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.”

Yes that's awful and I've said so on a number of threads regarding what happened the other night. I'm still happy to pay a couple of quid a month to a site I've used (mostly for free) for over 20 years 🙅‍♀️

No, it isn't.

I am completely able to ignore the advertising that pops up on Mumsnet.

The system of data sharing and targeted adds doesn't seem very sophisticated to me. I'm constantly shown adds for products and services that I already use on a regular basis. So if I've just done a Tesco shop before popping onto MN, I'll get adds encouraging me to shop at Tesco! I'm like yes, I know.

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.
But now it's no longer free and we're still the product that's being sold.

I'm cross about this. They are removing our right to decline tracking cookies whilst putting up with advertising. I've seen that elsewhere and avoided. I'd like to know it it is actually allowed.

I may have to wean myself off mumsnet...

I never knew about this, just tried it and mistakenly hid your post, your typed words went floating off my screen 🤣 thankfully they’re back now so I can at least thank you for this tip, although I’m not sure what I’m doing.

Interesting you mention the Online Safety Bill, a bill which is designed to prevent people from accessing unsuitable content, and also things like, I dunno, CSA if it's posted to your forum.

I imagine businesses making decent revenue have something in place to prevent something like that happening, because that would be incredibly unpleasant for users with or without age verification. Preventing breaches and that.

Sure … see you tomorrow

I don’t remember exactly, I only skim read it. It did say something about needing consent for cookies, and the option of paying for MN Premium if you prefer no ads & cookies. I got the gist without having read any threads in Site Stuff. I clear my browser cache weekly so I suppose I’ll have weekly pop-ups going forward 🤔

If you resent it, don't post.

Not hard, is it.

You might well see me tomorrow, since I haven't had the pop-up yet. But I'm fairly confident this will be the fire exit through which I can leave . The change creates a situation where I have to do something positive in order to stay, so leaving will become the default.
MN has got so sordid recently that I'm quite hopeful it will only take this little bit of friction to set me free. For sure it's not a certainty though. I'm a serial backslider on this.

It's laughable they make you pay to access basic forum functionality.

What's more laughable is people pay it ...

Yes. You can use what is called a TOR browser. It uses DuckDuckGo as a search engine. It blocks cookies, ads and IPs. Apparently many PBPs use it and those like me who simply don't want their IP address traced at all. It creates a fake IP from Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Norway, US, you name it anywhere randomly. Its a pain though because you need to regularly re-log in and its slower than the usual chrome etc, but it means Mumsnet will never know your true location or use cookies.

Most online sites do have something in place, but the requirements of the OSA are hugely more onerous than that.

For example, if you can't prove that none of your site users are children, even if your site is called (for example) MUMSnet, then the law assumes that you must have a significant number of children accessing the site for the purposes of enforcement.

And, of course, because forums aren't allowed to collect date of birth because of the GDPR, they can't prove otherwise. Therefore the site must take additional steps - like age verification - to prevent children accessing unsuitable content (for example, discussion of sex - as happens all over the place on here).

That's just one example, the whole set of legislation is the same across all 16 priority offences (most of which are nothing to do with protecting children, by the way).

Then there are the risk assessments; failure to document them according to the 1000 pages of documentation from Ofcom incurs the same fine as a full material breach. Ofcom can update the regulations at will, without recourse to Parliament, whenever they want - and when they do, sites have a couple of months to re-do the risk assessments from scratch. Ofcom can literally update this 12 times a year, making completing risk assessments a full-time job; you have to prove every point in the risk assessment, and you have to prove that you've done it from scratch each time with updated data (ie you can't just copy-paste and change the bits affected by their updates).

All of this has to be done whether you're a multi-million revenue company or a hobbyist site. There are then additional requirements if you have over 700k users.

EDIT: Oh, another thing - private messages are no longer private under this law; forum management must be able to moderate them just like public messages. The problem is that the majority of forum software doesn't allow this, because they're supposed to be private.

So...y'know...it's pretty obvious why MN would be trying to button everything up to protect their revenue; they're going to need it to employ people to take care of all of this...and because the moderators have significant legal obligations now, they can't just moderate according to common sense any more.

No most chat forums let you decline all but essential cookies.
Mumsnet attach an enormous amount of cookies.

Is it just me, or is this thread, much like the threads regarding Sunday evenings horrible incidents, no longer appearing in trending?
It's almost like there is something to hide.

It hasn't appeared in trending since about lunchtime. I commented on it a whole back, no idea why but it does feel deliberate.

Edit to say I mean the site stuff thread not this one in AIBU which is to my knowledge still showing in active.

Or will you use it to pay for their therapy? Anything like that? Its all tumbleweeds.

Sincerely, a piggy backer

I think im out mumsnet. How dare you insult people who generate the content that allow you paid advertisements therefore millions of pounds in income, after allowing them to be subject to humanities worst.

All whilst putting untrained and unpaid volunteers in positions where they are exposed to traumatic content and worse- because they arent trained, unwillingly breaking the law by panicking and asking for links to the photos to see what was going on. Therefore exposing them to unknowingly partake in distribution of csa images. Imagine how they felt after that, after they found that out?

Fix all that first. Fix the security. Fix the massive ads and the many instances lots of us have had to report over some vile repeated ads of beaten women and similar that were extremely disturbing on a site that is meant to support often vulnerable and abused women.

Make all the profit you want, i dont care.

But do it the right way. I think you guys have lost your way sadly

MN will be able to see that I’ve been here, under various user names, for 10+ years.

After the CSA images the other night it looks to me like there are a few people out there who really don't want MN to survive

I can’t quite work this out. Users and volunteer night moderators were exposed to horrific images, and your concern is a few people who hope MN doesn’t survive?

You’re welcome. I’m sure plenty of people will be glad to be able to hide my posts tbh.

@ntmdino That's a really useful explanation. What a shame MNHQ didn't give that. All they talked about was their revenue.

My family would call me all kinds of names if I gave Mumsnet money. They already think I'm sad posting on here they would have a field day. Anyway, I don't want to give them my money this platform doesn't give me that much pleasure. I'am getting bored after Easter I have a couple of projects I need to get done and that will fill up my time.

Privacy Badger is awesome.

They have you dedicating your time to them so they will survive as long as they have you. As long as they have people like you who can see past what happened then they should be fine. You haven't given up your premium membership?

Keep quiet it will all blow over and people will forget🤫

They have more money than sense. You know what my dad would say "They haven't got the common sense they were born with" it's embarrassing.