‘Consent or pay’: Why UK news websites are getting tough with readers over data

The Guardian has not implemented a consent or pay model but has been “closely following”, according to director of digital Katherine Le Ruez, who spoke at an FT Strategies conference in London this month. She said: “We all know that if you give users equal choice on a consent banner, do you want to accept or reject? Increasing numbers reject, especially with, for example, all of the ads on TV for Apple saying ‘your privacy is really important, think about your privacy’.

She said this is because many advertisers only want consented audiences, even if publishers like The Guardian have tools to show relevant ads to readers who have opted out of cookies.

Le Ruez added: “So when you’re looking at your business model, your traffic is kind of struggling, your monetisable pages are declining. You need to bridge that gap. A really obvious thing to do is to consider making it much harder for people to reject. And the ICO has said we have to have equal weighting of accept and reject on the front layers of our consent banners, and they’ve also said that consent or pay is fine when it comes to data privacy law, therefore it makes logical sense to drive up your consent rates by making it more painful, eg, by making the user pay to reject…

“What that then means for publishers who don’t currently have consent or pay is our accept-all rates continue to decline, whereas our peers’ don’t. And when we’re thinking about being attractive to advertisers, particularly direct advertisers, scale is a really important part of our strategy, like our sales pitch is scale influence and integrity. If we don’t have the scale because we can’t deliver ad campaigns to enormous numbers of readers with all of the ad tech, the measurement, the first party data activation that advertisers want, then we start to become less relevant. Therefore, it is of no surprise that considering consent or pay as a viable option right now is quite high on publishers’ to-do lists.”

‘It has forced publishers to be explicit about the value exchange’

Danny Spears, chief operating officer at Ozone, an online ad tech and sales collaboration between the UK’s leading online publishers, told the same panel he had “mixed feelings” about consent or pay.

“I’m not sure I feel totally comfortable with the way that it manifests to the user,” he said. “But there is one positive which is, for the first time, it’s forced publishers to be very explicit about the value exchange. And I think that is something we struggled with as an industry since GDPR fell into place. So there’s something around the explicitness of the value exchange and a price being attached to that.”

And Alessandro de Zanche, founder of ADZ Strategies, cited an article he wrote in 2019 saying that user permission is “the new oil” as he said the changes have come as a result of publishers being too focused on the short term.

He told the FT Strategies panel that he had encouraged publishers to “build a funnel of trust, let’s take people – audiences, users – from anonymous to registered to logged in et cetera, let’s start communicating the value exchange”.

“We haven’t done that and now we are with our backs against the wall saying ‘what do we do?’

“I think there’s a huge missed opportunity because privacy is an opportunity for differentiation, to differentiate ourselves from less trustworthy competitors,” he said, referring to “made for advertising” sites that may create a dubious 100% consent rate by offering people a dud button to pay.

“So yes if we look at the short term we need to generate revenue. If we look at what we could have done and what we could do in the future then that’s a different story.”

What is allowed in the UK and Europe?

In March the ICO put out a call for views on allowing UK publishers implement consent or pay, sharing its initial view that in principle the model is not prohibited under data protection law but consent must be “freely given” – unlikely if there is an “unreasonably high fee” – and “fully informed”. Although it has not yet published its formal position, it has told publishers they were okay to go ahead with it.

In Europe, some publishers have been warned that the way they implemented the model broke the law even though it was “permissible in principle”. Last year German IT and tech site Heise (which today offers the option to browse without tracking or banner and video advertising for €1.95 per month for existing subscribers or €4.95 for non-subscribers) was reprimanded by the country’s data protection authority because it did not allow users to specifically consent to certain purposes.

Felix Mikolasch, data protection lawyer at Noyb (the European Center for Digital Rights) explained: “Common ‘pay or okay’ solutions are a ‘take it or leave it’ system, where you have to consent to everything or pay. The GDPR requires ‘specific’ consent to each type of processing. We welcome the decision, but after years of violating the law, a reprimand is not an adequate solution for obscure ‘pay or okay’ systems. A mere reprimand is not going to deter others from choosing this approach.”

Heise was also found to have launched tracking cookies as soon as a user opened the website, before they could give consent. It was also deemed too difficult to revoke consent at a later date.

Earlier in 2023 Austrian newsbrand Der Standard’s cookie banner (price currently set at €8.90 was found to have been uncompliant with GDPR although the model was not itself opposed.

Sara Vincent, managing director, UK at Utiq, told Press Gazette: “Publishers have started to consider ‘consent or pay’ as they are seeing more and more users declining consent for more personalised ads, following changes to privacy regulation, which starts a downward spiral in terms of monetisation for the publisher.

“Non-personalised, non-consented users are less valuable, meaning that a publisher needs to either increase traffic to compensate, or look to an alternative paid-for offering, if they want to sustain and grow their business, which is mostly reliant on advertising revenue.
 
“The recent move by some of the UK publishers to ‘consent and pay’ is interesting – it would be safe to assume that these publishers chose this path because of declining ad revenues and a widespread lack of understanding among users of the value exchange, which leads to increased reject rates.
 
“Users do not always understand that there is a cost to developing fact-checked, journalist-curated content, and why would they? For years, content on the open web has been free. If nothing else, these prompts are helping to address that. By being offered a choice of consenting or paying, the reader should have a greater appreciation that there is a cost associated with good content. The irony is that they have been paying this cost in personal data in the walled gardens for years without regard.”

Will users consent, pay or avoid altogether?

This big question is will website users pay in order to no share their data, or just go away altogether.

German tabloid Bild offers a Bild Pur [pure] subscription to opt out of tracking, cookies and personalised advertising priced at €3.99 (£3.37) or €2.99 (£2.52) for subscribers of its digital subscription package Bild Plus – but a spokesperson for the publisher told Press Gazette earlier this year that Bild Pur has “no significant impact on our subscription numbers.

“Many of our users accept the fact that we show advertisements, which are in fact often very relevant to them, for example when it comes to current offers from retailers.”

Emily Shaw, digital account director at The Kite Factory, told Press Gazette she believes “very few people will commit to paying to opt out of cookies on individual websites given the only advantage is personalisation” and they will still receive ads in most cases.

However she suggested a “one-size-fits-all solution paying to reject cookies across all websites, or one which also opted out of ads” could be more attractive to consumers.

Vincent of Utiq said: “Will users just click to consent? Time will tell. Users have different motivations: some will have the means to pay to access ad-free /non-personalised content but I expect this will be a minority.  

“I expect more publishers will follow this path of ‘consent or pay’, and the more widespread the practice becomes, the more normalised it becomes – meaning that users will likely make their choice on the site they wanted to access, rather than seeking the content elsewhere.”

How are UK publishers selling it to users?

The Sun explains the value exchange to users as follows: “In response to recent enforcement action by the UK Information Commissioner against publishers, we have been forced to introduce new technology to ask our subscribers to consent to the advertising cookies that support our journalism, or pay a monthly fee that means we don’t need to use them.”

It adds that if they choose to opt out of advertising cookies they will be asked to pay a “small monthly fee to address the shortfall in revenues we need to continue to produce the quality journalism you expect from us”.

Blaming “regulatory changes”, The Times tells readers the new choice it is offering is “instead of increasing the cost of the subscription for our readers”.

“Due to recent regulatory enforcement activities by data protection authorities in the UK and across Europe, you are required to select your cookie preferences regarding personalised adverts when reading The Times and Sunday Times.

“Personalised adverts display brands and products based on your interests. These adverts are vital in supporting our award-winning journalism.”

Most of the publishers – The Sun, Mail Online, The Times – present the option as separate to any other subscription a user may have with the brand.

However, The Independent offers its “all the benefits of Independent Ad-Free” as part of its Independent Premium subscription offering which currently costs £1 for six months or £99 for a year. Unlike The Sun and Mail Online, which still show advertising but without any personalisation, this means Independent readers can have a totally ad-free experience.

Readers of The Independent are told: “Privacy – it’s your choice. Free-thinking, original journalism needs your support.”

The Express website launched a paid-for ad-free experience one year ago costing £2.99 per month or £19.99 per year. However its Privacy Plus offering, which gives users only “basic, non targeted ads”, is separate at a slightly lower price point of £1.99 per month.

It tells readers of the new “reject and pay” option: “Both options enable you to access the content and support the work of our editorial staff who are committed to providing you with quality information every day. We have introduced these choices in accordance with data protection regulations.”

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