437
submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by BMP5k@feddit.uk to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

1000004515

Not sure how long this has been a thing but I was surprised to see that you cannot view the content without either agreeing to all or paying to reject.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] poVoq@slrpnk.net 116 points 3 months ago

A common thing in continental Europe too. NOYB and some EU lawmakers are trying to make these pay-or-ok schemes illegal, but I guess in the UK you will be out of luck regarding that.

[-] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 40 points 3 months ago

Wouldn't this be blatantly in conflict with the EU cookie law? Like I'm not from Europe but my understanding was that it needs to be equally easy to accept or reject all cookies. Dark patterns aren't allowed

[-] Sylvartas@lemmy.world 12 points 3 months ago

Currently it's a grey area I think

[-] Don_alForno@feddit.org 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

It's not a grey area, it's clearly illegal (consent has to be given voluntarily. If you can't use the site without paying, that's not voluntary). Agencies so far just decided to look the other way and play dumb. There are lawsuits ongoing.

load more comments (18 replies)
[-] digdilem@lemmy.ml 15 points 3 months ago

I think this type of scheme is illegal under the GDPR, which is in effect in the UK just as it is in the EU.

It's been a while since I worked with the GDPR, but from memory the wording is such that:

The data holder needs to allow people to opt out of data collection. The subject can request to be forgotten. The data holder explicitly cannot charge for this.

But changes move slow, and The Mirror is probably banking on nobody caring enough to complain, and Trading Standards being too underfunded and swamped with other work to investigate otherwise (which they are). If they're challenged, they'll just change tack, go "oops" and are unlikely to hit big fines unless they dig in.

Cookie laws are a horrible mess and always have done - the resulting consent banners are far more intrusive than anyone wanted.

load more comments (4 replies)
[-] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 64 points 3 months ago

Lmao even if you pay, you still see ads, they just won't track you. What an insane monetization scheme

[-] cosmicrookie@lemmy.world 32 points 3 months ago

Actually they still track you, they just don't share the information with advertisers. This is hte "pay or ok" model of blackmailing users to accept cookies and tracking. More or less what Facebook did last year, but Facebook charged a price tag that was higher than what Netflix costs! In the EU, this is not what was intended, and is currently being redefined

https://www.edpb.europa.eu/news/news/2024/edpb-consent-or-pay-models-should-offer-real-choice_en

[-] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 22 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Absolutely wild that they're still allowed to call this "consent"

If we imagine the idea of sexual consent being given in the same circumstances, it sounds a lot like a fucking crime.

"Either you consent to having sex with me right now or you pay me a subscription fee in order to not consent. If you do that, I'll still fuck you, but I'll use protection"

I like this analogy; it's provocative and it made me think about the issue for longer than I would have otherwise.

However, after some thought, I don't think it aligns perfectly since the user can simply choose not to read the article, so there's an option where they don't get fucked.

In the same vein, I think we could make a better analogy to sexting. You meet someone, seem to hit it off, and when the texts and pictures get a little spicy, they hit you with a, "you can pay me now and I will keep all of this in my private spank-bank, otherwise I'm going to share our entire relationship with a group chat I'm in with 1200+ people"

I think this is a bit stronger because it hits on a few notes where the hook-up analogy falls short: sharing of sensitive information, extortion in exchange for gratification, and the potential for an ongoing relationship.

Idk, what do you think?

load more comments (5 replies)
[-] Don_alForno@feddit.org 4 points 3 months ago

Sadly, newspapers are not considered "platforms". A platform is a site that publishes user generated content, so lemmy or facebook. And not all platforms are large platforms too.

So while this is a good first step, it doesn't cover all online services.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] suction@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

“But if we don’t track you, we lose all the money we’d have made selling your data to Oxford Analytics so they can help Putin convince your uncle to vote for far-right candidates?!?”

[-] Senal@programming.dev 59 points 3 months ago

"News outlet" might be the most generous interpretation I've ever seen.

[-] NegativeLookBehind@lemmy.world 49 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Is this

  🦋
💁‍♂️

Peak enshittification?

[-] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 23 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

They can always go shittier. Nothing will stop them until the entire human population is strapped into a matrix style ad network, 24/7... paid for by you, renting your neurons as compute for AI to generate more ads and supporting analytics for yourself... until your profitability quotient falls below average and they liquify your corpse to feed a more profitable gen of the attention crop.

[-] Blizzard@lemmy.zip 6 points 3 months ago

Like in that Black Mirror episode when it was checking if you're watching the ad and you could only pay to skip it.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 25 points 3 months ago

Well ok, they have no GDPR.

[-] Don_alForno@feddit.org 10 points 3 months ago

German news outlets all do it. The data protection agencies have sadly so far ruled it's ok (there are still ongoing lawsuits afaik).

