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Communications The Internet Technology

Opinion: 5G Has an Exciting Future When It Comes To Dedicated Mobile Apps But Will Do Little To Improve Our General Browsing Experiences. (zdnet.com) 95

Posted by msmash from the between-the-lines dept.
Charlie Osborne, writing for ZDNet: However, there is a problem that no-one is talking about: the conflict between the rapid acceleration of wireless technologies and politics which is, unwittingly, going to render some of these improvements potentially pointless.

In the UK and across Europe, there are two laws of particular interest: the EU's 2018 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the so-called Cookie Law, passed in 2012. Ever heard someone expel a breath and a long list of expletives while they are attempting to look something up, book a service, or fact-check through the Internet on their smartphone? The likelihood is, they've come across both regulations in full force, stirring up annoyance and a rapid, frustrated smashing of fingers to screen as pop-ups scream for consent, T&Cs demand acceptance, and visitors must go through tick-lists of what data they are happy to be collected and in what manner.

The EU's GDPR, which enforced data reform, protection, and collection changes across Europe, has resulted in a plethora of pop-ups which delight in lecturing visitors on data collection practices. Combine these two well-meaning regulations and you have a melting pot of sheer frustration when it comes to mobile browsing. When you are forced to stop and be lectured by pop-ups at every turn which must be manually shut down, one by one, it really doesn't matter how quickly you were brought to the page in the first place.
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Opinion: 5G Has an Exciting Future When It Comes To Dedicated Mobile Apps But Will Do Little To Improve Our General Browsing Exp More

Opinion: 5G Has an Exciting Future When It Comes To Dedicated Mobile Apps But Will Do Little To Improve Our General Browsing Exp

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  • The subject line should include "in the UK/Europe"..... Their regulations may not impact other countries....
    • Companies will probably set a uniform policy worldwide in order to protect against lawsuits and just because it's easier to maintain one code base. At least, that's the hope.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Freischutz ( 4776131 )

      The subject line should include "in the UK/Europe"..... Their regulations may not impact other countries....

      Sure they will. The EU is collectively the world's largest economy and it is the world's largest single market. If you want to export your stuff there you have to meet their standards and abide by their laws and regulations and in that case companies are in many cases best off applying these to their entire production California has a similar effect within the US, if they set emissions standards, most car companies in the US have to abide by them however much they may loathe having to do it. The alternative

      • Second largest economy.

      • The EU is collectively the world's largest economy and it is the world's largest single market.

        I guess it depends on to what extent the cost of translation into multiple languages affects your product or service. A video game might need to be subtitled and dubbed into multiple languages, and social platforms might end up self-segregating on language lines. China and the United States are larger single-language markets.

    • It's not just UK/Europe though. Even though I live in North American, I still have to click throw all the warnings about cookies and data protection.

    • Oh, they do! I found I've been getting hit with these stupid, "we collect cookies" messages in English here in the US and in Spanish when I visit Mexican sites.

      I didn't realize they were part of the new law. It's like, "of course they collect cookies, that's why I set to delete when I close my browser."

  • "The warnings are annoying!" (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Stop collecting my data, assholes.

    • Exactly. If the GDPR is making it harder for companies that spy on their users to do their thing, it's doing its job. As the old joke goes, this is a feature, not a bug.

    • "Stop collecting my data, assholes."

      Noted.

  • Don't collect user data... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Thursday December 06, 2018 @12:46PM (#57760218)

    Don't collect user data beyond what's absolutely needed for a website or app to work and the need for popups suddenly becomes less of a problem. For example, a taxi hail site or app would actually work fine anonymously, same as calling a taxi service. Payment would be negotiated between the driver and rider, with the driver paying the app authors for referrals. Another example: I recently downloaded a step tracker app that required creation of a cloud account to even start up. Never mind that step tracking can work 100% locally, and that another app I used was purely local.

    End "cloud creep" and "data storage creep" and the GDPR becomes much less of a problem. If it makes it harder and more annoying to collect data on customers, it's doing its job.

    • Don't collect user data beyond what's absolutely needed for a website or app to work and the need for popups suddenly becomes less of a problem.

      I'm pretty sure that's what a lot of those pop ups say. The problem is the SNR (Signal-to-Noise Ratio).

    • It gets tiring because the "GDPR" ads result in full pop-overs stating that someone has to accept an entire EULA, be it no sue clauses, opting into data collection, with the site saying, "if you want to decline, leave the site immediately."

      The Internet worked for decades without massive data collection. It worked for decades without ads.

      I'm just hoping the GDPR gets enforced and adapted more places. A few years ago, I had a friend of mine take a photo of me in a humidor and slap it on Facebook for friends

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        Precisely. If you're annoyed by consent requests, take their advice and "leave the site immediately." If enough people do that then sites will adapt or lose to competitors who don't engage in assholery.

    • For example, a taxi hail site or app would actually work fine anonymously, same as calling a taxi service. Payment would be negotiated between the driver and rider, with the driver paying the app authors for referrals.

      I admire the philosophy you are putting forth, but I don't think that is a good example of how to apply it.

