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It wasa cold Parisian day in 1948 when privacy became a recognized human right.
Companies are pushing the boundaries of the GDPR provisions on user consent.
(Image credit: Future)
The social media behemoth even paused its new pay-for-ads-free plan for the European market.
Just when we thought we’d won the battle, the privacy paywall landed in the UK.
Accessing the free news of some of the most popular UK newspapers online now has a cost.
(Image credit: Future)
Not exactly “freely given consent,” is it?
The GDPR issue
The European block’sGDPRwas a landmark moment for online data protection.
Many countries after that later adopted their own version of it.
(Image credit: Future)
The ‘Pay or Consent’ model indeed gives you a choice - on paper, at least.
Certainly, it isn’t a free one.
Let’s look at what theGDPR guidelinessay exactly.
(Image credit: Future)
After the UK left the EU, the government implemented its own version of the GDPR.
The ‘freely given consent’ clause would remain, though.
In March 2023, regulators then passed another law to fight back the so-called pop-up fatigue.
(Image credit: Future)
At the time of writing, some of the most-read publications are testing the water.
These include The Sun and Daily Mail Online, which count24.7 and 23.2 million monthly visitorsrespectively.
The Independent, Mirror, and Daily Express are other titles trying to profit from their readers' data.
(Image credit: Future)
The instances coming from mainland Europe aren’t encouraging, either.
Privacy isn’t a commodity, though, but a fundamental human right - full stop.
(Image credit: Future)
