[thepossum]

Hi all

My title is fairly self-explanatory and not requiring of an article. However since the introduction of the EU Cookie Law and the requirement to constantly click on "Accept Cookie" messages (or for web developers to add unnecessary warning code to thwir sites) I am now a strong supporter of Brexit.

Is there really a human left on the planet who doesn't know about cookies

regards P

[Vampyr]

thepossum, on 2019-October-15, 15:26, said:

Hi all

My title is fairly self-explanatory and not requiring of an article. However since the introduction of the EU Cookie Law and the requirement to constantly click on "Accept Cookie" messages (or for web developers to add unnecessary warning code to thwir sites) I am now a strong supporter of Brexit.

Is there really a human left on the planet who doesn't know about cookies

regards P

There is no reason to think that the UK will not retain this law after leaving the EU.

[helene_t]

I agree it is ridiculous.

You can probably find another 100 or so examples of ridiculous EU laws.

If UK politicians have saner ideas about cookies and other ridiculous EU laws, it may be a good idea to stay in the EU and exercise influence on laws which UK based organizations will have to comply with anyway if they want to operate in the EU.

I am not sure if UK laws are generally less ridiculous than EU laws, though.

[Zelandakh]

Are you then also a supporter of websites surreptitiously applying cookies to visiting computers and using them to obtain browsing data and personal information? Not to mention the fact that cookies are one of the most popular payload delivery systems for malware. These are, inter alia, the issues that the EU was trying to address in its regulations so if you are going to criticise, the least you can do is either provide an alternative solution or to declare your support for the previous regulations and their inevitable consequences.

[DaveRolyat]

My website has:

A privacy statement
A copyright disclaimer
Freedom of information statement
An accessibility statement
A statement of modern slavery
A cookie policy

And maybe some actual content somewhere, but i can't find it............

[Cyberyeti]

Zelandakh, on 2019-October-16, 03:04, said:

Are you then also a supporter of websites surreptitiously applying cookies to visiting computers and using them to obtain browsing data and personal information? Not to mention the fact that cookies are one of the most popular payload delivery systems for malware. These are, inter alia, the issues that the EU was trying to address in its regulations so if you are going to criticise, the least you can do is either provide an alternative solution or to declare your support for the previous regulations and their inevitable consequences.

And how does this measure combat this ? almost every website uses cookies and marks some as essential without which you can't use the site, guess where the malware/trawling goes.

[Zelandakh]

Cyberyeti, on 2019-October-16, 05:22, said:

And how does this measure combat this ? almost every website uses cookies and marks some as essential without which you can't use the site, guess where the malware/trawling goes.

Quite surprised you should ask this CY. It helps in several ways. First, and most importantly, it makes the information collection explicit, meaning that even non-technical people, which is the majority of internet users these days, get some sort of basic understanding of what is going on. In truth, the Eu regulations do not go nearly far enough for this group to get a full understanding but, as per the OP, the regulators understand that there is a limit as to how far it is possible to go to keep users informed without making the product itself unusable. The rules also limit what data can be collected from marketing cookies to some degree, limit how long the data can be held and give every user the right to ask for and receive all information being held in their name and have unnecessary data deleted in a timely fashion.

Moreover from a purely practical standpoint, the new rules do make some things simpler. Where in the past one either had to set the internet security level artificially high and manually add exceptions, keep security on medium and manually delete cookies after each visit or use a third-party software system to bypass tracking, it is now possible to have security on medium and use the preferences system to allow only what is wanted or, for sites where you do not want to be tracked or do not trust the site owner, to decline completely. In many cases it is possible to use a site such as Outline to bypass the data collection for a given site.

Interestingly, and coincidentally or not, during the time when the rules changed the hackers almost completely abandoned the ransomware that was the malware of choice at the time and moved over to malware attacks based around cryptocurrency and primarily against business rather than individuals. My understanding is that the payload delivers of choice against individuals has also changed radically, with email drops increasing to the point of almost completely replacing the section of the "market" that was previously occupied by cookies. Instead of seeing cookies as a potential entryway into computers, the hackers seem to be more interested in harvesting the information, with one of the major malware threats adding a specialist cookie collection module a few months ago.

From my point of view, as an internet user not running a business, these developments represent a positive result. I can easily understand a business owner having to maintain a website and database following the new rules having a different perspective.

