Curse LLC - more than 280 firms have access to data on our pcs while visiting CFC

[Noble Zarkon]

Why should I have to do that, though?

Missed your reply sorry. Cookies are the way the Internet works, you might not like that and you are certainly free to deal with them as you wish but, as I said, you can expect things not to work properly if you always delete them.

 

[tjs282]

Further to my comments above, I notice that (since Jan 1st?) I am no longer required to adjust any sliders when I arrive at CFC. Instead I do not see a 'data collection authorisation' pop-up at all (neither before nor after I log in).

I'd like to be glad about this, but I have not changed the browser(s) I habitually use to access CFC (Firefox for PC at home, Firefox for Mac in the office); both fully updated AFAIK. And since it is still (AFAIK) a European legal requirement that website-visitors are informed of (and/or can refuse to accept) some/all of the purposes that their data might be put to, I have to ask:

Can I take that to mean that CFC's new(?)/current ad-delivery partner is not aggressively collecting/collating/disseminating user-data, or has something gone wrong?

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Have asked the Admins to look into this, thanks.

 

[Petek]

Sorry that it has taken me so long to reply. I finally figured out how to reproduce the GDPR notice on my system. Fandom and Wikia are the same company (Wikia's the older name for Fandom). It owns Curse, which is responsible for serving up ads on CFC. The Cookie notice originates from Wikia (not CFC) and depends on running a script from wikia.com. Wikia may have recently made a change to the script, which could account for why some see the notice and others do not. (When looking into this matter, I ran into such concepts as supercookies and HTML cookies. These are different from regular cookies. Some browsers and other programs appear to recognize these other cookies and some do not.)

AFAICS, no changes have been made how user data is collected or used. Please post if you have any questions or comments.

 

[Civinator]

Since yesterday there are some big problems again by an anonymous message blocking the access to CFC, so I´m a supporter of CFC and have paid that such a situation should not happen:

When trying to access CFC, the following anonymous message in German language is popping up:



So the message itself states, that there is no duty to to accept the processing of my datas, I am forced to click into that anonymous message, as otherwise the access to CFC is blocked, so I have paid that this does not happen. I think one scandal about firms like cambridge analytica is more than enough.

After beeing forced to click into that message in the field "Einstellungen" the next window in English language is popping up:



When clicking here into the field "Reject All", the access to CFC is blocked again by the pop up message in German language:



Now the same procedure had to be repeated, until having access to CFC (and writing this post). I think it is completely illegal to force CFC members - who have paid, that they are not haunted by such data gatherings when visiting that site - are forced to do that procedure twice until they have access to CFC again. There will be CFC supporters who are forced to accept the processing of their datas by that illegal procedure and I consider to report that in my eyes completely illegal practice of those advertisement firms to the German Datenschutzbeauftragten.

Please tell me, what CFC does to protect its supporters from such illegal practices, especially if there is a list from CFC to the firm Fandom (Wikia, Curse) about the CFC supporters who can not be treated in that way.

Btw.: My browser is Google Chrome

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I have passed this on to the Admins - I saw this as well but rejecting everything let me proceed to CivFanatics so not quite the same experience you had.

 

[Civinator]

Noble Zarkon, thank you very much for your quick response.

You can see, that I had a 'second turn' with those annoying pop-ups, when looking at the background of my screenshots. The first round with the blocking pop-up was when entering the CFC homepage. After clicking "Reject All" I came to the CFC forums page, when the German blocking window appeared again.

I´m really interested, what CFC does to protect its supporters from such illegal practices. In my eyes one such pop-up for paying supporters is still too much, but trying this twice in the same visit to CFC in my eyes is really an impudence.

 

[leif erikson]

I have alerted Thunderfall.

 

[Thunderfall]

Thanks Civinator for the report.
I will let our new ad provider Longitude know. As of this month, Longitude is our new ad provider.

 

[Thunderfall]

Our ad provider has made some tweak so that users will only see the consent message once (whether they go from www to forums or forums to www domain).

Civinator, can you try reject again and see if it allows you to see the site?

