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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    3 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.

    • ilikecoffee@lemmy.worldOP
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      3 months ago

      Oh I know, I clicked a link here on lemmy and was taken to that site. I never read it otherwise, but now Im definitely not reading it…

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      3 months ago

      And they’re not even the worst in the UK.

      I forget which one it was that decried the Brass Eye paedophile special as sick, while on the page directly opposite it was an article telling you how big 15 year old Charlotte Church’s tits were getting along with a photo.

    • KSP Atlas@sopuli.xyz
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      3 months ago

      They have a reputation in the UK for a reason, I don’t even want to start thinking what the us version is like

  • joe_archer@lemmy.world
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    3 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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      3 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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      3 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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        3 months ago

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

    • KSP Atlas@sopuli.xyz
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      3 months 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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          3 months 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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      3 months 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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    3 months 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. 🤣🤣🤣

  • grue@lemmy.world
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    3 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!

  • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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    3 months 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.

  • ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org
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    3 months ago

    It’s legal because the Sun is a private company and they have the right to charge you to not datamine you. It’s not a public service and they’re not the only source of news out there, so you have a choice: if you don’t like it, get your news elsewhere.

    What’s the problem exactly?

    • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I’m no fan of ads, but you’re right. Expecting everything for free with no ads is just greedy.

      • ilikecoffee@lemmy.worldOP
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        3 months ago

        Give me all the ads you want but at least give me the option whether they’re personalised or not… Why is this now a paid choice? The companies get paid by the advertisers either way, right? I’m not expecting it for free but I don’t like thousands of unknown companies tracking me thank you very much.

      • twinnie@feddit.uk
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        3 months ago

        I don’t mind ads, but I don’t expect to be tracked around the internet. It’s like every website you visit being able to view your browser history. That’s private information.

        • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Technically, whatever the Sun prints is private information available for purchase. You can either pay cash or trade their information for yours.

          I still get frustrated by it, so I understand where you’re coming from. My local paper is ONLY viewable with a subscription. There are ways around it, like turning off JavaScript, but if we don’t count cheating the system, you gotta pay. They have to make money to pay their employees somehow, at least the Sun gives you an alternate option.

  • blind3rdeye@lemm.ee
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    3 months 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.

  • letsgo@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    “To change all cookie settings click_here” <-- this is the bit you want. It’s free to reject all the cookies yourself.

      • cRazi_man@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        It’s the Sun. No one should use their site. They’re doing you a favour by showing you they’re assholes the second you land on their site.

      • ilikecoffee@lemmy.worldOP
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        3 months ago

        True, but shouldn’t I be able to use it if I want to without having to choose between paying money or being spied on?

        • null@slrpnk.net
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          The only other option I can see would be ads – but I’m betting you’d just use an ad-blocker.

          • ilikecoffee@lemmy.worldOP
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            3 months ago

            Well, the fact that when there are ads, there’s always like 20 of them is another issue… But yeah, I don’t even care about ads but as I see it I should have a right to privacy without having to pay for it.

            • null@slrpnk.net
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              3 months ago

              You don’t have to pay for privacy. You still have that right.

              What you don’t have is the right to use that particular website without either paying for it, or allowing cookies.

              You aren’t a victim of anything here.

  • DandomRude@lemmy.world
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    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.

  • lordnikon@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    private session by default and using start page as your search engine with Anonymous View to search the pages saves the cookies but they are worthless one you leave the site

    • ilikecoffee@lemmy.worldOP
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      Okay, but that’s still a lot of effort, and loads more effort than 90% of users would be willing to go through. All so these fucks can (try to) sell my data to 19000 different ‘vendors’ and their ‘legitimate interests’. I swear this needs to be legally regulated somehow before we end up having to pay these people to not monitor our webcams while we read their shitty tabloids.

      BTW I do use searXNG and Startpage

      • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        If you’re on Firefox, you can also have certain sites automatically open in containers. “Sure, put cookies on my machine if you want. You can see me only browsing your website ever.”

        • Bob@feddit.nl
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          That’s the solution I’ve landed on for using Youtube, since Invidious and Piped always cack the bed for me. I’ve deleted my old Google account and started a new one with a fake email address, too.