trtlclb t1_j4ee98g wrote on January 15, 2023 at 2:59 AM

Reply to comment by TechIsSoCool in What is with Google sign in prompts on nearly every webpage? by Chemical-School3024

All sites that use it do so because managing user authentication is an enormous PITA and if you don't have any special requirements it fits the bill nicely.

That's also not how cookies or ads/ad permission work... OAuth allows third-party websites implementing OAuth access to your Google account. Unless you are blocking cookies and/or configured something to block ad scripts, you're getting cookie'd. The UK & EU has the GDPR, which really just means you need to inform users of what data you store, how you use it, and what you track and why you are.

Some of the nicer websites ask for your permission for the more superfluous cookies, but they are not restricted from using cookies as long as they are disclosing that they are somewhere. GDPR is more about ensuring user data is handled in a responsible manner, not to restrict websites from storing cookies or anything similar necessarily.

Think more along the lines of those checkboxes stating, "I'm alright with letting you send me sales emails" — that's GDPR in action. That and the cookie disclosures, which are usually just legalese jargon like privacy policies or terms of service pages.

TechIsSoCool t1_j4egzlh wrote on January 15, 2023 at 3:21 AM

I do not know the current regulations but have done some research on the advertising connection. With GPDR and CCPA and Apple's change to default disallow advertising IDs, advertisers are looking to means other than cookies to track users. By asking you to "log in" with Google, in cases like a blog where you are not actually authenticating to anything but Google, they are using it to associate your traffic with your ad ID. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but it explains why you get prompted to log in with your Google account, and if you don't, nothing changes for you on the site.

There are also cases where you actually do have an account on that site, and you log into it using your Google account as your credentials. As you say, this is because OAuth is a pain in the butt to code and manage, and when it has nothing to do with what you're trying to code, why reinvent the wheel, just use Google's solution. This also makes logging in more convenient to users.

I had to go back and refresh my memory. It's not related to cookies, but can be related to the absence of cookies. There are a couple of reasons sites might decide to do this.