokers are gone, so now analysists cant tell what people will like, what they dont, what works and doesnt. Whoops. But hey, nothing bad those are gone! Maybe they can find jobs down town in the factory that doesnt exists or uses robots.

No analysists, so maybe trying to make that one show or product you like doesnt sound that attractive to produce anymore. Hey, who knows who'll buy it right? Maybe that product you like will make a few wrong guesses and die out. But nothing bad, another company will fill the hole left behind by dieing companies!

Now scientists ( im including computer scientists here ) cant access data at large anymore either because data brokers are forbidden in proxy. Shit, how are we going to get our data about diseases now. From a limited set? Okidoki! Our research says 90% of tested people get cancer from drinking water. Water is deadly now guys! Our data of 10 people said it was!
How do we process patient data to find problems before hand, easy we dont lawl. Who needs that stuff anyway!

Oh hey, since nobody is allowed to collect and sell data anymore, those few sites you use will die. They cant maintain the costs of research & development nor the hosting. So they have to paywall their site or close the doors, like the good old days with newspapers, pubs, cafe's and television! Those were the days! But i like to pay for quality stuff so they can live! Ok, now lets do that for every site you visit and use in your day-to-day life!

Look, you get the picture i hope. I hate data collecting and have systems in check to hopefully poison the well myself. But your shortsighted approach is not the solution. The world is a hell a lot more complex than that.
Sources to this line of thinking: me, who works in healthcare, my brother working as a project manager in a data company to use in researches, and my other brother working as cto in electricity facilities.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Uhh. This was a fun slippery slope to slide down, but whatever you claim are your credentials, the core premise is completely incorrect.

  1. Data brokers that buy, sell, and analyze user data for advertising purposes have absolutely nothing to do with the vast majority of scientific data collection and analysis. No healthcare or research scientist is harvesting your clicks on facebook to analyze diseases. Nor are they funded by your clicks on facebook. They're not even using the same infrastructure - most healthcare databases have way more privacy restrictions already in place and are owned and operated by different companies.
  2. Companies were perfectly capable of figuring out what products were attractive before any of this existed, and the primary benefit of harvesting user data for advertising isn't to provide a good product, it's to outcompete all the other nearly identical products, including the ones that are objectively better.
  3. Industries that don't benefit society don't get to keep existing just because they employ people. Switchboard operators - unlike personal data brokers -were critical for communications. Those jobs didn't need to keep existing just to keep those people employed.
[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

They will die and new ones will rise. Fuck any job that is based on data mining and the predatory usage of said mining.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 2 hours ago

Datamining is the reason every fucking second of our lives is monetized.

[โ€“] [email protected] 8 points 3 hours ago

They cant maintain the costs of research & debelopment nor the hosting. So they have to paywall their site or close the doors

The irony of posting this comment on Lemmy, which runs based on donations. It isn't paywalled, and doesn't require data mining to operate. As well as Wikipedia which is completely free, and wildly successful. Which again doesn't need to violate your privacy to continue existing.

Not to mention, not every website is making money off selling your data, and are instead selling goods or services. Which can continue to operate and make money just fine.

The fact you think the economy would collapse because data miners would lose their jobs, is showing your bias.

Nek minnit you'll be telling me we ought not stop fighting needless wars whenever the US beckons us, because of all the poor weapons contractors losing work (massive hyperbole, but you get my point).

People working in data mining have heaps of transferrable skills, they would be totally fine.

The internet existed before enshitification, and it certainly could afterwards.

Would you have to pay a little more to access certain things? Sure. But I find the argument that the internet would cease to function very unconvincing.

[โ€“] [email protected] -2 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

why shouldn't there be a wild west for those that want it?

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

I don't remember there being CCTV everywhere in the wild west.

Nobody is stopping anyone from requesting the information from users via, say, a form they fill out, or enabling data tracking for a specific user-enabled purpose. The only thing people are advocating against is users' info being collected without their knowledge, consent, or both. Nobody is losing any freedom.

[โ€“] [email protected] -2 points 3 hours ago

the user is a piece is software, if the human decides to blindly trust it to execute arbitrary code (javascript) without reading it first they weren't concerned with their privacy anyway. if they did read it then they had full knowledge of what was being collected.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

You're in favour of companies mining our data and selling personal information with impunity?

[โ€“] [email protected] -1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I'm in favor of laws targeting advertising in general, not specific implementations of advertising or data mining.

If a few friends make websites that all have access to each other's cookies for things like high scores this would use third party (cross site) cookies because nobody in their right mind would want to store user data on a server for a hobby project. This is the exact same tech that allows ads to track you across the web, just a more legitimate use of it.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I don't see why you'd need to throw out that baby with this bathwater.

My point is the same as yours. You ought not need to "reject" cookies for the purposes of tracking you for marketing, or other defined illegitimate purposes. It should just be illegal by default.

And if you want to opt in for some specific feature, as you suggest, you could (as long as you still legislate you can't bundle more tracking along with it).

Things should just do what is says on the tin.

In my opinion.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

a website that has a primary function that relies on third part cookies shouldn't require any opt-in nonsense, most websites don't need them, not the ones that do are frequently small hobbiest projects that shouldn't need to be updated just because the megacorps decided to take advantage of browser features.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I think you're missing my point. Megacorps taking advantage of browser features should be outlawed, and cookie banners to opt-out of tracking cookies are a weird waste of time.

What that means for small hobbyist projects requiring the use of Cross-Site cookies is outside the scope of my opinion. I have no idea about how such things could be feasibly policed, just that I'm not convinced they couldn't ever be.

But if I'm deciding between the collective wellbeing of everyone's privacy and a small hobbyist project needing to add an opt in? I'm picking the opt in, which I mean, obviously, if the person wants to use your features, an extra click isn't too much to ask

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

at least in my opinion the government should never make laws that benifit the ignorant at the significant expense of those that know what they are doing.