      Ride sharing is an example where both sides really need to be sure of who the other is to have the whole thing be safe. If both drivers and riders are anonymous, you are really asking fo

      • Drivers wouldn't be anonymous, since they'd have to pay the app. Passengers would be anonymous, same as with a "regular" taxi service. Yeah, yeah, it's less safe. Well: some crime is the price of freedom.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hjf ( 703092 )

          What kind of "freedom" exactly do you get from "everyone swears they're not collecting MUH DATA"

  • Realtime Response (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    To me the worst thing that ever happened to the web was all of this "let me go off and do a bunch of stuff while you're typing, that you must wait for me to complete before you can type the next letter" crap. I don't know what the technical voodoo name for that is, but I hate it.

    Instead of running one search for what I'm looking for, I must now suffer the wait time of doing 40 searches based on what the ghost in the machine THINKS I might be typing.

  • Malicious Compliance (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 06, 2018 @12:52PM (#57760276)

    All the popups are is a wanton act of malicious compliance. Of course, all that is required for compliance is to NOT COLLECT ANYTHING, but have a link at the bottom of a page that a user can follow to a page where they can enable data collection.

    Instead, web hosts are complying with the law in the most obstructive, annoying way possible, so that users will complain about the law and get it overturned, again allowing site hosts to collect data transparently and without the users' knowledge or consent.

  • When you are forced to stop and be lectured by pop-ups at every turn which must be manually shut down, one by one, it really doesn't matter how quickly you were brought to the page in the first place.

    Kind of like being given free health care in a country whose business-unfriendly policies cause lag in contribution to medical knowledge, it doesn't matter much if it's free if it's 20 years behind where it otherwise would be.

  • But can I make clearer phone calls with 5G? (Score:3)

    by the_skywise ( 189793 ) on Thursday December 06, 2018 @01:13PM (#57760450)
    what you say?! Use my smart phone for TALKING!?
  • Are the wireless companies going to increase your data cap size commensurate with the bandwidth increase? Probably not, I think.
    Speaking as someone who has never owned a smartphone, in part because of how hideously wireless companies price-gouge you for an undersized 'data plan', I can't see the advent of '5G' as being anything to get too terribly excited over, at least not while the wireless companies in this country (U.S.) continue to stick to the same business plan they've been using for years and years

    • Between this and what a security swisscheese any smartphone is (even iPhones)

      You DO realize, of course, that iPhones don't run Android, right?

      Otherwise, please provide Citations showing how iPhones are "security swisscheese[sic]".

  • Blame regulatory pop ups not the advertisement (Score:5, Informative)

    by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Thursday December 06, 2018 @01:22PM (#57760516) Journal
    My browser experience has gone down seriously with auto playing videos, videos that relocate themselves to thwart scrolling past them, annoying animations that follow you around, nagware asking for permission to push notifications, sites begging to turn of blocker, sites graying out payload and asking for registration....

    That little pop-up from European regulations saying "this site uses cookies" is not even a flea bite compared to what the ad-networks do to the browsing experience.

  • Ad industry sock puppet? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ceoyoyo ( 59147 ) on Thursday December 06, 2018 @01:56PM (#57760776)

    Methinks Charlie Osborne is in the pocket of the ad industry.

    Hey, heard about this cool new technology? It's pretty much unrelated to my point that your browsing experience sucks because my corporate overlords have to ask for permission before they spy on you.

  • The only reason for all the popups is that the website you're reading wants to do a load of bullshit with the data they gather about you.

    If you only use personal data to fulfil user's requests, there's no need to ask for consent.

  • "Data miners are protesting the GDPR rules on gathering users' data by annoying the hell out of their users." -- There I fixed the headline for you.

    I wonder how long they'll keep this up before websites start losing traffic, dropping the data mining, & going with content-based targeted advertising, i.e. People who read articles about Star Trek might want to buy Star Trek & other SciFi paraphernalia. Google & Facebook probably wouldn't like it though.

  • North of San Francisco the City of Mill Valley said ' Hell No' to the antennas, the radiation and frequency load in their community and their schools for the sake of young developing minds. Doubt they'll be the last.

  • I know that 4G had this great super low latency, high speed 'handshake' I saw articles on it. When you first request a packet, it's way quicker than 3G was (not just bandwidth)

    However, ever switched your phone into airplane mode entirely? MAN does the battery last a long time.

    I just got the new Huawei Mate 20 and man oh man, it's well reviewed for battery but with the SIM disabled, it's out of this world. Was going to last a full week (was backing up old phone)

    Hopefully 5G continues to be efficient

  • T&Cs demand acceptance, and visitors must go through tick-lists of what data they are happy to be collected and in what manner.

    This is nonsense. I frequently get a popup asking my consent before proceeding with a web page, but it is a simply Accept / Deny choice. No tick-lists, no further questions. But pause, click, continue. No big deal.

    When you are forced to stop and be lectured by pop-ups at every turn which must be manually shut down, one by one

    Again, simply not my experience. I have no doubt that if site access became as annoying or onerous as this person suggests, there would soon be a browser extension or add-on that would do the job for people.

    This piece seems to be intent on creating misinformation and stress, simply to attract a

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