Cooking the cookies
Once again, I find myself in breach of the law.
[*pauses for a deep sigh*]
It has become almost impossible these days to live a normal life without breaching some niggling petty little law or other. We live in a time obsessed by laws.
This latest heinous crime of mine involves this site. Apparently I am in breach of some little law requiring me to ask you lot how you want to deal with my cookies. And no, I’m not asking how you like your biscuits served, or indeed anything to do with sugar levels, sustainability or ingredients. This is a Jamie Oliver Free site.
Cookies are harmless little yokes, or at least they are on this place. They provide me with such scurrilous information as to whether you visited a page or not. Despite what the EU thinks, they don’t give me sufficient details to allow a nuclear missile strike on your humble abode, though they do sometimes get your country right [but not always]. They also tell you whether you have visited before, just in case you might have forgotten.
Obviously the hundreds of lawyers, barristers and other dust-covered law makers in Brussels found themselves at a loose end one day and cast around to find some innocent little corner of life that they hadn’t buried under reams of clauses and paragraphs [not to mention sub-paragraphs] whereupon they discovered the innocent little cookie. They buried it.
In essence, by law I am supposed to ask your permission for my site to write a minuscule bit of code to your browser. Frankly I haven’t bothered for two reasons. The first is that my site’s cookies are harmless. They don’t allow me to target advertising, or indeed nuclear missiles at you. The second is that I hate those ubiquitous little pop-up thingies asking about cookies and I am assuming that you lot are of a similar persuasion.
I suppose I could write a little pop-up thingie to ask you whether you want me to install a little pop-up thingie to ask whether you want cookies or not?
No. I thought not.
I would have the odd scone, if offered.
Plain or fruit?
If you have the time, fruit.
Kiwi, I should think.
Please, PLEASE no pop-ups – I hate the stupid things with a vengeance. As nearly all sites ask now and force you to make an extra click (only know one site where the owner was able to program the pop-up in such a way that it simply vanishes as soon as you scroll), and nearly all sites only leave you the option between agreeing or buggering off altogether, they're ultimately meaningless and only a nuisance. As superfluous as a … cookies pop-up?
Dear Grandad
I despise the demands to agree to cookies. I assume that any site I visit has my interests at heart. If I discover that they don't I never go back. Clicking on a button to agree or otherwise to cookies wouldn't alter that one jot. Those sites that insist that I click before I am allowed to proceed, I simply Ctrl a / Ctrl c / Ctrl v into Wordpad, then close the site and read the text of the article. I may lose some images, but I am spared all their adverts, especially videos, which slow down my ancient laptop. On some sites I have to Ctrl a / Ctrl c quickly or it doesn't work, others have disabled copying completely. So what? I just go elsewhere for information – Mr Duck is my friend.
The cookie demand reminds me of the websites in the olden days which took minutes to load a button with the legend 'click here to enter site', or worse, download a video over a dial-up modem, then ask if I would like to skip it. My policy then, as now, was to quit the site and never go back. All sites seem to have stopped doing it, so my policy obviously worked. I hope that after a few decades the Daily Wail etc will eventually get the hint and have a discreet notice which I can ignore. Better yet, they may notice we are no longer in the EU so won't need such stupidity.
DP
I'm with you Grampa.
The "cookie" boxes seem to be getting bigger and bigger.
And the "I do not mind your cookies but just let me get on with what I would like to read" tick box is sometimes hard to find.
I read blogs on a pad, Amazon Fire, and the " Show in reading view" option is a boon, especially on some newspaper sites where as well as the cookie pass they have pos popping up, and down as well as in from either side, some with sound.
So Grandfather you have my perpetual permission to shower me with cookies. So don't ask again.
I couldn't care less whether or not I have to click an 'accept cookie' box. A site is going to install a cookie anyway. I doubt you're going to some EU prison or be fined lots of money for not being 'compliant', Grandad. When we're you ever compliant about anything anyway? 😉
I use Firefox with pop-ups disabled. Two of the add-ons I use are "uBlock Origin" and "Facebook Container". The latter block any attempt by a site to pass info to Farcebook, and you'd be surprised how often it comes into play.
Cookie warnings are worse than a dose of crabs. I either ignore them or leave the site without going any further.
Hi Grandad,
I hate these banners et al that ask about cookies. Very irritating. I'm glad you don't have one.