Friday, June 3, 2016

Hello European Union!

Got this message on my Blogspot dashboard:

"European Union laws require you to give European Union visitors information about cookies used on your blog. In many cases, these laws also require you to obtain consent. 
As a courtesy, we have added a notice on your blog to explain Google's use of certain Blogger and Google cookies, including use of Google Analytics and AdSense cookies.

You are responsible for confirming this notice actually works for your blog, and that it displays. If you employ other cookies, for example by adding third party features, this notice may not work for you. Learn more about this notice and your responsibilities.
Dismiss this notification
Your HTTPS settings have changed. All visitors are now able to view your blog over an encrypted connection by visitinghttps://lookingbacktowardthefuture.blogspot.com. Existing links and bookmarks to your blog will continue to work. Learn more.

So I have several new duties on my plate because of this.

#1 Kudos to Europe to try and obtain transparency towards cookies, spam, and other crap websites and blogs can unleash unto their viewers. Sometimes wish the U.S. would follow suite. 

#2 NO IDEA how to tell if I have cookies, spam, or any of that on here. Blogger does a good job already providing a built in statistic analysis of pages viewed/ most popular posts. In fact Weebly.com, the web development site I use for my webpages ALSO has those built-in analytics provided. Not sure if they cause cookies with that stuff, but I'm pretty sure they don't. 

#3 NO WAY of knowing if your "notice" appears on my blog anywhere. Don't know where it would. One of the reasons I'm posting about it here. 

#4 No Idea if the notice is actually working since as noted in #3 No Way of knowing where it even IS on my blog. 

In conclusion, I agree with your valiant efforts to decrease cookies and spam, but think your "notice" approach might be pretty ineffective. The internet is a sea of cookies and spam crap that slowly and secretly accumulates inevitably on your computer. That's why you're suppose to have it de-fragged and de-cookied every once in a while -like changing the oil in your car. 

There's no real way to stop the spam/cookies entirely. Providing a notice on websites that says, "This site probably has cookies or spam on it because it exists on the internet" might not be the best way to go. It's kind of like placing a notice that says, "The sky is blue and this is a blog post". 

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