alt Hacker News>This is a personal decision to be made by the data "donor".
My problem is that users cannot make this personal decision based on the cookie consent banners because all sites have to request this consent even if they do exactly what they should be doing in their users' interest. There's no useful signal in this noise.
The worst data harvesters look exactly the same as a site that does basic traffic analysis for basic usability purposes.
The law makes it easy for the worst offenders to hide behind everyone else. That's why I'm calling it counterproductive.
[Edit] Wrt NHS specifically - this is a case in point. They use some tools to analyse traffic in order to improve their website. If they honour their own privacy policy, they will have configured those tools accordingly.
I understand that this can still be criticised from various angles. But is this criticism worth destroying the effectiveness of the law and burying far more important distinctions?
The law makes the NHS and Daily Mail look exactly the same to users as far as privacy and data protection is concered. This is completely misleading, don't you think?
Replies
> even if they do exactly what they should be doing in their users' interest
If they only do this, they don't need to show anything.
I don't think it's too misleading, because in the absence of any other information, they are the same.
What you could then add to this system is a certification scheme to permit implicit consent of all the data handling (including who you hand it off to and what they are allowed to do with it, as well as whether they have demonstrated themselves to be trustworthy) is audited to be compliant with some more stringent requirements. It could even be self-certification along the lines of CE marking. But that requires strict enforcement, and the national regulators so far have been a bunch of wet blankets.
That actually would encourage organisations to find ways to get the information they want without violating the privacy of their users and anyone else who strays into their digital properties.