Readers are asked for the consent of cookies in the browser on a website. Photo by: Mohssen Assanimoghaddam/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
Major British news publishers are reportedly looking to a “consent or pay” model for accessing content, seeking to balance news monetisation with data privacy compliance following a Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) ruling last year over tracking cookies.
Cookies are used online by publishers to deliver targeted digital marketing and are key to selling advertising that the organisation then uses to fund its business. Cookies store user data and behaviour information, which allows advertising services to target audience groups.
In November the ICO, charged with enforcing General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) legislation, mandated that all news publishers in the UK display a “reject all cookies” button, equally accessible as the “accept all” option. The ruling followed an investigation into top news websites, including The Daily Mail and The Guardian, and aims to provide readers with genuine choice over their personal data.
The Press Gazette reports that the ICO’s rigorous enforcement of GDPR data privacy laws could significantly impact publishers’ revenue, with an estimated 30% loss of trackable readers.
Now, it says, news publishers are looking for an alternate business strategy that has become popular with news organisations in Germany called a “consent or pay” model. Under the alternate model readers must either accept all cookies or subscribe to access content. Such measures reflect a growing challenge for publishers.
Industry leaders are debating the implementation specifics, like the placement and design of the “reject all” option. The ICO’s guidance requires equal ease for accepting and rejecting cookies as a non-negotiable, and non-compliance could lead to hefty fines.
