It would be nice if, unlike GDPR, some veteran UX leaders would be consulted before this legislation was drawn up.
GDPR was well intentioned, but many of the pop experiences are littered with dark UI patterns, and most of those pop up experiences are annoying as hell.
My hot take is that GDPR, CCPA, etc. should require sites to go through a standard user experience native to the browser’s chrome. Kind of like how Android and iOS handle tracking permissions for Play and App Store apps.
That seems like it would be way easier to audit / govern, and it would be a better overall experience for end users.
The issue with that is that there are so many different apps that process data in so many different ways.
A phone has a bunch of physical features. Letting a website/app know what’s available and request access is a small extension of the hardware APIs with clear defined purposes.
But a financial app is going to have widely different data interests and processing than a workout app, which will be different from a video game, a calculator, a forum etc.
I don’t know how it can be normalised into something programmatic.
I guess it’s why law and courts are so complex. Sure, laws are written down, it should be easy… but they are regularly challenged and tested.
It’s a difficult problem to solve.
The ideal way would be to cut the legalese bullshit in the privacy policy.
However, that’s a legal document, so it needs the legalese.
It actually needs an honest human readable summary that sums up what’s collected, why it’s used etc.
Oh, I’d noticed that a lot of sites now seemed a lot better. It’s so frustrating when a site has you jump through 4 delays to reject, but accept keeps working fine. As soon as there is a delay now, I’m out of there.
It’ll be nice when we have the settings built into your browser and the sites need to comply so it’s on them not you to verify your preferences.
It’s worth re-mentioning this whenever it pops up.
The GDPR does not mandate the cookie pop-up. The GDPR just says that companies cannot gather personal information about you without your consent,
If companies weren’t trying to build a profile about you all the time, they don’t need a banner in the first place. The GDPR is amazing because it makes it immediately obvious which rare companies actually respect you and your right to privacy, due to not needing cookie banners in the first place
As someone from the UX side of the fence, I can assure you that there are a lot of legitimate convenience and or fraud protection reasons for why a company might store PII server side for the user’s convenience. Targeted marketing isn’t the only reason to store identifying information.
Fraud prevention is a legitimate interest and does not need a consent request.
I’m pretty sure that is specifically called out in GDPR. Certainly ICO (UK) has loads of articles on it.
However legitimate interests are often difficult to demonstrate compliance, so it can be easier to rely on consent.
You shouldn’t assume the contents of the GDPR based on what most companies are doing. It’s not legally consent, if it was not given freely. So, no dark patterns, no coercion, no inaccurate descriptions, nothing. You need to inform the user as accurately as possible and ensure that they choose what suits their interest. Then it’s consent.
It would be nice if, unlike GDPR, some veteran UX leaders would be consulted before this legislation was drawn up.
GDPR was well intentioned, but many of the pop experiences are littered with dark UI patterns, and most of those pop up experiences are annoying as hell.
An amendment has changed the rules on that. They need to be as easy to reject as to accept. Lots of websites atm are breaking the law on this still.
My hot take is that GDPR, CCPA, etc. should require sites to go through a standard user experience native to the browser’s chrome. Kind of like how Android and iOS handle tracking permissions for Play and App Store apps.
That seems like it would be way easier to audit / govern, and it would be a better overall experience for end users.
The issue with that is that there are so many different apps that process data in so many different ways.
A phone has a bunch of physical features. Letting a website/app know what’s available and request access is a small extension of the hardware APIs with clear defined purposes.
But a financial app is going to have widely different data interests and processing than a workout app, which will be different from a video game, a calculator, a forum etc.
I don’t know how it can be normalised into something programmatic.
I guess it’s why law and courts are so complex. Sure, laws are written down, it should be easy… but they are regularly challenged and tested.
It’s a difficult problem to solve.
The ideal way would be to cut the legalese bullshit in the privacy policy.
However, that’s a legal document, so it needs the legalese.
It actually needs an honest human readable summary that sums up what’s collected, why it’s used etc.
Oh, I’d noticed that a lot of sites now seemed a lot better. It’s so frustrating when a site has you jump through 4 delays to reject, but accept keeps working fine. As soon as there is a delay now, I’m out of there.
It’ll be nice when we have the settings built into your browser and the sites need to comply so it’s on them not you to verify your preferences.
It’s worth re-mentioning this whenever it pops up.
The GDPR does not mandate the cookie pop-up. The GDPR just says that companies cannot gather personal information about you without your consent,
If companies weren’t trying to build a profile about you all the time, they don’t need a banner in the first place. The GDPR is amazing because it makes it immediately obvious which rare companies actually respect you and your right to privacy, due to not needing cookie banners in the first place
As someone from the UX side of the fence, I can assure you that there are a lot of legitimate convenience and or fraud protection reasons for why a company might store PII server side for the user’s convenience. Targeted marketing isn’t the only reason to store identifying information.
Fraud prevention is a legitimate interest and does not need a consent request.
I’m pretty sure that is specifically called out in GDPR. Certainly ICO (UK) has loads of articles on it.
However legitimate interests are often difficult to demonstrate compliance, so it can be easier to rely on consent.
Imagine if fraud prevention mechanisms were ineffective if you do not consent to targeted advertising.
Black Hat: Darts! These darks patterns got me again, I accidentally consented, now I won’t be able to bypass the captcha!
You shouldn’t assume the contents of the GDPR based on what most companies are doing. It’s not legally consent, if it was not given freely. So, no dark patterns, no coercion, no inaccurate descriptions, nothing. You need to inform the user as accurately as possible and ensure that they choose what suits their interest. Then it’s consent.