Irritating Fingerprint

[Red-Coat]

How do I stop this irritating fingerprint from popping up at the bottom right corner of the forum screens?



It relates to my cookie preferences on the forum and sometimes after a while it triggers a dialogue box with a set of choices the forum wants me to make. If I select my preferences and save them, the darn thing keeps coming back though. Only noticed it today. Why does it keep prompting me even though I have responded with my choices?

 

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[Treasure_Hunter]

Are you using pc or a smart device. That fingerprint is not part of TreasureNet website. I suspect your using smart phone and it is a phone software festure.

https://piunikaweb.com/2019/05/08/h...sor-icon-blinking-issue-officially-confirmed/

 

[Red-Coat]

Are you using pc or a smart device. That fingerprint is not part of TreasureNet website. I suspect your using smart phone and it is a phone software festure.

https://piunikaweb.com/2019/05/08/h...sor-icon-blinking-issue-officially-confirmed/

No.

What is shown at that link is a touch-sensitive feature that can be used to log on to smart devices. I'm using a Windows PC which doesn't have a touch-sensitive screen.

The fingerprint I'm seeing does not appear on any other site that I visit. It ONLY appears on Treasurenet and it's a very recent thing. What it links to is a legal acknowledgement that I am prepared to (or not) allow advertisers to use my data (IP address, location etc) to customise advertisements presented on the site. It refers to "this site" and its partners, which I assume to be Treasurenet since I don't see that fingerprint appearing on any other website.



When I explore the screens the "partners" for "this site" are all global advertising agencies, specialising in software for digital marketing (widgets, pop-ups etc). I assume that I am seeing this request because my IP is sensed as being from Europe and we have particular laws which place a greater burden on obtaining agreement for data sharing via websites than in the US. However, it's badly designed because this one doesn't stop nagging even after I have indicated and saved my data sharing preferences. Generally, I share as little data as possible when responding to such requests. They're a regular thing on this side of the pond but normally websites only ask you to reconfirm your preferences every month or so... not nag you continually.

If it's now built into the site software because the site wants to feed me advertising (while also ensuring compliance with European law) but isn't working properly then I guess there's not much I can do about it... but it's very irritating. I'd be interested to know if any other Brits/European members are seeing it too. That would confirm it's what I think it is. Note that it specifically refers to the "EU General Data Protection Regulation".

EU Data Protection Rules and U.S. Implications (Updated July 17, 2020)
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/IF10896.pdf

 

[ARC]

Hrrrm... Virus ? ? ?

 

[Red-Coat]

Hrrrm... Virus ? ? ?

I'm well-protected and have just manually run a deep scan via MacAfee (latest version, fully updated). I only see the fingerprint icon when using Treasurenet. Nowhere else.

There's nothing sinister about the questions linked to the icon. All perfectly normal (at least in Europe) for sites that have embedded advertisements; different sites use different ways of requesting agreement. European law requires a protocol where the user must consciously 'opt-in' to such agreements (rather than be opted in by default). The difference here is that there's a bug which means the request is repeatedly made via the icon despite the fact it has been dealt with.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

I also use a Legion laptop with windows 10 Edge OS, never ever see that fingerprint icon, dont see it on my smartphone either

 

[Red-Coat]

I also use a Legion laptop with windows 10 Edge OS, never ever see that fingerprint icon, dont see it on my smartphone either

OK... but you have an American IP address. The site software detects it as such and tracks you via cookies on your device.

When a website sells advertising space on its pages, those advertisers usually want to target their offerings to be more relevant to the detected locality of the visitors to the site. So, someone connecting from the UK may then be fed different adverts from those seen by a US user for example. Data sharing is needed to do that and, in Europe, advertisers have to be conscious of compliance with European Data Protection regulations which are more stringent than in the US. As explained in the pdf link I provided, those European regulations require that users must have actively given consent, which I think is why I see the icon linking to data-sharing preferences but you do not. US websites have been slow to recognise the implications of that for the way they operate.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

You're the only member ever reporting this issue and you're not the only member in England or Europe. Sorry can't help you with your issue, best I can do is report it to admins see if they have an answer for you....

 

[Red-Coat]

You're the only member ever reporting this issue and you're not the only member in England or Europe. Sorry can't help you with your issue, best I can do is report it to admins see if they have an answer for you....

Thanks. That may be for one or more reasons. First, I only noticed the icon yesterday, so something has changed very recently. Likely because the site's advertising partners have woken up to the fact that they need to ensure compliance with European law if the site accepts registrations for European users. Second, my browser permissions are set to a high level of security to block most types of data-sharing via cookies or device identification and Treasurenet (or their partner advertisers) seem not to like that. I tried relaxing my security a little and saving the settings via the fingerprint icon... but that made things worse. I then got a prompt to save my preferences every time I moved from one section of the forum to another and the site was then effectively unusable.