[Cyberyeti]

Zelandakh, on 2019-October-16, 06:08, said:

Quite surprised you should ask this CY. It helps in several ways. First, and most importantly, it makes the information collection explicit, meaning that even non-technical people, which is the majority of internet users these days, get some sort of basic understanding of what is going on. In truth, the Eu regulations do not go nearly far enough for this group to get a full understanding but, as per the OP, the regulators understand that there is a limit as to how far it is possible to go to keep users informed without making the product itself unusable. The rules also limit what data can be collected from marketing cookies to some degree, limit how long the data can be held and give every user the right to ask for and receive all information being held in their name and have unnecessary data deleted in a timely fashion.

Moreover from a purely practical standpoint, the new rules do make some things simpler. Where in the past one either had to set the internet security level artificially high and manually add exceptions, keep security on medium and manually delete cookies after each visit or use a third-party software system to bypass tracking, it is now possible to have security on medium and use the preferences system to allow only what is wanted or, for sites where you do not want to be tracked or do not trust the site owner, to decline completely. In many cases it is possible to use a site such as Outline to bypass the data collection for a given site.

Interestingly, and coincidentally or not, during the time when the rules changed the hackers almost completely abandoned the ransomware that was the malware of choice at the time and moved over to malware attacks based around cryptocurrency and primarily against business rather than individuals. My understanding is that the payload delivers of choice against individuals has also changed radically, with email drops increasing to the point of almost completely replacing the section of the "market" that was previously occupied by cookies. Instead of seeing cookies as a potential entryway into computers, the hackers seem to be more interested in harvesting the information, with one of the major malware threats adding a specialist cookie collection module a few months ago.

From my point of view, as an internet user not running a business, these developments represent a positive result. I can easily understand a business owner having to maintain a website and database following the new rules having a different perspective.

All it seems to do is that if you want to change your preferences to turn most of the cookies off, you get asked again for your cookie preferences next time you log in to the site, and some of the mechanisms for setting this go to third party sites which I'm sure deliberately take minutes to register those preferences.

And any badguys still using this method will include the malware or tracking in the "cookies without which the site won't operate" so it only really affects the law abiding anyway.

If you think manually deleting cookies is simple enough for most people you are wrong, most people have no idea how to do this.

[Zelandakh]

Cyberyeti, on 2019-October-16, 07:10, said:

All it seems to do is that if you want to change your preferences to turn most of the cookies off, you get asked again for your cookie preferences next time you log in to the site, and some of the mechanisms for setting this go to third party sites which I'm sure deliberately take minutes to register those preferences.

The action depends upon how you choose to browse the internet. If you use your browser's private/incognito mode, or set general internet security very high, web sites cannot save their highest level cookies to keep track of your preferences, meaning that you will get the default privacy settings every time you return to the site. If you use a basic browser with default settings then the site preferences will be stored meaning that you only have to turn off the optional marketing cookies once and they will remain off when you use the site a second time.

Cyberyeti, on 2019-October-16, 07:10, said:

And any badguys still using this method will include the malware or tracking in the "cookies without which the site won't operate" so it only really affects the law abiding anyway.

The cookie payload delivery method is quite complex in the way it works. Getting an infected cookie loaded on to a PC is only the first part of the chain. Without a trigger it will remain there dormant without any negative effects. What typically happens next is that a web site uses another security loophole, such as using scripts to overload a memory buffer or a weakness in a common software system such as Flash, in order to be able to access the cookie and execute it, which is where the malware actually becomes active.

Now there are some cookie-operated systems that shade the grey area between malware and marketing such as Taloola. Under the old rules they could be loaded legally without consent; under the new rules they have to be set into the optional cookie section and the company behind the ads could be taken to court if they were to load their software in the aggressive way that was the norm a few years ago.

Cyberyeti, on 2019-October-16, 07:10, said:

If you think manually deleting cookies is simple enough for most people you are wrong, most people have no idea how to do this.

That was essentially my point. Deleting cookies was a way of handling security under the old rules if you wanted your default behaviour to be acceptance and only occasionally visited a site where you would be unhappy about the cookies remaining on the computer. It was considerably safer, and in most cases preferable, to do the reverse - set security to high and manually add exceptions for sites where you would accept cookies - but the level of effort required for that was certainly higher than the current system.

