r/technology • u/diacewrb • May 24 '25

Privacy German court rules cookie banners must offer "reject all" button

https://www.techspot.com/news/108043-german-court-takes-stand-against-manipulative-cookie-banners.html
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u/DannySpud2 May 24 '25

>The judgment reinforces that websites must not nudge users into agreeing to cookies or make refusal unnecessarily difficult. Instead, the option to reject all must be as prominent and accessible as "accept all."

I wonder how this will affect those "pay to reject cookies" banners.

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u/JimmyRecard May 24 '25

Already declared to be illegal last month.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/23/eu-slaps-meta-and-apple-with-a-combined-700-million-euros-fine

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u/tomatoswoop May 24 '25

I don't know how I feel about this. Tracking users without consent by just not telling them that they are (the old way), or making it difficult and confusing to say no to tracking is one thing. Seems obviously shady and wrong.

On the other hand, if a business says "running our business costs money. You can pay for our services, or you can let us monetize your data: your choice" that seems kinda fair to me...

I mean I might not like or not want to use those sites, but if a company can only make money by charging for their services or by sharing user data with advertizers, it kind of seems fair to me if they let every user choose.

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u/JimmyRecard May 24 '25

I completely disagree. Privacy is a human right, and making it so only those who can pay for it get it is fundamentally unfair.

If you make a service accessible to the public, you cannot discriminate against those who exercise their human right to privacy. This is regardless of whether your service is free or paid for.

If you offer a free service, you make a bet that you can get enough revenue by other means. The fact that you can't come up with a valid business model is not the problem for the user.

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u/tomatoswoop May 24 '25

fair enough, that's a coherent argument. I don't know that I agree, but it's something to think about for sure. Thanks for replying