Introducing Pay or Consent on Mumsnet

[BeckyAMumsnet]

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:

1. Continue for free with cookies and ads: this is the option that most people have enabled already.
2. 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.

Well I'm pleased to see you're back Becky but there's still a lot of unanswered questions and the few you have responded to the answers haven't really clarified much.

Fair point.

That’s a fair point. I suppose the cookies are part of determining appropriate ads but agree there should be a choice. Having said that, I do accept cookies for MN but received ads for Smith & Wesson while travelling in the US, so that wasn’t great. MN did respond to it however.

@HotCrossBunplease and @BloominNora you are a pair of diamonds, thank you! I suspected a lot of what you explained but honestly didn't realise the extent of it.

Your wonderful explanations may help others who, like me - are unsure of the implications of this MN change.

I happen to use one of the No Ads websites, which I had to move to because of the freezing issue on MN recently, it was the only one that worked and didn't close me down. Brave of me 😉 So I guess even if I accept the cookies I'll get no ads anyway. It was what is done with other data that I was interested in.

Thank you for the response.

@delvan I can’t be sure but given that MN have been clear that they will no longer allow users who use ad blockers to access the site for free, I imagine they may soon prevent access from the “no ad” site you use. I use an ad blocker and so far am still here but expect to be kicked out very shortly unless I disable it or subscribe. Which is fine, MN’s prerogative. I don’t think a sub would be bad value but I feel like the rude comms combined with knowing I waste too much time on here are a good reason to move on.

I think the message was both badly worded and badly timed. No wonder people are pissed off. As pp’s have said, the users are the core of the business and what makes MN. If you lose these people then your business is done.
Quite a few things are already extremely annoying about MN but I tolerate them because of the interesting content provided by users, not because of the running of site itself.
Moderating appears very subjective with certain groups rightly protected whilst others are completely left to fend for themselves. Thinly disguised threads appear week in week out which are hugely disrespectful to disabled people, people on benefits, fat people and others.
Requests for assistance fall on deaf ears.
I also can’t believe that such a huge business was not prepared with adequate and trained moderators equipped to stop csa images appearing at night.
Then of course there are the gigantic ads which block the screen, drain my battery and worse make my whole iPad or phone freeze so that I have to turn it off and on and then delete and reinstall my browser before anything will work again.

OK, I kind of expected this TBH, so we shall see. I doubt I'll subscribe, and am so boring that the ads might only be for a stimulating adventure to wake me up 😊

I wonder are we going to get a personalised invite to subscribe, cookie, or crumble.....

18 years I have been here but I do think this is just enough to make me stop and stop wasting my time.

'disable all' wasn't working for me, so I had to click all the partners individually.

I had no idea that websites who track via cookies allowed other websites to do the same, most I've never even heard of.

A lot of them sounded like AI mining addresses.

For those asking about what we use data for - we do not share personally identifiable information (PII) with advertisers. The data we collect is used in an anonymised or aggregated form to improve your experience and support our publishing services. Advertisers use cookies to show you ads that are more relevant to your interests. This is done without sharing any personally identifiable information. For example, if you read articles about technology, you might see ads for tech products, but advertisers won’t know your name, email, or other personal details. We comply with UK GDPR and other privacy regulations to ensure your data is handled responsibly. You can manage your cookie preferences at any time through our privacy settings at the bottom of the page.

Please bear with us - we will get to your questions. 🙏

Hold on. Can you clarify this please?

You can manage your cookie preferences at any time through our privacy settings at the bottom of the page.

The OP says that anyone who rejects cookies will need to subscribe. So how can a non-subscriber use settings to manage their cookie preferences?

Are you saying that there is a type of cookie “management” that doesn’t involve rejecting cookies?

I'm still confused because the original post suggested that you have to accept cookies as well as ads (or pay for a subscription), but from the last response it seems that it just refers to ad-blockers, and cookies can still be disabled, whether or not users subscribe. If so, then the original post needs to be corrected.

Great minds @ClematisBlue49 !

I wonder if that is how they are getting around the potential illegality of it...force people to accept cookies or subscribe but keep the option to reject all buried in the privacy settings knowing full well the majority won't bother.

Allows them to technically keep within the law (but not the spirit of it)

Exceedingly poorly timed post and decision following the recent events.

agree focus should be on ensuring posters safety and having paid moderation overnight.

Thank you for setting this out.

You can manage your cookie preferences at any time through our privacy settings at the bottom of the page.

@BeckyAMumsnet Do you mean the privacy settings at the bottom of the page that aren't working? When many of us click on "reject" it just closes the window.

Exactly the link has been disabled _ all the others work just fine but not the privacy settings one

They've disabled the link that allows users to opt out! This is getting really sinister!

I'm going to assume this is what my recent pop up issue was about?

At this point with recent events. Can MN please justify how you aren't using paid night staff?

Also, since the past attacks how can those of us who left after the leaks and then returned insure that all out data had been Wiped?

I don’t like this because I like the anonymity of the site to be honest

There’s no change to the anonymity @FrutenGlee

By the way, I can access the Privacy settings no problem. Even with my ad blocker!

Where are the privacy settings? I'm on the Web browser and have an add blocker