I stress again that this is only happening on Treasurenet and this is the only place I see the fingerprint icon.

In case anyone else gets the same problem (constant pop-ups), the solution was as follows:

1. Clear all cookies from browser cache. That meant that when I reconnected to the site I had to manually log in rather than use cookie-stored credentials.

2. Connect to Treasurenet. Note that when the site opened for me, there was NO fingerprint icon because the site no longer recognised my PC without the cookies it has previously given me. My User ID and password were no longer automatically site-linked after clearing the cookies.

3. As soon as I logged in, the fingerprint icon re-appeared and I got a pop-up prompt to select and store my data sharing preferences via the new set of cookies the site was giving me.

4. The pop-up has behaved itself since then, but it's an incomplete solution because the icon remains. It's irritating because (on my PC) its sits right next to the bottom of the scroll-bar for the screen and it's really easy to click on it accidentally (often that's a deliberate ploy of course).

Reviewing the blurb that comes up if you click on the icon, it seems that it has been provided "for my comfort and convenience" in case I want to update my data-sharing preferences at any time. That is, Treasurenet's advertising partners seemingly want me to have a constant reminder about data-sharing, presumably in the hope of getting me to relax my preferences. Other sites handle this differently (and better). You're usually asked for your preferences and consent at the time you first connect to or join a site and then you get a pop-up asking you to reconfirm every couple of months or so. No permanent icons.

It's not a deal-breaker but it is a shoddily-constructed little annoyance. I suspect that icon might go away if I click on "consent to all" as my preferences for targeted advertising, but I'll live with the icon rather than do that.

 

[Ol' Kentuck]

Thanks. That may be for one or more reasons. First, I only noticed the icon yesterday, so something has changed very recently. Likely because the site's advertising partners have woken up to the fact that they need to ensure compliance with European law if the site accepts registrations for European users. Second, my browser permissions are set to a high level of security to block most types of data-sharing via cookies or device identification and Treasurenet (or their partner advertisers) seem not to like that. I tried relaxing my security a little and saving the settings via the fingerprint icon... but that made things worse. I then got a prompt to save my preferences every time I moved from one section of the forum to another and the site was then effectively unusable.

I stress again that this is only happening on Treasurenet and this is the only place I see the fingerprint icon.

In case anyone else gets the same problem (constant pop-ups), the solution was as follows:

1. Clear all cookies from browser cache. That meant that when I reconnected to the site I had to manually log in rather than use cookie-stored credentials.

2. Connect to Treasurenet. Note that when the site opened for me, there was NO fingerprint icon because the site no longer recognised my PC without the cookies it has previously given me. My User ID and password were no longer automatically site-linked after clearing the cookies.

3. As soon as I logged in, the fingerprint icon re-appeared and I got a pop-up prompt to select and store my data sharing preferences via the new set of cookies the site was giving me.

4. The pop-up has behaved itself since then, but it's an incomplete solution because the icon remains. It's irritating because (on my PC) its sits right next to the bottom of the scroll-bar for the screen and it's really easy to click on it accidentally (often that's a deliberate ploy of course).

Reviewing the blurb that comes up if you click on the icon, it seems that it has been provided "for my comfort and convenience" in case I want to update my data-sharing preferences at any time. That is, Treasurenet's advertising partners seemingly want me to have a constant reminder about data-sharing, presumably in the hope of getting me to relax my preferences. Other sites handle this differently (and better). You're usually asked for your preferences and consent at the time you first connect to or join a site and then you get a pop-up asking you to reconfirm every couple of months or so. No permanent icons.

It's not a deal-breaker but it is a shoddily-constructed little annoyance. I suspect that icon might go away if I click on "consent to all" as my preferences for targeted advertising, but I'll live with the icon rather than do that.

I agree, it is unfortunate that such is necessary. In this case may I suggest that Adblocker Plus is your friend. Consider it your Treasurenet Condom.

 

[Red-Coat]

I agree, it is unfortunate that such is necessary. In this case may I suggest that Adblocker Plus is your friend. Consider it your Treasurenet Condom.

Thanks. I'm already blocking pop-up ads. The issue seems to be that for reasons solely related to European legislation, this site's advertising partners need to maintain a record of my consent preferences for data-sharing... and are keen to provide an icon for me to relax those consents if I so choose. As I said, this works fine on other sites because they only ask you to reconfirm every couple of months or so and don't use a permanent icon as a surrogate nag.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

I have opened a thread on your issue on the admin forum, maybe they will have a suggestion or fix. Will let you know when they reply.

 

[Red-Coat]

I have opened a thread on your issue on the admin forum, maybe they will have a suggestion or fix. Will let you know when they reply.

