That has to be a GDPR violation, right?
I think this is only in UK
Ah, right, the joys of Brexit...
I've seen this recently at German newspaper websites too.
Most likely ePrivacy rather than GDPR although in most discussions they become the same thing
For what?
No, the EU does not force entities to provide Internet services for free.
You have the choice. Pay with your data or your money. I hate it too but what can you do?
While no it cant force it for free and they are free to have an Ad based version the cookies could be considered a violation of the ePrivacy regulation:
Allow users to access your service even if they refuse to allow the use of certain cookies
Make it as easy for users to withdraw their consent as it was for them to give their consent in the first place.
Although the EU has been pretty lax in terms of enforcing a lot of these regulations
This is a newspaper, not an ISP.
But from what I understand of the law, what you are saying is true
Privacy - it's your choice
You know, just choose to afford privacy.
Let us track you to view this article.
or....
Pay us with a trackable payment method to view this article.
Catch-22 Surveillance Economy
I'd rather they put a webasm crypto miner on the page and say "mine for 10s to view this article" or something
Is it really so hard to buy a disposable visa or MasterCard? Can even pay bums to buy them for you.
its friction, a really really high amount of friction.....
Not to mention many of the subscription sites (like newspapers) WILL NOT ACCEPT a prepaid card, or a virtual card - they flat refuse them. It has to be a card they can auto-bill forever. Not everyone does this, but enough do that its really rather bothersome friction.
This is why I use a script blocker to block the scripts from marketing domains. From what I have been able to see the cookies aren't written because the code that writes it is not allowed to execute. It also stops script injections and other malware payloads that require extra-domain linkages to scripts.
Loads of them are doing this now, I’m pretty sure it’s illegal.
I used to love the print Indy. It was a fantastic paper, and the Sunday edition was genuinely a great read in itself with brilliant contributors.
Ever since the print edition ceased (some may point to the launch of i as the turning point but I'm not entirely sure that's fair) the entire operation has been turned into an ad farm masquerading as a news site.
It's a cross between a tabloid and the Million Dollar Homepage nowadays, and what a shame that is. At least it keeps browser "close tab" UI devs in business mind.
Whatever you do, don't post a link to that article to Archive.ph!
Seriously, it harms rich people by not letting them sell your data.
Wasn't Meta doing this exact thing just found to be illegal
Ive seen so many sites that just straight up wont work if you dont accept all cookies. You get the "tracking free" version of the site which is literally nothing. Or they say ok, just make an account and you can reject cookies. Fuck that
very aptly named newspaper. one upon which i'll refrain from depending.
What if there was a way to offer ads while not being extremely privacy invasive? Oh, good thing Mozilla's been working on that! Oh wait, the same people here hate that as well…
Shouldn't news agencies be paid in some way?
News agencies have always been able to offer adverts. But with the option to deny optional tracking cookies. Now you have to accept tracking cookies or pay money.
Whenever there's inescapable cookies and/or a paywall
Honest journalism is only for people with a Venezuelan's monthly salary. Very honest.
A normal amount of adverts I think are fair though. Asking to get the content, not paying anything for it, and refusing to watch adverts is just a bit too cheeky, in my opinion.
They only need to serve ads related to the conent. Because that is most likely something im interested in as I'm visiting the page for that. They don't need any permissions/cookies for that.
No. Most other sites allow you to refuse personalised tracking cookies which doesn’t stop advertising in general but stops targeted ads and tracking cookies
I don't see what's the issue.
They want to get paid in some way and they offer the reader the option: pay with your privacy or pay with your money?
Or feel free to close the tab if both options are unacceptable. There are a lot of spamblogs written by chatgpt that allow to read the regurgitated content without accepting cookies, for example.
Maybe it's infuriating because if you really want to read the content you're forced to waste 1 second to right click => open in incognito window or waste 1 minute to sign up for a subscription, but I don't think it's asshole design, because they have to pay bills. You don't want sponsored news pieces and fake reviews in that website either, no?
Now if it was like Facebook where the option is "pay with your privacy or pay with your privacy AND with your money", that would be asshole design
Opening in incognito doesnt give you any privacy, they still going to match you using IP and browser fingerprint to get (almost) the same person matching as allowing all cookies.
Cookies just makes it easier.
For me if its a page I opened first time I will just close it and open next search result.
If this page/domain is something I see quite often then depending on the price I might pay.
Paying full monthly price for single page visit is stupid they will have a hard time to convince me to pay. And paying with privacy is out for me.
Waiting for time when they start using centralized payment system that will allow me to pay small amount per visit, like lightning or BAT.
But at that point is paranoia. If you're worried about tracking via IP address, then there are no websites that you can visit. You can count on a single hand the websites that do no logging whatsoever. Even if you reject cookies, the IP address is always visible server side. Better to sell all your devices and go back living completely offline like in the 80s.