[-] RVGamer06@sh.itjust.works 4 points 3 months ago

Every outlet in Italy as well.

[-] loutr@sh.itjust.works 8 points 3 months ago

It's standard practice in France too. This is not forbidden by RGPD.

[-] Daxtron2@startrek.website 13 points 3 months ago

you Frenchies and your fucked up transposed acronyms

[-] loutr@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 months ago

Shut the fuck up or I'll go OTAN on your ass.

[-] Daxtron2@startrek.website 6 points 3 months ago

Careful, your 5.56 OTAN bullets might shoot backwards.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] peto@lemm.ee 21 points 3 months ago

Just don't read The Mirror. Generally not worth the effort of moving your eyes from one word to the next.

[-] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 19 points 3 months ago

Refer them to the EU. EU is going after Meta for charging for an ad-free plan. Oh, right. The EU only goes after USA corporations and deliberately wrote their rules to exclude companies like Spotify. Oh wait, there was Brexit, so it doesn't matter anyway. Brits voted themselves right to fucking shit. Kinda like what we might do in a few months.

Vote. The stupid people definitely will, so it's necessary to combat them.

[-] wuphysics87@lemmy.ml 5 points 3 months ago

And fuck abstaining on the basis of we only have two bad choices, I want a true leftist candidate. I would too, but by abstaining you are basically taking the bullshit liberal position of "I can't tell the difference between these two things"

[-] xia@lemmy.sdf.org 16 points 3 months ago

How can you pay to block cookies if they would need a cookie to remember that you paid?

[-] twinnie@feddit.uk 15 points 3 months ago

I've seen this on a few sites. They aren't even allowed to make rejecting cookies more difficult than accepting them but right now the legal people are trying to educate before they starting enforcing these rules. I expect the lawyers at the Mirror know that this is illegal but think they can get away with it.

All those things like having to "customise" your cookies to turn them all off, and "legitimate interest" is all illegal under the rules but they're trying their luck.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml 14 points 3 months ago

"Back to concent"

Fucking animals.

[-] SleepyWheel@sh.itjust.works 11 points 3 months ago

The Mirror website is cancer. I use NoScript and it won't load without allowing about 50 fuckkng scripts. MSN too. I avoid both but occasionally click on a link from elsewhere

[-] ChonkaLoo@lemmy.zip 9 points 3 months ago

Daily mail does it as well. Cancer. But not hard to circumvent with Firefox and some extensions.

[-] CatZoomies@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago

Get yourself the Consent-o-Matic browser extension and watch these “we and our 8000 partners (hungrily) value your privacy” banners disappear.

If you stumble upon a web site that Consent-o-Matic does not handle, you can simply click the extension, click “Submit for Review”, and the devs will shortly add support for that site.

[-] Andrew@mnstdn.monster 10 points 3 months ago

I have this but it's no good for consent-or-pay, unfortunately.

load more comments (4 replies)
[-] moon@lemmy.ml 5 points 3 months ago

But does that auto accept cookies like many of these other anti cookie banner extensions?

[-] CatZoomies@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago

You can customize how the extension handles cookie banners. See an example of current settings on most updated extension at time of this comment:

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Flyberius@hexbear.net 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

GDPR, go gettem.

You cannot share customer data with third parties without explicit consent. It has to be clearly labelled and not hidden in T&Cs

[-] urquell@lemm.ee 8 points 3 months ago

That's an EU thing ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[-] Flyberius@hexbear.net 10 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

It's still a uk thing. I was the GDPR officer for our company when it was introduced and as far as I know it hasn't been repealed in UK law yet.

Edit: Looking into it further it appears that we now have a UK GDPR law which is essentially the same thing and is in lockstep with the EU version.

[-] communism@lemmy.ml 7 points 3 months ago

UK also has GDPR. They left the EU after GDPR was passed and now have "UK GDPR" which is practically the same as the EU

[-] ssm@lemmy.sdf.org 7 points 3 months ago

FYI you should probably be blocking/whitelisting cookies client-side anyways. At the very least, disable third party cookies.

[-] cosmicrookie@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago

uBlock origin, can access the page fine, without showing any promts. I have more or less all filters turned on though (cookie popups, social media trackers etc)

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] umami_wasbi@lemmy.ml 6 points 3 months ago

Can you manually uncheck all then save it?

[-] BMP5k@feddit.uk 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

They are all unchecked by default but you can't save and exit, it just loops back to the subscribe screen.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] idefix@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 months ago

A lot of websites in France have done the same for the past couple of years. Including Allociné, me ex-go-to source of information for movies and movie theatre schedule. Result: I have blocked those websites and I prefer pirating.

load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2024
437 points (99.3% liked)

Privacy

31995 readers
525 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Related communities

Chat rooms

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS