Cookie Consent Before Browsing Sparks A Debate
If, like me, you do a lot of web browsing and visit a large number of sites, you will probably have encountered a high level of ‘cookie consent’ pop-ups in the past month.
This is, of course, a result of the GDPR legislation.
Cookies allow website providers to hold information about us and track our activity when we visit a site.
For those relying on advertising revenue, it is cookies that determine the ‘personalised ads’ which we see.
These ‘pop-ups’ are required because the new regulation insists that we ‘opt in’ to having information about us stored by third parties. ‘By using this website you agree…’ statements will not cut in any more.
So, we have to click a button to say ‘I Agree.’
Usually, the pop-up will also have a link to a ‘cookie policy’ that states what information is collected and how it is used.
However, most people, wanting to crack on, cannot be bothered with that and just give their agreement.
Sometimes, sites force use of that button before allowing the browsing session to continue and there is a debate about the legality of this.
After all, Article 7 of GDPR clearly states that if provision of a service is conditional upon processing personal data that is not necessary to that service, consent may not be considered as freely given.
The argument of website operators that do this, however, appears to be that as users are not paying, financially, there is no contract covering supply of the service and therefore consent to collect data can be a precondition.
Our personal information becomes, in effect, a non-financial payment for the information we browse.
