Browsers: German Supreme Court to Cookies & EU Law

[Member ModdIt]

According to German Supreme Court (Bundesgerichtshof) users must actively accept cookies
EU Law states that Data Collection requires
Previous Information and Active Acceptance for Cookies or Data Collection which could be
considered private is a requirement.

As delivered by Antix and MX Firefox and Palemoon have OPT OUT settings for cookies and Data
Collection. At first start several Cookies are saved to user machines without any prior warning.
Further Data is also sent including Telemetry.

I would be very upset to see AntiX or MX caught up in legal proceedings due to distribution
of Browsers and by the way Thunderbird which do not comply with EU or German law.

I am by the way not a lawyer. I do know of discussions by privacy protections officers who can and are
very likely to impose massive fines for non compliance in the future.

As far as AntiX and MX are concerned.
At present the easiest way I can think of to (probably) achieve Legality is a warning welcome screen,
both on installation of the distro and Installation or Update of affected software be it Browser or other
software which sets cookies or sends privacy related information home. On every update Firefox changes user
applied privacy related settings in a disadvantageous way for users.

That screen would have to advise that privacy settings should be made before first starting of the applications
and of necessity WITHOUT INTERNET ACCESS. As cookies come from Distro sites these must also be explicitly accepted by users BEFORE setting them on user machines.

EU Law also does not allow changing of data on user devices without express Permission.

Anyone from Mozilla reading.

My settings for Cipher Security were remotely changed twice without permission or prior warning although I have done my best to prevent such changes. Clearly totally Illegal according to both EU and German law. There will be a planned follow up on those kind of actions as well as OPT IN SETTINGS with both EU and German Agency’s involved..

[Member olsztyn]

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ModdIt wrote:

I would be very upset to see AntiX or MX caught up in legal proceedings due to distribution
of Browsers and by the way Thunderbird which do not comply with EU or German law.

I am by the way not a lawyer. I do know of discussions by privacy protections officers who can and are
very likely to impose massive fines for non compliance in the future.

I do think privacy is of great importance and I do respect the ruling of Bundesgerichtshof to require additional explicit consent of the user to accept cookies.
However I do not think it is of any impact to antiX or any other free software which is available to the entire world, including Germany. As much as in general I support this ruling I do not think the entire world must automatically submit to every German regulation.
Downloading and use of free software (as opposed to commercially distributed) while on German soil (does this include the entire Europe now?) should be a matter of choice of the individual.
I am not a lawyer either but from pure reason and attachment to freedom I do not see any necessity for antiX or any (every) other free software to be modified to conform to this ruling.
This is my personal opinion.

Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parameters

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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Comnents moved to Political Topic – Twitter, Facebook censorship

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by Brian Masinick.

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Brian Masinick

[Moderator BobC]

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I don’t think it is reasonable for governments to keep making laws that threaten those who create free software. I would think creators of free software should investigate using a global disclaimer, but since that really isn’t feasible, I would suggest adding a disclaimer that you need to agree to to at boot time (ie on login screen), that requires the user himself to be responsible to only install or use programs that operate within the laws in their own jurisdiction, or be responsible for any and all consequences.

What a waste of time and effort.

I really dislike the cookies games as well, but governments just make everything worse with everything they even attempt to do. I am guessing this law is the reason I get deluged with all these cookie agreements on every screen everywhere. Do they REALLY think the users understand these? Did it fix anything for anyone? At what cost?

[Member olsztyn]

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Moved to Political Topic – Twitter, Facebook censorship

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by Brian Masinick. Reason: Moved
• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by Brian Masinick.

Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parameters

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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I’m not suggesting that I am an enthusiastic follower of the ridiculous comments that Trump often makes. He’s the kind of person who writes or speaks out before considering the ramifications and consequences of his words.

Nevertheless to me free speech allows for each person to speak their own opinion and also endure criticism from others who express their own opinion.

I’ve stated a few of my own, so I have to be willing to take rebuttal comments.

In this community we do have guidelines and those are that we may express ourselves as long as we are respectful in our thoughts and comments. In opinion sections we can make comments and statements and stay within the topic.

In technical sections political discussion is not on topic.

Cookies are technical information and government regulations of them is questionable.

I may have to move my own comments elsewhere lest they introduce another topic.

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Brian Masinick

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