I was bracing myself going into the latest episode of the Wirecutter podcast, fearing a bunch of platitudes and unresolved misunderstandings. My fears weren’t totally unfounded, but I was pleased that the big winner of the episode seemed to be the Apple TV, as the most privacy-conscious choice for streaming devices. But the episode wasn’t specifically about television, and in the end the device doesn’t really solve the bigger problem, which is that “smart” TVs are some of the worst pieces of electronics one can ever bring into their home.
What’s mind-boggling in light of this episode is that the Apple TV is not Wirecutter’s top choice among streaming devices. If they do care so much about privacy, why would they ever recommend anything else, and not even have it among their top picks? (Rhetorical question, I know why.) Anyway, I’m not here to defend Apple’s hobby.
I properly groaned only once, when guest Jon Chase said, about privacy standards:
“Then there’s also the example of Europe, where they have passed, I think, it’s GDPR. You probably had all those popups every time you access a website that are like, “Do you submit to these cookies,” and all that kind of … that’s essentially from that. It’s a step forward, it basically holds these companies accountable and allows people to opt out of data-collection policies.”
I’m glad to hear positive words about GDPR, which is inherently a good thing, but that’s a typical misunderstanding. Cookie banners and popups are the worst outcome of GDPR, and not really a way for companies to be accountable. If anything, it’s the sneaky way companies (a killer combination of marketing departments and developers who don’t know the word no) are performing their compliance and putting the burden on their users. The idea that cookie banners (with their giant “I accept” buttons and all sorts of antipatterns) promote easy opting out is laughable—what they’re actually meant to do is generate GDPR fatigue so that people will get used to accepting everything forever and ever.