At present, typically the only time I remove cookies is when I get corruption causing a web site not to function correctly. In that case deleting the meta data for a site will usually fix the problem immediately.

[FelicityR]

EU Chocolate Cookie Law: ah, that one determining the size and shape of aforementioned said cookies, the origin of the individual ingredients, whether organic or otherwise, the number, size and origin of the chocolate pieces, and the environmental impact of both the packaging to wrap the cookies and the packaging to contain a number of wrapped cookies, i.e a cardboard box (recycled or otherwise) or plastic bag (biodegradable or non-degradable) and the nutritional content displayed concisely on the side for each individual cookie or for 100g of cookies (should you have a particular food fetish for chocolate cookies), and the E numbers for every additive used to make the cookies, etc, etc, etc.

And you thought this sort of nonsense was just reserved for computer cookies? Goodness knows how we survived as a race before the EU came up with all this unnecessary bureaucracy. I come from an era where butchers still hung freshly-killed dead pheasants from hooks outside their shops without refrigeration!

[DozyDom]

FelicityR, on 2019-October-16, 08:52, said:

EU Chocolate Cookie Law: ah, that one determining the size and shape of aforementioned said cookies, the origin of the individual ingredients, whether organic or otherwise, the number, size and origin of the chocolate pieces, and the environmental impact of both the packaging to wrap the cookies and the packaging to contain a number of wrapped cookies, i.e a cardboard box (recycled or otherwise) or plastic bag (biodegradable or non-degradable) and the nutritional content displayed concisely on the side for each individual cookie or for 100g of cookies (should you have a particular food fetish for chocolate cookies), and the E numbers for every additive used to make the cookies, etc, etc, etc.

And you thought this sort of nonsense was just reserved for computer cookies? Goodness knows how we survived as a race before the EU came up with all this unnecessary bureaucracy. I come from an era where butchers still hung freshly-killed dead pheasants from hooks outside their shops without refrigeration!

Do you really want no regulation of food? Let's go through the factors you mention.
Size and shape? There's no such regulation.
The origin of the ingredients? The specific location is usually not useful, but it's extremely helpful if I actually want to know (for example, if I'm someone who wants to buy British produce as often as possible) or if I want to rule out it being produced in countries where child labour or modern slavery are major possibilities. Note those will usually be non-EU nations - as noted helpfully by Dave below, the EU takes modern slavery extremely seriously.
Organic? Pretty sure you're joking there.
Environmental impact and packaging? Again, a joke. I don't have a problem with that - lists padded with humour are great, it's just when it comes to EU regulations the rest of the lists tend to make little sense either.
Nutritional content? Gosh, imagine wanting to know what you're eating!
E-numbers? Wow, imagine needing to know the additives in your food! Stuff the sausages with sawdust and rat poison, Ma, it's my favourite!


When you actually look at the regulations which apply to our food, they're usually perfectly reasonable. When you look even harder, we usually either made the regulations ourselves, or had an input into their development by the EU.

[FelicityR]

DozyDom, on 2019-October-16, 10:07, said:

Do you really want no regulation of food? Let's go through the factors you mention.
Size and shape? There's no such regulation.
The origin of the ingredients? The specific location is usually not useful, but it's extremely helpful if I actually want to know (for example, if I'm someone who wants to buy British produce as often as possible) or if I want to rule out it being produced in countries where child labour or modern slavery are major possibilities. Note those will usually be non-EU nations - as noted helpfully by Dave below, the EU takes modern slavery extremely seriously.
Organic? Pretty sure you're joking there.
Environmental impact and packaging? Again, a joke. I don't have a problem with that - lists padded with humour are great, it's just when it comes to EU regulations the rest of the lists tend to make little sense either.
Nutritional content? Gosh, imagine wanting to know what you're eating!
E-numbers? Wow, imagine needing to know the additives in your food! Stuff the sausages with sawdust and rat poison, Ma, it's my favourite!


When you actually look at the regulations which apply to our food, they're usually perfectly reasonable. When you look even harder, we usually either made the regulations ourselves, or had an input into their development by the EU.

The point I was jokingly, albeit sardonically, I was making was that the EU has to make a law or directive for just about everything, whether it is needed or not.

