Cookie files have been a controversy for a while now. On one hand, they allow for a better user experience, on the other hand, accepting them is a way of giving up on your internet privacy. It is almost impossible to avoid having a cookies notification pop up when you browse various websites.
I am sure we have all had an instance when we were prompted with an agreement to give our precious data away, the site simultaneously becomes unaccessible to us until we either agree or try our luck elsewhere. I think we all agree that this is a very greedy approach when it comes to our data and none of us likes being monitored or spied on. Unfortunately, the worst is yet to come. Recently it has come to my attention that certain EU websites initiated a new policy where to see the contents without agreeing to their cookie files you will have to pay money. So far, this occurrence was noted only in Germany with the price of free browsing costing us 4.99€ a month. Sites like: T-Online, Bild, and Die Welt, are just a handful of examples. “It’s a win-win for the websites. They get paid with data or they get paid with money,” said Cristiana Santos, an assistant professor of privacy and data protection law at Utrecht University. This totals about 75€ a year for non-invasive browsing.
Overall this will not change much for average users who do not value their data nevertheless it creates a dark vision of the internet where no information is free anymore and everything has a cost. That leaves us either paying the fee or chipping in for a VPN. And what is your opinion about this? Comment down below 🙂
Source:
Will Websites Make You Pay To Reject Their Cookies? (gizmodo.com)