Comment by blantonl
16 days ago
It surfaces which websites use stronger tactics to track you, and which allow consumer friendly opt-outs.
The problem is I didn't see a single web site that I visited where this was apparent. It was a mess of opt-in pop-ups and settings and whatnot that completely overwhelmed me with actionable things I had to do before I could interact with a site, and often many companies clearly just said F it and blocked anyone from Europe.
It becomes apparent after a while. Generally, the websites that have very intrusive pop-ups or no real way to opt-out of associating cookies with personally identifiable information (that is what the notice is for) present themselves as information abusers, and that is a very important signal. I have very low trust that they respect privacy or have it as a value in their business. So it's good to know I shouldn't use their services nor hand over any personal data.
Some websites have become region-locked, but I found that it's mostly those who cater to American audiences anyways. Perhaps if you travelled to Europe, this was more of a problem for you because you wanted to read the local news back home. For us, back home is here, so local American websites region-locking us out isn't a big inconvenience. They probably only do this if European audiences don't make up much of their readership anyways — they wouldn't want to lose significant ad revenue.