My Liberal friend was so annoyed when Bombay Duck was banned that he voted to Leave the EU. Yes, extreme in the least, but a way of saying that the EU has better things to concern itself with. It was not the source of the salmonella poisoning mentioned below.

At one time, 13 tonnes of Bombay duck were eaten in the UK each year. Following the discovery of a batch of imported seafood contaminated by Salmonella in 1996, the European Commission (EC) prohibited fish imports from India other than from approved freezing and canning factories. As Bombay duck is not produced in a factory, this had the unintended consequence of banning the import of Bombay duck. After a campaign to "Save Bombay Duck", the Indian High Commission approached the EC about the ban, and the EC adjusted its regulations so that the fish can still be dried in the open air, but has to be packed in an "EC approved" packing station. A Birmingham wholesale merchant located a packing source in Mumbai, and the product became available again.

And how many lawyers and legal people work in and for the EU? I don't know an exact number myself, but there's plenty of legal people creating every more mountains of red tape and bureaucracy to justify their jobs. It's a vicious circle.

[helene_t]

FelicityR, on 2019-October-16, 19:12, said:

And how many lawyers and legal people work in and for the EU? I don't know an exact number myself, but there's plenty of legal people creating every more mountains of red tape and bureaucracy to justify their jobs. It's a vicious circle.

I don't think it is realistic to expect the EU to be able to to its job without a fair number of bureaucrats.

You can compare the size of the EU bureacracy to that of the British civil service here:

https://europa.eu/eu...ministration_en

https://www.ons.gov....ted%20overseas.

Apparently there's about 43000 people working for the EU administration and about 10 times as many UK civil servants.

Now I am not sure how fair it is to compare those two numbers: they have of course very different tasks, and maybe EU has relatively many people working for subcontractors?

[PeterAlan]

FelicityR, on 2019-October-16, 19:12, said:

The point I was jokingly, albeit sardonically, I was making was that the EU has to make a law or directive for just about everything, whether it is needed or not.
...
And how many lawyers and legal people work in and for the EU? I don't know an exact number myself, but there's plenty of legal people creating every more mountains of red tape and bureaucracy to justify their jobs. It's a vicious circle.

You sound like the Daily Express. Do you have any evidence whatsoever for these sweeping assertions?

[Zelandakh]

FelicityR, on 2019-October-16, 19:12, said:

At one time, 13 tonnes of Bombay duck were eaten in the UK each year. Following the discovery of a batch of imported seafood contaminated by Salmonella in 1996, the European Commission (EC) prohibited fish imports from India other than from approved freezing and canning factories. As Bombay duck is not produced in a factory, this had the unintended consequence of banning the import of Bombay duck. After a campaign to "Save Bombay Duck", the Indian High Commission approached the EC about the ban, and the EC adjusted its regulations so that the fish can still be dried in the open air, but has to be packed in an "EC approved" packing station. A Birmingham wholesale merchant located a packing source in Mumbai, and the product became available again.

Funny that you read this story and focus on the ban as an unacceptable negative and I read it and see an organisation reacting to unintended results of regulation and then taking the steps to fix the regulation. To me that suggests a reactive and successful bureaucracy. When I look at national level laws with such unintended consequences they typically seem to be fixed in a much less efficient manner. In an organisation made up of so many different governments, that level of reactiveness is fairly remarkable.

FelicityR, on 2019-October-16, 19:12, said:

And how many lawyers and legal people work in and for the EU? I don't know an exact number myself, but there's plenty of legal people creating every more mountains of red tape and bureaucracy to justify their jobs. It's a vicious circle.

I may be wrong here but I would be surprised if the EU does not have the lowest number of civil servants/bureaucrats per capita of any developed nation or federation of nations. The EU employs around 46000 people; the British civil service is 430000. London alone has over 83000 and Northern Ireland has a whopping 14.4 civil servants per 1000 residents. The popular narrative of endless streams of EU bureaucrats doing whatever they want without oversight is a pure fiction sold by people of influence with an agenda. I would hope that anyone taking part in a debate of this nature would be too well informed to fall for such an obvious fallacy.

