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.”

👏👏👏

Did you not even bother to read my post @Janiie?

Report your post and it will be looked into, it's a big problem across the site and why so many want the laughing emoji gone. It's a shame but as usual, the cowardly thick-wits here spoil it for everyone.

I clear my cookie cache once a week on the IPad anyway.🤷‍♀️

Yes. When I first logged in on my phone and again on my laptop. Everyone must know.

I clicked too not realising it had to do with cookies. I've now deleted it from settings

Only a few days ago the site was unusable due to their adverts causing the threads to freeze . It went on for days for some of us . There is no way I would give MN account info. I clicked to read for free but didn’t see anything obvious that I was consenting to advertising cookies - if I’m honest I thought that the problem with adverts was probably because they were changing the model and the tech wasn’t quite working … the freezing has stopped since I clicked to read for free ! Seems though it was more than that

The advert problem isn't fixed unfortunately. It still happens daily here and has done for about 4-5 weeks if not longer.

How did you manage to delete please ? - I can’t see anything obvious in settings ( showing my age !)

You are very patient - I was on the verge of giving up on MN

since the vast majority of the content that generates rerevenue and makes the site so attractive to advertisers is provided for free by members, it’s a bold move
i won’t be back, it’s not what it was anyway

I use an ad-blocker but the site is still the same so does anyone know when the changes will actually kick-in and stop us using it?

I am another who will not use the site if I have to accept ads and a definitely wont be paying for it.

As PP have mentioned. It needs to be paid for somehow.

I do wish the price was a round number e.g. £3 rather than £2.99.

We all know it is £3 and this is Mumsnet trying to manipulate us into believing it is cheaper that it is and the people who run Mumsnet thinking in 2025 we are too stupid to have not worked this out. Which if you think about it is quite insulting.

I know. I just don’t give a shit 😆

Yeah, this is before they pay their staff and cover their costs though right? My understanding is that there are 80+ people working there. It's not a charity! It has to make money somehow

No, profit is after they pay for staff and other costs.

However I agree they are not a charity and the profit is not unreasonable

But why? Genuine question I'm not being goady. The ads that I can see are related to my Google recent searches, it is actually handy prompts me to carry on my booking.com trip or whatever.

Now the ads I find annoying are on YouTube, Amazon, itv etc where everything stops and you're forced to watch ads that aren't remotely interesting or relevant.

Use DuckDuckGo. Blocks everything.

Well, I didn’t see anything about it in Site Stuff. I have however had 2 pop-ups today telling me about consenting to cookies or going Premium, etc. So, assuming other people are getting those too, I’d guess people are responding how they feel best suits them? 🤷‍♀️

It's quite a relief, really. I've often tried to stop using MN but can't quite do it. It's a bit like biting my nails - a bit grubby and not really adding anything to my life. Certainly not something I would pay to do. So I will be off as soon as I get the 'cookies or cash' pop-up.

Y'all are kind of missing the point. The timing of this is not coincidental - the new Ofcom regulations relating to the Online Safety Bill put a significant overhead on forums which scales with the level of traffic - forums are, unless you can prove otherwise, categorised as the highest level of risk with regard to every one of the 17 priority offences.

The tricky part is that proving otherwise requires the use of data which would have previously been illegal to collect because of the GDPR restrictions, and so no forum has it.

So forum owners have to put in a lot more work just to keep the lights on - it's bad enough for hobbyists, but at least there's a chance they can get volunteers to help. Businesses like MN have to pay somebody to do that work, because they can't risk a breach - the potential fine is £18m or 10% of global revenue (not profit), whichever is higher. If MN got hit with one, it would definitely wipe out the profit, and thus risk people's jobs.

Yes, everybody wants everything on the Internet to be free. They just don't want to consider the fact that if something's free, you're usually the product that's being sold.

Did they though, did these pop ups really say that you should consent to cookies or pay? Or did they in fact say you should consent to ads or pay? Not the same thing.

The pop up that I have been seeing actually tells people they can go into settings and choose whatever cookie settings they like.

I don’t think the full Consent or Pay model has been launched yet.

Mine said use for free or pay … pretty sure no cookies mentioned explicitly- most cookie consents these days give you the ability to only pick the necessary ones . Is the ad income not enough ?!

Trying to figure out how low down my list of existential worries it would be that Mumsnet had called a freeloader when I was trying not to pay for Mumsnet.

Nope.

Really low down.

It’s illegal not to mention cookies explicitly if someone will accept them by clicking.