Was trying to read a news story and… What fresh shitfuckery is this? Why do I now have to pay money to a company just for the privilege of not being spied upon and not getting your cookies that I don’t want or need? How is this even legal?

RE: “Why are you even reading that shitrag?” – I clicked on a link someone posted in another sublemmit, didn’t realise it was the Sun till after. I do not read the Sun on the regular, chill. My point stands regardless that this is extremely shitty and should probably not be allowed.

  • TheTechnician27@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    OP, The Sun is one of the trashiest rags on the face of this Earth. Your best option regardless of their ad practices was always to stay well away from them.

  • joe_archer@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I’m pretty sure this is illegal under GDPR. They’re just seeing how long they can get away with it for, before they have to apologise and get no punishment.

    • fancy_coffeetable@feddit.org
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      2 months ago

      I’m seeing this kind of thing on an ever increasing number of sites in Germany. It’s especially galling on sites I already pay a subscription fee for! Isn’t that enough? Now I’m supposed to pay another monthly subscription to avoid tracking cookies?

      I’ve already cancelled one news website due to this, letting them know why (they’re small enough that I know they read it, since it was part of a conversation). Fat lot of good it’ll do, but …

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      2 months ago

      Indeed. There must be no downside to clicking no. Consent must be freely given.

      Although I’d argue almost nobody complies with the spirit of the law. Popping up a consent form every time you visit unless you accidentally click accept and then never asking you again doesn’t feel like consent was truly given.

      • Sotuanduso@lemm.ee
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        1 month ago

        Well, to be fair, “Why can’t websites just remember that I said no to cookies?”

        • Kayana@ttrpg.network
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          1 month ago

          Cookies required for the website to work (like that one) are totally fine and, in fact, they don’t even have to ask you about them - if they’re not used for tracking. So no, asking each time is definitely avoidable.

    • KSP Atlas@sopuli.xyz
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      1 month ago

      This appears to be a US specific website, where they could get away with the geoblocking technique to bypass gdpr

        • Spraynard Kruger@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          It for sure is The Sun, but if you look closely at the logo, you will see it actually says “The U.S. Sun”. So it’s an American offshoot of the British newspaper and the domain OP was accessing is likely hosted in the U.S.

    • redfellow@sopuli.xyz
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      1 month ago

      Sadly it is not, as you need to pay to access content by money or pay by viewing ads.

      Facebook uses the same model.

      If you don’t want the “premium content” by paying with way 1 or way 2, you can’t use the site.

      This will end up being a final nail in the coffin for these sites, I wish.

  • WoahWoah@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    The best part of this is you would need to give them your personal information to pay them, and you’d need to accept the necessary cookies for them to know you’ve paid when you access the website. 🤣🤣🤣

    • dan@upvote.au
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      1 month ago

      you’d need to accept the necessary cookies for them to know you’ve paid when you access the website

      Cookies that are required for and only used for operational purposes (like knowing if the user is logged in) don’t require consent.

  • grue@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I am really fucking sick and tired of every goddamn company thinking they’re entitled to colonize my property and hack it to serve them instead of me.

    My computer is my property, you fascist fucks, not yours, and my actual property rights trump your Imaginary “Property” “rights” (i.e. temporary government-granted privileges) every single time and in every single circumstance!

    • SkyNTP@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      I broadly agree with your sentiment, in particular computing equipment that I purchase and ongoing trends in tech (like smart TVs) that are abusive to consumers.

      However, I find this argument not terribly persuasive in this particular case. The content of a website isn’t an extension of your property. It is not even public property. Visiting a site is voluntary. You clearly didn’t pay for accessing the site, nor was it subsidized through a social program. So exactly how should content (regardless of how trashy it is) be funded? Statements like “rights” (i.e. temporary government-granted privileges) suggest you are espousing libertarian views, but at the same time, you are not expressing willingness to pay for a service privately?

      I dunno, it just comes across as demanding a handout. Meanwhile, not visiting websites that don’t meet your vision for how funding content should be done seems like a perfectly simple and reasonable approach to have for this problem.

      • ilikecoffee@lemmy.worldOP
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        1 month ago

        The content of a website isn’t an extension of your property.

        No, but it is my property which is to be used to store files that this company has put there, just so they can track me across the web to sell me more crappy shit I do not need.

        So exactly how should content (regardless of how trashy it is) be funded?

        With ads, but either be good and use ads that arent spyware, or let me choose to opt out of the tracky ones and use general ads instead.

        Meanwhile, not visiting websites that don’t meet your vision for how funding content should be done seems like a perfectly simple and reasonable approach to have for this problem.

        Yup, hence why I noped outta there as soon as I saw that popup cause fuuuck that…

  • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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    1 month ago

    Oh no. It’s not like that. They don’t even ask you about cookies any more.

    This is a payment so they don’t sell all your cookie data to their 1354 trusted data partners/advertising vultures.

  • blind3rdeye@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    I find it amusing that they “use cookies to give you the best possible experience”, but then ask you to pay to not have them.

  • Gikiski@fedia.io
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    2 months ago

    The red flag there in the screenshot shows you the name of the publication you should avoid using or visiting.

  • Rookeh@startrek.website
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    2 months ago

    Solution: don’t read that shitrag. It was always a waste of paper, now it is a waste of bandwidth as well.

      • Ganbat@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 month ago

        This is happening because the site is shitty so don’t use the shitty site. Sounds pretty f’n on-point to me.

        • Jarix@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          I agree with the sentiment about the shittyness of the site.

          But this was about a new bullshit cookie bullshit.

          If you can understand the persons problem here then maybe you need to do some work about that

  • Daemon Silverstein@thelemmy.club
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    1 month ago

    A naive question of mine, but isn’t using a browser/extensions that silently/transparently blocks cookies (such as Brave, but not just it) enough to fearlessly click “Accept All Cookies”, since ultimately they would be pointless for the purpose of tracking (due to the browser’s own cookie blocking capabilities)?

    • ilikecoffee@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 month ago

      Yeah it would. But as I said elsewhere, this is probably enough to be ‘too much effort’ for the majority of users, and definitely a lot more effort than it should be. I already know several people who habitually click accept all on cookie banners, and I know I have caught myself doing that a couple times too…

  • bitwolf@lemmy.one
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    1 month ago

    It asks to play DRM content but plays videos anyway.

    Their devs must be so sick of their business dept.

  • DandomRude@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    When I was working on data protection issues, I asked a specialist lawyer more than two years ago how something like this could be reconciled with the GDPR. He couldn’t answer the question, but said that with the best will in the world he couldn’t imagine that this would be OK under data protection law. Nevertheless, this approach is now common practice for the vast majority of news sites in Europe and also in the EU, which has strict regulations regarding tracking, at least in theory. I still don’t know the legal details, but at least I know that there are no serious penalties whatsoever if there is no distortion of competition involved - and since none of the news companies would sue another in this matter, this has become common practice even in the EU.