this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2024
142 points (95.5% liked)

Privacy

31660 readers
876 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
 

This has to be against some kind of law right?

top 49 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Even if you pay, you'll still be tracked.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 hours ago

Yeah, they’ll still collect your data and happily sell it as soon as your subscription ends. Also, this subscription would likely only cover first-party tracking. It wouldn’t cover things like a Facebook Like button being embedded in the site, which allows Facebook to track you.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 hours ago

Have you heard of adblocking?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

Either pay for an vpn and clear your cache and cookies constantly or pay directly to the advertisers.

Freedom isn’t free, there’s a hefty fuckin fee.

If you don’t kick in your buck-o-5 who will?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Hey that's a lot better than companies who asks you to pay and still share your data for profits

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 hours ago

No guarantee these guys won't

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I mean, if you don't want to participate in the advertisement based monetization model, which you shouldn't, then the alternative to it is a subscription model.

these sites aren't free. we have the right to block advertising content and trackers on our browsers but that doesn't mean we have the right to block advertising while retaining no payment access.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 hours ago

Err, this payment doesn't block ads. It only switches off personalised ads. So, the user is still seeing ads, just not targeted ones. So the site is getting both user's money plus ad money. And technically, I am not sure how privacy preserving this is because you will still need to create an account which technically leaves you vulnerable to tracking.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 hours ago

They want you to pay for the cost of the website you're accessing.
Which is reasonable.

And you can choose whether you want to pay with money or with your data.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 13 hours ago

The Express? There's definitely a not-reading-it option

[–] [email protected] 12 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

If the news is that important you'll find it elsewhere without this bs

[–] [email protected] 6 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Haven't these cookie paywalls been ruled illegal?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Only in the EU apparently. Although, I could've sworn cookie paywalls were breaking some law

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago

website exists for people born in the eu -> it has to comply with the gdpr

[–] [email protected] 10 points 15 hours ago

You’re not missing much.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 22 hours ago (3 children)

Saw this on Sunday. I think it fits here...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago

ublock origin has an annoyance list you have to manually enable, but it works wonders to get rid of those.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 hours ago

I always do this when I can't see a page. I also do it when they pop out a big box with text in the middle of the reading and if they also pop out a big box begging me to accept the cookies.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

The website doesn't really care; they have hosting costs so if you're not paying with money or by accepting ads then to them you're worse than not visiting at all as you consume resources, so it's good if you leave?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

but the offer has consumed resurces

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

Sure, but people have memory and if you block people who aren't even going to contribute to the running costs of the site via the channels they provide, never mind profit, then from the site owners perspective it's pretty great if you recognise it as a site you don't want to visit as you likely won't come back

[–] [email protected] 13 points 20 hours ago

So, it's win win. Good scenario.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

thank brexiters for that, it's illegal in eu

[–] [email protected] 15 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

Remind me why we left again

[–] [email protected] 24 points 17 hours ago

To reduce regulations and taxes on rich people, mainly.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 17 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 20 hours ago

no it's not, it's a loophole in the legislation that was actually first used and is still most popular in France?

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 day ago

Don’t worry, once they have your credit card number they’ll track you even more. At best you’ll get a £‎2.35 cheque from a class action lawsuit in seven years, assuming they ever even get caught.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (2 children)

This has to be against some kind of law right?

Only in the EU.

Anyways I think that "pay or consent" model isn't that bad. You either pay with your data or your money. Seems fine to me though pay only would be better. Everyone is used to getting everything online for free. It has to change now imo. The internet isn't a bunch of hobby forum projects anymore. The price of running a popular website is big and idk if privacy-respecting ads can give enough profit at this point.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

You can show ads without tracking and keeping users their right to privacy, right? I think it's different selling user data than having some ads on your website.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

You can but, as I said, it's much less profitable.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

Which brings us back to the real, underlying, problems with the prevalent model: greed and the concentration of wealth.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 hours ago

which is inherent to, and the express goal of a capitalist economic system.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 17 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 17 hours ago

Some people will find a way to abuse everything for ultra profit. Sadly it will never change.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 21 hours ago

Moral of the story? Don't read the Express. To quote Dave Gorman, it's a crock of shit.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

What a fantastic website not to visit

[–] [email protected] 5 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

I just wanted to read one article, so i have to pay to reject cookies even though I'll probably never end up on that site again. What a fuckin joke!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 22 hours ago

It's the express, you're better off never reading a word they print

[–] [email protected] 3 points 22 hours ago

Archive.is is your friend

[–] [email protected] 16 points 23 hours ago (2 children)
[–] LiveLM 9 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Now that's the real PrivacyPlus™

[–] [email protected] 5 points 22 hours ago

And it's free.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 22 hours ago

Never heard of consent-o-matic. I'm gonna have to check it out

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Not really, it's just phrased differently to the usual signup pitch, they're putting in a middle ground between full "premium" subscribers (whatever that is) and public access with tracking and ad metrics.

Companies need revenue to operate. They get that revenue from advertising data and selling ad slots, or subscriptions. Whether they actually cease all tracking and ad metrics when you subscribe is something I'd doubt though, and that could be a case for the legal system if they didn't do what they claim.

Personally, this behaviour is the point where I would not consider the site to be valuable enough to bother with.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 23 hours ago

Wasn't it illegal to not let a user reject a cookie? In the EU at least

[–] [email protected] 2 points 21 hours ago

Is this related to the new laws in Europe? I remember seeing something about Facebook introducing a paid tier

[–] [email protected] 2 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Besides the point but are you able to get around it with internet archive?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 20 hours ago

Gets around it perfectly