Thanks muchly. As of about lunchtime today, the icon has now hopped over to the bottom left corner of the forum pages. That at least is an improvement because it no longer sits next to the scroll bar where it could easily be clicked on accidentally.

 

[CoinFetcher]

Hey red coat - The issue you’re experiencing is with your web browser. The web browser is the software that lets you view websites. The issue reporting is not with the website, but is with your web browser

 

[Mine Shaft]

Adblocker + is all you need as suggested, never cared for Macafee lol. 6 blocked on this page in under 5 minutes. Total blocked adds as of today 898.042K

 

[Red-Coat]

Hey red coat - The issue you’re experiencing is with your web browser. The web browser is the software that lets you view websites. The issue reporting is not with the website, but is with your web browser

Adblocker + is all you need as suggested, never cared for Macafee lol. 6 blocked on this page in under 5 minutes. Total blocked adds as of today 898.042K

Perhaps indirectly related to my browser settings (i'm using MS Edge) because, as I said, they're configured to the highest level of security to inhibit data-sharing and perhaps that's what the site software (embedded or otherwise) doesn't like.

Your suggestions don't explain why I only see this icon on the Treasurenet site, nor the fact that the request for consent to data sharing specifically refers to European data protection regulations, nor why the icon suddenly appeared two days ago.

I am not experiencing pop-up ads. They're blocked. I'm experiencing a perfectly normal (for Europe) request to agree or not agree to data sharing for advertising purposes. It's a legal requirement over here for sites which host advertising and we see it all the time. For this site however, it's recently implemented, badly designed, and poorly executed.

Maybe Americans aren't familiar with such requests, but here's a similar one from another site:



Perfectly normal and a legal requirement for Europe. You see these when you first connect to a site; set your preferences (eg you don't want your data shared for targeted advertising purposes); then you're done and won't see that request again for a couple of months or so when you're asked to re-confirm your preferences. No permanent icon link.

 

[GeoW]

Do you have CleanMyMac or CleanMyPc installed?

 

[ARC]

To turn off Metro.co.uk’s notifications please follow the below instructions according to the browser and device you are using.

If you’re unsure of your browser please check: whatsmybrowser.org

Chrome (PC and Mac)
1. Go to the browser notification preferences by entering in the URL chrome://settings/content/notifications
2. Find Metro.co.uk in the list and click the 3 dots icon.
3. Click Remove

Chrome (Android)
1. Tap the lock icon to the left of the website URL bar.
2. Tap ‘Site Settings’
3. Tap ‘Notifications’
4. Tap ‘Show notifications’ to turn them off

Firefox (PC and Mac)
1. Go to the browser privacy preferences by entering in the URL aboutreferences#privacy
2. Scroll down to Permissions and click Settings… next to Notifications.
3. Find Metro.co.uk in the list and click Allow.
4. Change Allow to Block, and then click Save Changes.

Firefox (Android)
1. Tap the lock icon to the left of the website URL bar.
2. Tap ‘Edit Site Settings’
3. Uncheck the box next to Notifications, then tap Clear

Safari (Mac)
1. Open Safari Preferences and go to Websites > Notifications
2. Find Metro.co.uk in the list and change ‘Allow’ to ‘Deny’

 

[ARC]

IF you frequent "DailyMail.Uk." (which I hate and think is riddled with crapola)... then you can bet you have been cookied.

Remember...

"When you lie down with dogs you can come up with fleas". heh

 

[Red-Coat]

Do you have CleanMyMac installed?

It's a Windows PC!

Every indication is that my PC is clean.

I only see the icon on the Treasurenet site. Nowhere else.

The software behind the icon is now behaving itself.

The prompts being generated if I click on it are completely usual for European users connecting to a site that has advertising partners. It's a legal requirement in Europe that users must have actively given consent for data sharing. The permanent presence of an icon is not usual, but I can live with that now that the icon is in a more acceptable position.

Via my browser, I can see all of the cookies the Treasurenet site and its advertising partners are trying to give me. My browser is set to reject many of them. I'm only accepting those that are essential for the site to operate on my PC and have declined sharing of my data. That's what was creating the problem as far as I can see.

Either a slight relaxation of my security settings, and/or clearing and refreshing all cookies has resolved the misbehaviour of the site software.

The icon remains... perhaps because the site is keen for me to use it to relax my settings further and allow data sharing. Other sites don't do it this way. They simply ask you to express your preferences the first time you connect, store those preferences via a cookie, and ask you to confirm those preferences on a periodic basis.

If any of that is unfamiliar to you, it's because those legal requirements don't apply in the US... but US websites are waking up (slowly) to the fact that they may be acting unlawfully if they have advertising partners with whom they are sharing data harvested from European users of their sites unless the user has actively consented.