[Cyberyeti]

Zelandakh, on 2019-October-17, 03:04, said:

I may be wrong here but I would be surprised if the EU does not have the lowest number of civil servants/bureaucrats per capita of any developed nation or federation of nations. The EU employs around 46000 people; the British civil service is 430000. London alone has over 83000 and Norther Ireland has a whopping 14.4 civil servants per 1000 residents. The popular narrative of endless streams of EU bureaucrats doing whatever they want without oversight is a pure fiction sold by people of influence with an agenda. I would hope that anyone taking part in a debate of this nature would be too well informed to fall for such an obvious fallacy.

This one is almost impossible to calculate, how many of those British civil servants are actually only needed because of EU membership ? All the ones that work on VAT as a small example. The EU doesn't employ very many, but causes an awful lot to be employed.

[Zelandakh]

Cyberyeti, on 2019-October-17, 03:15, said:

This one is almost impossible to calculate, how many of those British civil servants are actually only needed because of EU membership ? All the ones that work on VAT as a small example. The EU doesn't employ very many, but causes an awful lot to be employed.

Do you seriously expect the UK to abolish VAT should Brexit actually take place? My expectation is that VAT will continue to be an increasing share of the tax intake over time regardless of whether the UK is in or out. Similarly, any bureaucrats currently employed to enforce EU regulations will almost certainly by reassigned after any Brexit to ensuring as little friction in trade with the EU as possible. It is quite likely that more will be required rather than less as there may over time be different regulations across the border, which may well end up causing additional difficulties and therefore requiring additional bureaucratic support.

Unless you want to stop trading with the EU completely of course. In that case you would be completely correct and many of those 430000 are completely unnecessary.

[FelicityR]

PeterAlan, on 2019-October-16, 20:20, said:

You sound like the Daily Express. Do you have any evidence whatsoever for these sweeping assertions?

God forbid! I would never read that rag!

Zelandakh: I may be wrong here but I would be surprised if the EU does not have the lowest number of civil servants/bureaucrats per capita of any developed nation or federation of nations. The EU employs around 46000 people; the British civil service is 430000. London alone has over 83000 and Norther Ireland has a whopping 14.4 civil servants per 1000 residents. The popular narrative of endless streams of EU bureaucrats doing whatever they want without oversight is a pure fiction sold by people of influence with an agenda. I would hope that anyone taking part in a debate of this nature would be too well informed to fall for such an obvious fallacy.

So how much does it cost to keep this superfluous EU layer of extra bureaucracy afloat? And how much do the grand buildings In Brussels, Strasbourg, Luxembourg, and elsewhere cost to build and run? And how much do these bureaucrats and their MPs cost us in wages, pensions, expenses, legal fees, etc....

When you compare what EU civil servants get paid, their gold plated pension benefits - I used to work for the British Civil Service for 12 years before working for the NHS and get a mere fraction of the 70% final salary pension that EU employees get - I feel that you cannot compare like to like.

Yes, we all know that the British Civil service is a bloated organisation fond of its own red tape and bureaucracy, but surely we can make our own rules in this country?

[Cyberyeti]

Zelandakh, on 2019-October-17, 03:27, said:

Do you seriously expect the UK to abolish VAT should Brexit actually take place? My expectation is that VAT will continue to be an increasing share of the tax intake over time regardless of whether the UK is in or out. Similarly, any bureaucrats currently employed to enforce EU regulations will almost certainly by reassigned after any Brexit to ensuring as little friction in trade with the EU as possible. It is quite likely that more will be required rather than less as there may over time be different regulations across the border, which may well end up causing additional difficulties and therefore requiring additional bureaucratic support.

Unless you want to stop trading with the EU completely of course. In that case you would be completely correct and many of those 430000 are completely unnecessary.

No, but I'm saying it wouldn't have existed if we hadn't been in the EU

Purchase tax did exist before that, but my memory is quite hazy (I was around 8 when we joined), and I seem to remember an awful lot of hiring of civil servants around the time of us joining.

[cherdano]

Cyberyeti, on 2019-October-17, 03:44, said:

No, but I'm saying it wouldn't have existed if we hadn't been in the EU

So you think the influence of the EU was a good thing, then? Or do you claim to have superior knowledge on economics compared to the vast majority of economists who consider VAT one of the most efficient (technical term) forms of taxation?

Personally I have a higher opinion of the UK government as a whole than you on this- I think it would have gotten around to introducing VAT at some point, due to its undeniable clear benefits. Don't get me wrong, there is plenty I hate about how the UK is governed, but I still find that in many it ends up being fairly smart and practical.