Cookies are old news. What about browser fingerprinting which can track you across websites? https://www.amiunique.org/
There's basically no easy way to safeguard against it without making browsing nearly unusable.
this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2025
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Yes! You are unique among the 3874720 fingerprints in our entire dataset.
If the website says that I’m unique in green font, it’s actually bad and should be red, isn’t it ?
Yes.
Happened to me, too. Fuck!
GDPR is regarding personal data, which includes cookies as well as any other fingerprinting. Even though browser fingerprinting does not persist any data on a device itself, explicit consent must be gathered before it's used for processing (i.e. tracking) purposes.
But why unusable, why does a browser have to leak language, window size, time, extensions? Can't those be spoofed?
A lot of those things are also required to render a webpage correctly.
But isn't most of that client-side processing? Can't I request a vanilla generic page and once it is in my browser to process it to shape it into the window size and extensions I want? Even if it is an adblocker: serve me the ad, I'll block it internally. But I suppose that for dynamic pages with js requests this would become hard to do.
Yeah it's Javascript that's the issue that can just take all this data in the client and send it wherever. And that's exactly what's happening.
What's the solution?
I'm not sure a technical solution is feasible, other than dns-blocking these trackers. I suppose lawmakers need to spring into action to make this shit illegal.
You could probably set a cap on how many different fingerprinty attributes a script is allowed to grab before requesting permission from the user.
That is indeed the solution.
A technical solution won't cut it. Here's a very convoluted example: the tag allows you to send the text "buy illegal drugs here" to kids!! Omg!!! What to do? Remove the tag? Obviously not. You ban the practice.
You will have your tor-connected 1024x768 anonymous window and you will like it!
tor-connected
You are unique!
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Tor Browser in normal mode is quite usable though, you just can't use extensions and you need to start a new session whenever you use other websites so they can't track you via cookies. Mullvad Browser is quite similar too.
oh fuck i'm unique on every browser 😨
This needs to be worldwide.
And... PURGE ALL USER INFORMATION!
I don't care for those 'but what about those people planning/planned crimes?' The one thing I learned from the current Trump administration is that the information is so fucking ripe for abuse AND they don't even catch enough actual crooks that letting a few legit bad people slip through isn't going to bother me.
Love the sentiment, curious about implementation.
This is a win for everyone in Europe, and possibly beyond. [Emphasis mine.] Companies may no longer secretly track your behavior based on “consent” given under pressure. Hopefully, this will not only put an end to these dubious practices, but also to those pesky cookie banners.
But we’re not there yet. Regulators have ruled the system illegal, and the court’s ruling has now confirmed it. Still, the companies making billions from this model won’t stop on their own. That’s why European regulators must now truly step up: enforce the law and make sure these companies actually comply.
Regulators try not to get compromised by lobbyists when billions of dollars are at stake.
I sincerely wish you good luck.
Big corpos aren't going to comply and pay a small fine instead. https://proton.me/tech-fines-tracker
We need the corporate death penalty.
Or at least take 100% of their revenue (not profit) until they comply.
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wow i didn't know belgium was based. I guess i was wrong when i thought they peaked with french fries
Also first in Europe to ban lootboxes as gambling, iirc.
Idk, their waffles and chocolates are pretty good too.
still pretty tough to beat the fries. I'd say this is a close second.
It's a fairytale town, isn't it? How's a fairytale town not somebody's fucking thing?How can all those canals and bridges and cobbled streets and those churches, all that beautiful fucking fairytale stuff, how can that not be somebody's fucking thing, eh?
Wait, wait. Better quote.
What's Belgium famous for? Chocolates and child abuse, and they only invented the chocolates to get to the kids.
Yeah I’ll need the detailed judgment of this one before considering it a massive win. Consent has always been something that needs to be done willingly and freely. The issue is forcing the whole industry to give a shit about the principle. Maybe IAB will have to shift its practices but I haven’t had any panicked calls yet so I assume this isn’t systemic.
Even if idiots with enough money stay unleashed this is great news. One step at a time. Thanks for sharing!
Random side note: how is Belgium to live in and what would it look like to live there right now? Asking for a friend.
Edit: thanks for al the information. I'll move onto learning more about the country and it's people's history.
We have better access to healthcare than France, generally good work-life balance, access to education is cheap (1000 eur for one year at a good university ). People are welcoming but also reserved. It’s raining a lot and we spend a lot of time complaining about it.
I have friends who live there, and they report the same. They visited us for the first time here in London recently, and were quite shocked by the stark differences.
It’s raining a lot and we spend a lot of time complaining about it.
Hey, that's our brand!
Sincerely, a dude from Hamburg
how is Belgium to live in and what would it look like to live there right now?
It's literally between France, Germany and the Netherlands, I mean geographically yes but roughly culturally too. Arguably Brussels is a mix of all that and other cities again match where they are.
So... it's a Western European country with good quality of life ~~despite~~ thanks to having one of the very highest taxes rate. You don't have to be a socialist to be here but if you want to become a rich entrepreneur it's going to be challenging.
Source : immigrated there from France ~10 years ago.
Edit: s/despite/thanks to/
it's a Western European country with good quality of life despite having one of the very highest taxes rate.
"Despite"? Try, "because"
I think they’re actually right about this one, taxes tend to cover things that give you high standard of living more than quality of life.
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I think you can reap the benefits from just using a VPN and set the country to Belgium?
Depends on how many sites comply, most will likely block Belgian IP’s due to this.
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but but but how are the corporations supposed to make money off of our data if they can't harvest it? Think of the poor corporations!!
And then the EU introduces the worst spying law in history.
Phew!
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