4 ms·

Are they breaking the law? I don't love that they're requiring either payment or allowing cookies, but at least they're fully disclosing that and giving you the

Are they breaking the law? I don't love that they're requiring either payment or allowing cookies, but at least they're fully disclosing that and giving you the choice. I'm pretty sure that's what the GDPR requires.

flotzam 2y ago
"The tactic has been criticised by privacy advocates and non-governmental organisations such as NOYB and Wikimedia Europe, which claim that it is illegal under the GDPR. On 17 April 2024, the European Data Protection Board released a non-binding opinion stating that in most cases, consent-or-pay models do not constitute valid consent within the meaning of the GDPR." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consent_or_pay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consent_or_pay
joblessjunkie 2y ago
GDPR states that consent must be freely given. If there are financial incentives, the consent may be invalid.
tyfon 2y ago
This is under consideration now due to the meta case. The GDPR states that consent should be freely given and one can argue that forcing you to choose between payment our tracking is not a free choice but cohersed. I personally think that interpretation is correct. Since a large part of German media in also doing the same, they are lobbying for this to only apply to "large online providers". Here is a good writeup on the situation: https://iapp.org/news/a/pay-ok-or-a-third-way-context-analysis-from-the-edpb-s-opinion https://iapp.org/news/a/pay-ok-or-a-third-way-context-analys...
- alistairSH 2y ago
  You forgot the 3rd option… don’t consume their content. Pay, allow cookies, or surf elsewhere. GDPR doesn’t require them to give away content for free. Edit - ok, being downvoted - how should content be monetized if both targeted ads and subscriptions are off the table? Are we saying GDPR requires a site to operate off generic, non-targeted ads?
  - Tarq0n 2y ago
    Targeted ads aren't the only kind of ads. Disregarding for a moment that you can do some amount of targetting without collecting PII too.
    - IshKebab 2y ago
      Some sites can do that. E.g. Hacker News would easily be able to do targeted advertising without collecting any data because it's a self-selected audience. Even someone like The Verge could probably do a decent job (just advertise games and tech stuff). But what the hell would The New York Times advertise? They're back at TV-style cars and perfume advertising which isn't profitable enough to sustain most businesses. I think Google's flock was the only serious attempt to solve this, but obviously it got heavily criticised by HN fundamentalists who think that the web should be entirely free and ad-free with zero tracking. To be fair it does have a rather big practical issue in that only Google has any incentive to actually implement it (I don't see why Microsoft or Mozilla or Apple would ever bother). We're probably stuck with tracking unless the EU gets some sense and mandates a do-not-track style preference system, and actually enforces it with fines.
      - chgs 2y ago
        Fairly sure the New York Times carried adverts for decades before computers existed
        IshKebab 2y ago
        Have you somehow forgotten that physical newspapers cost money? They weren't funded solely by advertising.
    - alistairSH 2y ago
      Sure, but do those ads generate enough revenue to stay in business? How is this site’s “Pay or Take a Cookie” approach worse for the consumer than a total paywall? I’d rather we didn’t have to have annoying ads, but generating and hosting content costs money.

flotzam 2y ago

"The tactic has been criticised by privacy advocates and non-governmental organisations such as NOYB and Wikimedia Europe, which claim that it is illegal under the GDPR. On 17 April 2024, the European Data Protection Board released a non-binding opinion stating that in most cases, consent-or-pay models do not constitute valid consent within the meaning of the GDPR." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consent_or_pay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consent_or_pay

joblessjunkie 2y ago

GDPR states that consent must be freely given. If there are financial incentives, the consent may be invalid.

tyfon 2y ago

This is under consideration now due to the meta case. The GDPR states that consent should be freely given and one can argue that forcing you to choose between payment our tracking is not a free choice but cohersed. I personally think that interpretation is correct. Since a large part of German media in also doing the same, they are lobbying for this to only apply to "large online providers". Here is a good writeup on the situation: https://iapp.org/news/a/pay-ok-or-a-third-way-context-analysis-from-the-edpb-s-opinion https://iapp.org/news/a/pay-ok-or-a-third-way-context-analys...

alistairSH 2y ago
You forgot the 3rd option… don’t consume their content. Pay, allow cookies, or surf elsewhere. GDPR doesn’t require them to give away content for free. Edit - ok, being downvoted - how should content be monetized if both targeted ads and subscriptions are off the table? Are we saying GDPR requires a site to operate off generic, non-targeted ads?
- Tarq0n 2y ago
  Targeted ads aren't the only kind of ads. Disregarding for a moment that you can do some amount of targetting without collecting PII too.
  - IshKebab 2y ago
    Some sites can do that. E.g. Hacker News would easily be able to do targeted advertising without collecting any data because it's a self-selected audience. Even someone like The Verge could probably do a decent job (just advertise games and tech stuff). But what the hell would The New York Times advertise? They're back at TV-style cars and perfume advertising which isn't profitable enough to sustain most businesses. I think Google's flock was the only serious attempt to solve this, but obviously it got heavily criticised by HN fundamentalists who think that the web should be entirely free and ad-free with zero tracking. To be fair it does have a rather big practical issue in that only Google has any incentive to actually implement it (I don't see why Microsoft or Mozilla or Apple would ever bother). We're probably stuck with tracking unless the EU gets some sense and mandates a do-not-track style preference system, and actually enforces it with fines.
    - chgs 2y ago
      Fairly sure the New York Times carried adverts for decades before computers existed
      - IshKebab 2y ago
        Have you somehow forgotten that physical newspapers cost money? They weren't funded solely by advertising.
  - alistairSH 2y ago
    Sure, but do those ads generate enough revenue to stay in business? How is this site’s “Pay or Take a Cookie” approach worse for the consumer than a total paywall? I’d rather we didn’t have to have annoying ads, but generating and hosting content costs money.