Don’t just accept the new Terms of Service

the-mad-duchess:

jedihighcouncil:

cherryblus:

tariqah:

expatgirl:

the-mad-duchess:

Tumblr’s at it again, thanks to the new European Privacy Laws. There’s probably nobody who will read this, but it pissed me off so much that I decided to make a post about it. (Ignore the weird language mish-mash, depending on your country the language might differ.)

OK, so many of us get this screen when we try to access our dash:

Realise how the ‘OK’ button is a nice, attention-grabbing blue? If you’re like me, you’re not exactly into reading a 100 pages document and tend to just click it.

My tip? DONT. Instead click on ‘Manage Options’ right next to it:

Now you’ll see this page:

Still pretty harmless, right? That ‘Accept’ button is looking really attractive right now. Instead, click on Verwalten (Probably something like ‘Manage Options’ or something in english) and you’ll get to this page:

Now that’s not too bad, right? I just switched all the buttons to ‘off’, because I’m jealously guarding my personal information and don’t want Tumblr to go off and do who knows what with it. Looks like we’re done! But wait: There’s a SHOW option.

When we click on that one, what we will get is this:

A HUGE list with OVER 300 ENTRIES of companies that can use your data by default if you’d just clicked ‘OK’ on that very first page. Coincidence that this list is hidden that much? Me thinks not. They’re all switched on by default, but I am still a petty bitch that doesn’t want to give out her data, so I switched them all off. All 300+ of them. There is no option to switch them all off at once, and even if you disable all the options above, the companies are still switched on.

(If you wonder how i got that number, I copied the list into excel and looked at the cell number. No way am I actually counting all those entries)

I too, am a petty bitch who unticked every single one.

I did this like 90 times today

This is good, and while you’re at it, I strongly encourage you to install the EFF’s Privacy Badger browser extension while you’re at it, which automatically blocks connections to known tracking systems without you needing to do a thing! And don’t forget to install a good adblocker!

is it possible to undo it because i clicked ok like a stupid bitch 

Nobody’s being stupid here, except Tumblr! I welcome all of you into my cave filled with pettiness over privacy agreement violations. We can roast marshmallows and drink hot cocoa, but only over an electric grill, actual barbecuing is forbidden in my building.

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Okay, here we go:

1.This seems to be an European thing. I don’t know if the same options have been implemented for folks from other areas, but comments suggest not. I recommend to still check your privacy settings and the ‘Labs’ section to make sure Tumblr didn’t secretly introduce and switch on any options you’re uncomfortable with. (Here’s a couple of links, I havent read them all myself so quality might be questionable X the law itself X )

2. A problem many people (including myself) have run into is that the whole changing settings isn’t working as it should – the options switch themselves back on, as soon as you leave the screen. Even when you’ve clicked the nice ‘Done’ button at the bottom. NOT COOL TUMBLR.

3. Privacy add-ons are always a good idea. I use Ghostery to block trackers, but unfortunately, those have their limits as well. Corporations are money-grabbing and greedy.

4. The whole ‘U want something for free you need to give ur data’ thing – I am aware that Tumblr needs to pay its bills somehow. But the sheer amount of companies the user data is sold to is ridiculous and completely out of proportion, holy shit!

5. Tumblr is apparently still changing things and switching the location of the settings menu for this around, so this might not work forever.

If you accidentally agreed beforehand, want to disable the bazillion options and don’t mind that Tumblr might switch them back on, here’s how you can do that:

Go to Settings -> Privacy Settings -> Disable Cookie Consent

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Cookie Consent is mandatory to use Tumblr, but if you switch it off, you should be transfered to the privacy settings page mentioned above.

The Cookie Consent will switch itself back on automatically.

(
It’s in German, but it should look pretty similar in other languages!)

While you’re at it, check the Labs section, sometimes Tumblr introduces experimental functions that are pretty shitty concerning privacy as well.

There’s also a great youtube video by @buckysaur how to speed up the process with a little script:

Bless them for doing us this service