To think most of you don’t know Mumsnet are now requiring acceptance of cookie tracking or payment to use the site?

[OldChairMan]

… as MN have only posted in Site Stuff:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/site_stuff/5268190-introducing-pay-or-consent-on-mumsnet?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

Many will click on “Read for free” without realising that this is a change in the site’s terms.

“Hello everyone.

We wanted to give you a heads-up about a change in the way we deal with cookie consent. We are introducing a Pay or Consent model, giving you two different options to continue accessing the site:

• Continue for free with cookies and ads: this is the option that most people have enabled already.
• Subscribe to Mumsnet Premium: For those who prefer an ad-free experience with no cookies/tracking for ad purposes - Besides ad-free you’ll also get first access to our product tests plus all revenues from Premium are put towards our campaigning work

Why are we making this change?

The pay or consent model is becoming increasingly common across online platforms as publishers adapt to changes in advertising levels and data privacy regulations. Like many other publishers, we relied on advertising to generate income but changes in tracking regulation and the growing use of ad blockers have made this model less viable.

We know that Mumsnet is an essential space for many - a place to seek advice, find support, and connect with your fellow Mumsnetters. That’s why we’re committed to ensuring that the site remains free at the point of use for anyone who needs it but it’s not fair that those who install ad blockers or rejected cookies are piggy backing on the back of other users who haven’t.

At the same time as introducing this, we’re going to reduce the price of Mumsnet Premium to £2.99 a month because we want to be fair to those who’d rather not accept advertising cookies. This is less than the cost of a flat white a month from most decent coffee shops and we very much hope you think Mumsnet’s worth it! Nb anyone who’s signed up to Mumsnet Premium already at the previous price (£4.99 per month) will have their payments reduced within the next week or so.

We’ll be here to answer any questions you may have. Thank you, as always, for supporting Mumsnet.”

And mine!

True, but we as the users are providing most of their content for them for free 🤷🏻‍♀️

One more thing to add. Mumsnet have a long history of attacks of hackers. Do you think it's a good idea to give free access to hackers into your money?

Some people seem to think it's a great idea! Remember that time when people were being logged into other users accounts by mistake or that time when hackers got hold of people's names and email addresses? Obviously not!

Ah so you think perhaps they should pay us a subscription for our content? It just gets better .

Absolutely agree. Why don't people just stop using it?

You really don't need to pay. There are very simple, free workarounds.

You’re easily amazed.

When did ‘perhaps’ I suggest that?? How random - are you ok? 😂

Absolutely this and I would be handing in my notice as a volunteer if I volunteered.

Payment is virtually always handled by a third party gateway.

I've just clicked to accept ads and cookie tracking but I hate it.

Everyone email their DPO!

I think what is breaching the law is that they say you can make an informed choice by reading the Privacy Policy in the pop up, but you can’t read that without being forced to accept cookies.. ooopsy Mumsnet.. will report to the ICO.

I’ve just accepted cookies as had no choice (illegal) then gone down to Privacy Settings in the site footer and rejected all
cookies. When I went back to check they’re all set to rejected. Everything seems to be working still 🤷‍♀️ who knows how long my data will be stored for though after being forced to accept.

I've just posted a couple of questions on the Site Stuff thread as it definitely looks like they are acting illegally, or if not sailing very close to the wire in terms of ICO regulations.

@Smashandflab - not sure they have a DPO - fairly certain this latest decision was an idea in the morning brainstorm by an intern who has watched one too many episodes of the apprentice. Some real baby basic errors in the roll out of this policy!

@BloominNora

but please do [email protected] if anything doesn’t make sense or needs expanding on. Because, by necessity, this is a long document and because we’re all pressed for time, we've summarised the key points – you can click on each one to get more detailed information. Please do read the whole thing if you can.
The data controller of www.mumsnet.com is Mumsnet Ltd, Studios 13-16, Deane House Studios, 27 Greenwood Place, London, NW5 1LB. Adam Stokes is our data protection officer and can be contacted at [email protected] or at The Data Protection Officer, Mumsnet Ltd, Studios 13-16, Deane House Studios, 27 Greenwood Place, London, NW5 1LB.

The Accept button also shouldn’t be blue! That’s not allowed by ICO standards. People will subconsciously click it..

@Janiie

Every other site has the accept cookie thing, please tell me why the outrage for this one?

Most sites give users the option to consent to cookies or reject cookies. This is the law. It is summarised by the ICO as follows:

QQ

You must tell people if you set cookies, and clearly explain what the cookies do and why. You must also get the user’s consent. Consent must be actively and clearly given.
There is an exception for cookies that are essential to provide an online service at someone’s request (eg to remember what’s in their online basket, or to ensure security in online banking).
The same rules also apply if you use any other type of technology to store or gain access to information on someone’s device.

UQ

What Mumsnet are doing is taking this one step further and telling people that they can’t use the site for free if they don’t accept the cookies. That’s their choice, they can do this legally as long as they are transparent about it.

A lot of sites offer a service with ads, but one that still allows people to reject cookies. in other words, you agree to see ads, but you don’t agree to the ads being personalised to you.

Mumsnet are not offering this any more. That‘s the difference.

I think the whole furore has proved that many people didn't know about the Night Watch thing as it has not been relevant to them.

Exactly. Or any regional paper? They have over a thousand vendors they sell your data to.

Reddit actively selling poster’s data now. Amazon, google, FB, insta, TikTok all monetise our data to a fine art. Tech firms desperate for more data to train algorithms. MN is probably one of the better forums. They’re not actively selling our data, (I think?) but selling advertising space.

Edited to add: Most sites give users the option to consent to cookies or reject cookies. This is the law. It is summarised by the ICO as follows There is no such thing as rejecting all cookies. All websites have essential cookies. Most websites are quite sneaky. You go into vendors and find 100’s of data firms allowed to place cookies/acccess data for ‘legitimate purposes’. All alllowed in the GDPR. You have to individually reject access one by one.

I'm more suspicious about all the brown-nosers myself.

Nice to see someone reacted with a laugh emote on my comment about disabled users being made to feel unwelcome.

More than they are already? It seems that there's enough ads as it stands.

Fuck me this is a discussion site.

I am so sick of posters who think they can tell other people what they are allowed to say. Fuck off.

@Smashandflab - Thanks - I was just being facetious about them not having a DPO 😉 but it is good to know that they are at least complying in that regard

But this latest hoohaa would suggest that either:

a) he hasn't been consulted about this or
b) he has and they've gone against his advice or
c) he isn't very good!

Brown nosers . It is the internet! Most sites require that you accept cookies and ads or pay premium what on earth is with all the pearl clutching about mn doing it.

Have all the dereggers deregged yet or are we going to get a few more pages of yeah but no buts?

Nice poem.