from Hacker News

GDPR complaints against Google’s deceptive practices to track user location

by onuralp on 11/27/18, 12:12 PM with 21 comments

• by petilon on 11/27/18, 3:44 PM

  Speaking of deceptive practices, has anyone noticed that Chrome's "Allow Chrome sign-in" option does not do anything? Regardless of the state of this option, when you sign into Gmail, you are also signing into Chrome.

  This option for disabling unintended signing in into the browser was promised after there was a major brouhaha on Hacker News. Google added the button as promised... except it doesn't do anything. Very disturbing.

• by fmajid on 11/27/18, 3:13 PM

  Good. Dark patterns are explicitly forbidden by the GDPR.

• by afpx on 11/27/18, 5:29 PM

  The fact that politically-motivated HN users can downvote legitimate comments to the point where they become hidden (basically squelching alternative views) is also deceptive. It makes it appear that everyone is all for GDPR

• by afpx on 11/27/18, 2:46 PM

  I hope all the anti-regulation people (libertarians) will be able to kill these laws. GDPR (and similar laws in debate) have way too broad of power, and really, privacy should be solved at the individual/company contract level.

  The real root of the problem is that EULAs and privacy terms aren’t usually clear, and many users are uneducated about how contracts work and what they actually mean. Plus, it’s too easy for users to click through a EULA without knowing that they’re signing their privacy away.

  I think people really underestimate how much progress in software has been indirectly funded by these ‘free’ services. And, we all know that few people want to actually ‘pay’ for their internet usage. The indirect subsidies by the adtech industry pay most of our salaries, although many try to deny it.