Tonight I will also look into the possibility of not loading the ad related script for Supporters.

 

[Civinator]

Thunderfall (and Noble Zarkon and leif erikson), one more time thank you very much.

This time when visiting CFC, the German pop-up message isn´t coming again and I have no more problems in visiting CFC. I can not try to reject again, as now there is no more message poping up, that I could reject.

 

[tjs282]

The initial pop-up (screenshotted in @Civinator's post, #45 above) now appears to have been broken(?) on both Firefox and Safari on Mac (Sierra 10.12.6) and Firefox on PC (Win 8.1).

Since yesterday, if I click on 'Options' (so that I can 'Reject All' purposes), the pop-up simply disappears. But the scroll-bar then does not show up on the right-hand side of my browser window, so it is impossible for me to see the entirety of any page which requires more vertical display area than my monitor allows — i.e. every single page on this website!

In order to get CivFanatics pages to load properly, I am forced to click 'Accept' on the initial pop-up instead, which means I am effectively being prevented from refusing to allow my data to be collected. (IANAL, but) As I understand it, this is illegal in Germany / Europe.

Although Firefox did get updated recently, Safari did not (as far as I know). This problem therefore appears to be due to a change made by your ad-provider, and they should fix this ASAP.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Thanks for reporting this have let the admins know.

(As an aside IANAL either but I don't think this is illegal but it is very annoying so appreciate the report).

 

[HiRezAudio]

I just logged in and got yet another 'preferences on how this site uses my data' screen, but selecting 'options' only locks the screen and does nothing else - until I select a thread, when it pops up yet again and again trying 'options' freezes the scroll bar until I click on anything visible, then bingo - here it comes yet again, and yet again trying to actually set options causes another lockup.
The ONLY setting that actually allows me in is "Accept".

Please fix this - I am fed up to the back teeth with the constant bombardment of adverts & metadata that is harvested everywhere I go. It almost makes me hope the coming Solar Reset happens sooner rather than later.

Moderator Action: We know it's frustrating and are working on it but please mind your language . Post merged with existing thread on this topic. --NZ
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Thunderfall]

Thanks for the report. I have requested Longitude our ad provider to take a look.

 

[tjs282]

The problem now seems to be fixed. Thank you.

 

[HiRezAudio]

I could not think of a more polite way to word it, and if this is the price I have to pay then I will not be hanging around any longer.....I really just do not like the constant bombardment of ads and these stupid 'accept cookies' screens all the time. If I could make it all go away by paying then I would but it seems this does not work as I also have cookies disallowed and set to be deleted every time, and every time I come here I have to wade through the same tiresome screens every time.
Why does their right to bombard me with garbage outweigh my wish for privacy? This, in all honesty, is the only site I even visit regularly that does this - anywhere else that constantly gives me this aggravation I stay away from.

Moderator Action: If you wish to address a moderator directly, please start a conversation with them. Have edited this post to remove PDMA.

 

[leif erikson]

The site recently changed advertisers. Thunderfall is working with them to stop these screens.

Part of the problem is that you have disabled cookies because those files remember your preferences and the site does not need to ask each time you access it.

 

[Takhisis]

I really just do not like the constant bombardment of ads and these stupid 'accept cookies' screens all the time.

Have you tried adblocking software? uBlocker + Privacy Badger seem to work as a very efficient combo for me.

 

[Civinator]

Today I was confronted (again) with accepting the spyware or not being allowed to enter the CFC forums, so I am a supporter and have not logged out in my visit before. I had to accept the spyware and than to log in at CFC to write a post in the Civ 3 forums. After this I left the CFC forums again without logging out and deleted all cookies and other spyware of the last 24 hours on my browser. Later I checked in again at CFC - and received the same message that I have to accept the spyware to receive access to the forums to log in again at CFC. I had to do this again to write this post - and after writing this post I will again delete all cookies and other stuff of the last 24 hours on my browser.

It seems there is a problem at CFC in recognizing my identification, so I never logged out at CFC. When I accept the spyware and than log in, I have the spyware on my pc, so I have paid to have access to CFC without the spyware. Please try to fix this.