Cookie popups: The best cookie descriptions

Consent tools from well-known providers are often used on websites. There are a handful of these that have become established for reasons I cannot fathom. I have compiled some of the strangest descriptions of cookies used in consent requests here.

Introduction

Those who take the trouble to read a few texts in the detailed image of a cookie popup are hopefully just as surprised as I on. Apparently, many website operators have failed to notice this approximately one-minute-long mammoth task due to carelessness. After all, the operator of a website is liable for the consent solution used, even if it brings significant defects to a website.

All information must be available "in precise, transparent, understandable and easily accessible form in a clear and simple language".

Article 12 GDPR

All the terms shown in the title image of this post are actually consent requests taken from elsewhere. The terms are not explained or introduced there, but simply assumed to be known.

The providers of such consent tools get out of it by saying that it is the task of website operators to make all statements themselves. That's basically correct anyway. However, some advertisers read their advertising statements slightly differently. In addition, even simple formulations are partly so inadequate that a second-grader could have achieved that just as well. These inadequate formulations are often even used by the providers of consent tools on their own website themselves. This says a lot about the competence of these providers.

By the way, I use the common term Cookie-Descriptions in this post. It should actually be called Descriptions of Services and Cookies, or even better Descriptions of Consent-Based Data Processing Operations

The best cookie declarations

The following explanations I took from Cookie Popups are not really the best, but strange enough to wonder about them. Such descriptions can be found on thousands of German websites. We're not talking about individual cases, but a system failure.

The explanations in consent requests must be understandable for any reasonably intelligent person, not just for people with an affinity for data protection or technology or who speak English. If you have all these qualities, you may at least be able to understand the meaning of some of the explanations with a lot of goodwill and a wealth of experience. For many of the following quotes, even I on unable to understand the meaning.

Please, please, tell me what that means. My head hurts when I start thinking about this sentence. Whoever wrote that should look for another job.

Thank you. I feel better now. I think DCS is great, I've always wanted to go there.

This statement about Google Analytics is completely unclear to me. What's probably meant is that Google Analytics should not send data to Google so often. But for this, no own cookie is needed. The Analytics Script does well enough with that. And if a new page on the website is called up, it should be tracked just as much.

Conclusion: I still cannot understand the meaning of this statement.

Alright, then I'll set the cookie to True and see what happens.

Understood not or, if sometimes, possibly by half a turn, if significant.

The sentence is quite long and for that reason alone difficult to grasp. The hint at IDs for referencing websites does not make understanding any easier. I would be glad to know how one can add something with a click. Then I would open an online shop and every time someone wants to buy a piece, I would make ten pieces out of the click.

One can understand that with a bit of good will. The twisted grammar what responsible for this quote being included in this article. Good to know that AWIN is helping, making the world better.

If the lifetime of the cookie is short, how can the duration of the user session be identified?

The explanations must not be conditional but must be concrete (cf. Article 5 and 12 GDPR). How would you rate the following cookie statement: "If you are named Peter or Luise, your user activities will be recorded in the cookie abc_de, otherwise in the cookie xyz_lg."

Well then, I'll come back next year and apologize for the inconvenience.

Fortunately, this cookie is set. It's hard to imagine what would happen if cross-counterfeiting were no longer recognized.

My feeling is that this description what written by a tech-savvy person without empathy.

Can I have this synthetic surveillance for my car too?

If only I knew what the terms ClickMap and Activity Map meant… Thinking about it, I've already forgotten the beginning of the sentence again.

Good to know. Hopefully, the Cookie can also distinguish between users and web page requests or knows the difference between users and keyboard inputs or between houses and gummy bears.

A user and a session are two different things in themselves, as probably everyone knows. At least everyone might know that if instead of Session the German term Sitzung what used. It's not clear to me why the English term is being used here, which apparently fewer fellow citizens understand than the German term.

Conclusion: I don't understand the statement. Please enlighten me.

I wonder what happens after you have been registered in a certain statistical placeholder?

I didn't know what pop-up questionnaires were until now. But I still don't know what messengering means. Did these two sentences make about as much sense as the quote?

