this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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Thanks Komonews for going with this shitty tactic (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by Trilogy3452 to c/seattle
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Komonews now apparently does this crap where it needs to "process" your cookie opt-out, at least on mobile.

Any alternative news sources you'd recommend to follow? Just for stuff like weather or big events.

If you're unfamiliar with this tactic, when you click "opt-out" the webpage basically displays this widget with a loading bar saying it needs to "process" your request. When in reality you're asking them to simply not use cookies, so it's saving the web browser time by not installing any cookies.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago

This is extremely dangerous to our democracy

Fuck Komo.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Pretty sure this is actually fraud. Trying to trick someone into abandon their rights by lying ist fraud right?

[–] Agent641 15 points 1 year ago

Its not illegal for websites to waste your time. For example, Reddit

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is America and KOMO/Sinclair is an American company, serving American users. What "rights" do you think you are being tricked out of? You don't have a right to not be tracked.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

You found the European.

[–] Potatos_are_not_friends 19 points 1 year ago

Absolutely bullshit.

Engineer here who implements cookie scripts, cookie banners, etc.

1 or 2 seconds tops is how long it takes to wipe cookies that a site leaves behind. Half of that to ensure that future cookies aren't generated.

I've seen some real shitty systems in my life. This is literally impossible to create a system that requires a long processing time accidentally.

This is active maliciousness to users.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Note the logo on the status window there: TrustArc.

A little searching for that company shows that this dark pattern is effectively a feature of their service. Twitter user "pixelscript" dug into their javascript a bit to find the cause of the delay. It turns out that, as you may have guessed, this isn't any kind of asynchronous callback pause waiting on the remote server to do something. It's just a self-imposed client side delay; because they feel like making you wait.

Original post: https://twitter.com/pixelscript/status/1436664488913215490/photo/1

Screenshot (from Starbucks' implementation)

Moral of the story: do not patronize businesses with hostile relationships with their customers.

[–] Urbanfox 6 points 1 year ago

TrustArc is website cancer.

Accept and they're gone in an instant, reject and they make it fucking annoying..

I reviewed them as part of an RFP exercise to implement a cookie tool, and was shocked at their practices.

[–] damnthefilibuster 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Does running the Kill Sticky script on the site remove the shitty overlay?

https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/f8c11eacccd24c2581f69de8ab87775d

[–] Trilogy3452 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Looks like uBlock Origin Zap Mode works. I just never realized you can do that on mobile (on Fennec, basically Firefox). Thanks for reminding me of that!

[–] Whirlwindwanderer 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I tried it and have the problem that I can get into the mode and select stuff but then I'm stuck in it because I nowhere can confirm the selection on mobile. Anyone knowing a solution?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yesss this! I hate it because of this and I am commenting in the hope someone knows a solution.

[–] Trilogy3452 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

My lord and saviour, thank you!!

[–] Trilogy3452 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah sorry I should've clarified - it works but I have to read the article in Zap Mode, being very carefully not to click twice on anything.

Unless you meant the othermethod the other person mentioned - in that case disregard what I said.

[–] zarlin 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Check Reuters for a good unbiased source of news. Its actually what a lot of other news outlets use as their source.

[–] Trilogy3452 2 points 1 year ago

Thanks!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

pro tip: they still leave cookies, even when you "opt out". You're American, you don't have a right to not be tracked. Use Firefox Focus, purge your cookies regularly.

[–] Trilogy3452 1 points 1 year ago

Using Fennec and I've turned on data deletion as soon as I close the app/all my tabs (almost hourly)

[–] Anamnesis 4 points 1 year ago

No bro, cookie settings are like, so CPU intensive. Always takes my 7800x3d twenty minutes to crank through all that code.