Technology - mad, madder, maddest!

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  • Dave2002
    Full Member
    • Dec 2010
    • 18045

    Technology - mad, madder, maddest!

    Thanks (!!) partly due to recent EU legislation accessing web sites and services (which the EU seems concerned about!) is getting more and more tedious.

    Go to almost any website these days.

    Pop up appears about cookies, and giving permission to access site.

    Once that has been agreed then further information frequently "requires" registration, login plus password.

    All this for information from a company one might never want to deal with again once the information has been accessed, and even before any orders are placed or financial data exchanged.

    What is interesting is following the detailed breakdown for some sites - though I suspect very few people bother. Some good sites do have very comprehensive details of how the sites work, and which third party tools and sites are accessed etc., while others probably don't.

    It's a bit like going into a butcher (vegans look away) and asking for a fillet of beef. Then ask which farmer it came from, which farm, which abbatoir it was processed in, and which lorries delivered the meat to the shop. Hardly anyone does that. Most sane people assume that the product is "good at the point of purchase", and the supplier has acted responsibly, and probaly also do visual inspection and sniff tests! Similarly for most other products one buys in shops - though one chain of fast food sandwiches is currently experiencing problems.

    If one does delve further into website permissions one discovers some cookies without which the site would not be able to deliver the requested information at all - fair enough - tick the box for those, plus a whole bunch of others - which other websites are used, or which data is tracked etc. Fascinating - and paranoid people should shut virtually all of those off. How many people are going to bother? Not many!

    Things are getting needlessly complicated, but for whose benefit?
  • Serial_Apologist
    Full Member
    • Dec 2010
    • 37851

    #2
    Originally posted by Dave2002 View Post
    Thanks (!!) partly due to recent EU legislation accessing web sites and services (which the EU seems concerned about!) is getting more and more tedious.

    Go to almost any website these days.

    Pop up appears about cookies, and giving permission to access site.

    Once that has been agreed then further information frequently "requires" registration, login plus password.

    All this for information from a company one might never want to deal with again once the information has been accessed, and even before any orders are placed or financial data exchanged.

    What is interesting is following the detailed breakdown for some sites - though I suspect very few people bother. Some good sites do have very comprehensive details of how the sites work, and which third party tools and sites are accessed etc., while others probably don't.

    It's a bit like going into a butcher (vegans look away) and asking for a fillet of beef. Then ask which farmer it came from, which farm, which abbatoir it was processed in, and which lorries delivered the meat to the shop. Hardly anyone does that. Most sane people assume that the product is "good at the point of purchase", and the supplier has acted responsibly, and probaly also do visual inspection and sniff tests! Similarly for most other products one buys in shops - though one chain of fast food sandwiches is currently experiencing problems.

    If one does delve further into website permissions one discovers some cookies without which the site would not be able to deliver the requested information at all - fair enough - tick the box for those, plus a whole bunch of others - which other websites are used, or which data is tracked etc. Fascinating - and paranoid people should shut virtually all of those off. How many people are going to bother? Not many!

    Things are getting needlessly complicated, but for whose benefit?
    By coincidence I had this very experience this morning while accessing a link from a cam registering real time views of huge waves breaking on a Devon coast. I was informed I would not be able to access the link without clicking my agreement to its cookies. However, I just clicked the requirement off the window beneath, to reveal the cam view in full working reality.

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    • Dave2002
      Full Member
      • Dec 2010
      • 18045

      #3
      Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View Post
      By coincidence I had this very experience this morning while accessing a link from a cam registering real time views of huge waves breaking on a Devon coast. I was informed I would not be able to access the link without clicking my agreement to its cookies. However, I just clicked the requirement off the window beneath, to reveal the cam view in full working reality.
      Indeed. It's not really a big problem for just one site, but when every site seems to be doing this the extra clicks required plus ... do slow one down. The other thing is that you may have given details of your location and a whole lot of extra data away to a site which could be misused, when all you wanted to do (presumably) was to admire the sea in action.

      I'll come back about the "extra information" in a while.

      Comment

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