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California bans ‘dark patterns’ that trick users into giving away their personal data

If you’ve ever struggled through a maze of online customer service to cancel a subscription or delete an account, you’ve likely encountered “dark patterns” — user interfaces that are designed to trick and frustrate users. The concept was coined in 2010 but is slowly being addressed in US legislation, with California this week announcing that …

Publishers and marketers are mostly absent from key group deciding what comes after the third-party cookie

“There’s been a persistent under-engagement by big publishers in the technology around their online businesses,” said Don Marti, a strategist for browser company Mozilla. The tide is turning, though, he said, noting, “The forward-thinking publishers are interested in establishing some kind of a common enabling tech front on web technologies and the organizational aspects of …