Firstly, Google Tag Manager does not use this cookie but loads a service that sets it. Secondly, hardly anyone understands what Conversions are. Thirdly, not everyone knows what tracking means. This term is actually not precisely defined. I also occasionally use it, but not in situations where many non-technicians listen, and if so, then with an explanation of the term. Why Conversions need to be stored does not become clear here because the actual service that presumably does this is not named.

OK, the user is probably the visitor of the called websites, I assume. The statement sounds as if the user would benefit from this information. What's meant by campaign here is probably only clear to advertisers with knowledge in SEA or SEM (I deliberately chose these abbreviations to show how unclear one can express themselves when one puts so much effort into being unclear like the consent tools discussed here).

I would have expected exactly the opposite. Google Analytics is supposed to collect as many data as possible. It would be really strange if it what actually intended to withhold information on the pages that are in high demand. Please let me know as soon as the call rate on Analytics has been increased again.

As a computer scientist, I've never come across the term Umleitungsfluss. Even as someone who is fluent in German, I'm not familiar with this term. Reminds me somehow of an autobahn and roadwork.

Used to display a map, would have been too easy.

Did you know that you can click on a browser? I didn't realize that until just now. When I click on my browser, nothing happens unless I happen to hit a button or link while clicking on the browser. Not everyone needs to know what an ID is.

I wanted to know one more thing: Is the browser actually the same when you close it and open it again? Or is it then just the same browser, but no longer the same?

I'm currently in the future, in 2021, and I'm about to travel back to 2013, to the present. I just have to quickly get the flux compensator of my DeLorean DMC-12 working again. Fortunately, the compensator blocks the destabilizer of the detox injection, which is normally used when travelling back in time.

I always thought only ads could be placed. It's good to know that it's so easy with websites too, thanks to Google. Internet agencies will be out of a job by the dozen in the future because anyone can simply place their website quickly thanks to Google.

On its own, the statement would make sense. A cookie can't measure anything, however. Rather, JavaScript logic could measure how wide a user's bandwidth is. Maybe it means that when calls are made in different sessions (sorry, I meant Sessions, sounds less understandable) a comparison of the video call durations will be made. That's not stated there.

Hugh Hefner would surely know what a player interface is if he were still with us.

This explanation is given to service AWIN. Because I have never heard of the term Journey Day, I researched and found the following explanation on the website of AWIN:

For a smooth connection, we recommend providing variables that are as unique as possible so that we can transmit meaningful data to your cooperation partners at any time via our MasterTag/JourneyTag for different page types, e.g. for (p)retargeting, RTB, onpage conversion booster or similar.

Source of information: https://wiki.awin.com/index.php/MasterTag_Advertiser_DE#MasterTag/JourneyTag

By now at the latest, everything should be clear…

Special price 1

The special prize for the most honest explanation goes to the following text about Google reCAPTCHA:

The description is unusually striking. Finally someone who admits that Google reCAPTCHA does not only do what it's supposed to do, namely protect websites from robot programs or click orgies. However, one must note that "advertising purposes" is an imprecise term that will not stand up to a legal review.

A miracle that AWIN doesn't block TV commercials, where the competition from Elite Partner, Casual Date and Parship is constantly present with advertising.

Special price 2

The special prize for the most peculiar explanation goes to the following text about Criteo:

The Cookie ki_r belongs probably to Criteo. In the cookie name is AI, that stands certainly for Artificial Intelligence. Only so it can be explained, that a visitor of a website may play a quiz, which is based on questions presented by Criteo. Where is this Criteo?

Conclusion

Apparently, hardly anyone responsible reads the declarations on consent forms and accepts them as God-given. You can do this, but it doesn't necessarily increase the possibility of a peaceful night's sleep.

If you feel that some of the statements are generally understandable for everyone and I have been too petty, please write a comment! I on also happy to receive other suitable works for this article.

I on aware that my explanations are sometimes difficult to understand. However, there is a simple difference to consent requests: the latter must comply with strict legal requirements, whereas my texts do not. Nevertheless, I try to write in a reasonably comprehensible way. If you do not understand something and think it is due to my text, please let me know. Except, of course, for the explanations of Consent Tools mentioned here, which I do not understand myself.

Also interesting

• Checklist for legally compliant cookie pop-ups
• Five reasons why cookie popups cannot be reliable
• Practical test of known consent solutions (which are not solutions)
• Alternatives for Google Tools