The GDPR, in Europe and the CCPA, in California, are there to protect the privacy of users online, and require websites to clearly state what uses of cookies they make. However, these pop-ups, which are everywhere, often turn online surfing into a hell of validation and revalidation. Worse, they are regularly designed so that Internet users give their consent out of spite or to finally be able to see the desired content. These methods are not called dark patterns for nothing… Moreover, the French Cnil imposed a fine of 150 million euros on Google and 60 million on Facebook, last January, because it was easier to ‘accept all cookies than reject them.
CookieEnforcer: he’s the law!
In short, you are not the only ones to have noted these abuses. Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Google engineers made the same observation and decided to find a solution. This project, called CookieEnforcer, has a simple objective: to automate the validation of the choices offered so that your privacy is respected. In addition to respecting the rights of Internet users, it is therefore also a good way to avoid the twelve clicks necessary, on average – according to the researchers, to overcome these windows of consent.
For the software to be able to respond correctly to these messages, the forms of which obviously vary greatly from site to site, the team turned to machine learning in order to take the full measure of the enemy. Once it has been trained to deal with the different types of window layouts, the software works in three stages.
First, when you visit a website, the algorithm detects the location of the cookie notification. Then it will simulate the user’s mouse action and map the text inputs to the actions they correspond to. Finally, it performs the actions necessary to deactivate non-essential and necessary cookies.
A dream ! Even better, CookieEnforcer does all of this in the background, without the user noticing.
Promising, but not for now
To test and use its tool as easily as possible, the CookieEnforcer team decided to integrate it into a Chrome extension, which is able to inject the necessary JavaScript elements into the HTML code of each domain. The researchers were pleased to note that their small program is effective in 91% of cases when it was confronted with more than 500 sites appearing among the most visited references of the Tranco ranking.
A few of these domains could not be processed by the extension because they use prohibited practices, such as placing the cookie notification in a special part of the site or blocking automated tools.
Nevertheless, despite these few hiccups, these results leave room for hope. We will finally be able to find a smooth surf, without having to worry about our personal data… However, we will still have to be patient. The extension is not available, the researchers indicating that they are working on developing it for the general public. No doubt they seek to broaden the spectrum of the sites concerned, those targeted for the moment are in English, mainly American and British.
The members of the CookieEnforcer team therefore do not give a date for the availability of their tool… Come on, be patient, 12 clicks on average, that’s two less than the 14 stations of a famous Stations of the Cross!
Source : The Register