Used to laugh at those privacy settings popups, now I read every single one

I used to just blast through those cookie consent banners and privacy notices like they were a roadblock to getting to a website. Hit accept on everything without looking for years. Then last year I got a spam call from someone who knew exactly what brand of dishwasher I bought 3 weeks earlier from some random online store. That freaked me out enough to start actually reading what I was agreeing to. Now I take the extra 30 seconds to hit decline or customize settings every time, even if it means clicking through 3 more screens. Its wild how many sites just straight up lie about what data they collect when you dig into the fine print. My brother thinks Im paranoid but he also got a targeted ad for a breakup book 2 days after his ex moved out. Does anyone else actually read those things or am I just wasting my time now?

3 comments

3 Comments

paulw8725d ago

Started doing the same thing after my neighbor got his facebook info scraped by some random quiz app. Now I just decline everything and if the site blocks me I go somewhere else. Feels like half the time the customize buttons don't even work right though.

victorb7425d ago

You ever read one of those articles about how those cookie popups are actually designed to trick you into clicking accept... I saw this thing that said some companies make the decline button gray and tiny on purpose so you just give up and hit the big blue button. It's wild how much effort they put into making it hard to say no. Meanwhile the customize thing is broken half the time or takes you to a page with 50 toggles already set to on. Feels like a game where the house always wins.

johnson.jesse11h ago

Yeah I saw a video about that, the whole thing is designed to wear you down so you just click the easy button. Dark patterns they call it, pretty scummy.