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...imo what usually happens is that they do get back, just not as quickly as some would like.
I'd have thought it would take quite a while to read all the posts and reply correct to all of the points - some may require discussion.

I'd rather have considered responses than fast ones.

You're quite right, ErrolTheDragon; that's exactly what was said, but handing over bank details still involves trusting that the admin will work as it should and I'm not confident that's the case right now

Hopefully though we'll all be updated with further info as promised when told "We'll get to all your questions" - also about the spam adverts which we've been assured would be sorted since November but which hasn't happened yet

I appreciate that and of course the replies need to be considered but we've had no responses to any questions now for two days. Even a few questions answered daily would be better than not responding at all. I appreciate they have a site to run but it does often feel like they just stop bothering to respond. I feel like that about the lack of response to the freezing issues too.

I am not worried about my bank details, I have a Monzo account for just such things where I keep minimal funds, but I am concerned about giving MN details that identify me in real life.

Very concerned about this. Have no problem with adverts, accept that as the price for using the site. But no-where else have I seen them bundled in with cookies. To have to accept cookies is a real problem for me and I will certainly be re-considering my use of mumsnet.

I don't post much but have been a regular user since my first pregnancy 16 years ago.

There are apparently 8 million active users per month using MN. A lot of users.

I think that number refers to unique visitors, not active users.

I use an ipad and it has a privacy thing where you can turn it on and block trackers of all kinds and it hides your email by creating a new icloud email whenever you choose to use it that diverts anything from that account to your email if they contact you. I also use a password manager.
So far, still no ads at all. Not paying anything.

I think Mnet have handled all if this so badly. I don't think they care. It's all about money for them.
I note today they are 'not accepting new registrations'- not sure what that is about.
I haven't made an immediate decision about staying or going. My gut says leave. I've lost any respect for MNet. And I am absolutely sick of trolls/PBPs and AI posts- they are everywhere- it's as bad as the Daily Mail for AI and trolls.

I now log out every time. It's cut down my Mumsnet viewing a lot. Actually I think I was on it too much so that's a good thing.

I am just sad about this. MN was like an essential utility to me as a new mother. I could not have navigated without it with no family help or experience. Even now I would feel a bit lost without it because of other issues that have a small community on here.

I’ve contributed years worth of content. How am I a freeloader? I feel sad about the emphasis on profit over users in that. It’s millions of quid clear profit that HQ brings in a year. I get that the people running it have their own expensive lives to fund and that’s their business, but this service (of safely anonymously talking) is needed by women. Always will be.
Some of who need to use it as privately as possible and don’t want their usage tracked in any way. I wish MN could be set up on a charity basis, to help support parents (by facilitating conversion) and run as before on that footing. It would be profitable still and could still be monetised in some ways. posters contributions would be welcomed, not seen as ‘freeloading’.

I know this wouldn’t ever happen in a private business because of the private profits that still exist to be made. Fair enough, it’s the founders’ invention. But it’s just yet another one of those things about how having the priority of pursuit of profit really works against the interests and happiness of normal people (especially more vulnerable people).

If i had the energy and vast finances I’d set up a rival site and run it as a charity. A necessity. Because talking freely and responding to others is another care service, sometimes an emergency service really, and it’s an everyday safety valve. These sites are as much built by their users to support themselves and the other users, as they are built by the owners and staff.

That's a great idea.

You still need to delete the cookies as they stay on your device tracking where you go until you delete them. Unless you use a browser that automatically deletes once you close the browser (not Web page). I think Firefox can be set to do that but check yours.

When you clear cookies it deletes all of your passwords doesn’t it?

You can choose what gets deleted and you can set it to save passwords.

Thank you. I’m still trying to get back into the online banking app for one of the banks I’m with due to switching iPhone and Face ID not transferring over and having forgotten the complicated multiple passwords system that one uses so I’m cautious now!

Insisting on allowing hundreds of third parties to store cookies on our personal devices is way too much and pretty contemptuous. As is pretending it’s about ad blockers which could be solved without selling their ‘partners’ the right to track us.

The cup of coffee analogy really pisses me off. There are plenty of people who don’t buy overpriced coffee or even put the bloody heating on so it’s, as so often with mnhq these days, completely tone deaf. As is saying well the poor should be forced to be tracked to use the site.

As another poster pointed out there is also the issue of currencies and economies. Some of which don’t even allow payments to other countries/currencies. In one country I spend time in £3 would be your monthly electricity bill during mild times of the year.

Yes I've been doing that too. Not sure how useful that is in the long run but minimises the risk. I make sure I only have Mumsnet open and then delete the last 15 minutes so I only need to remember my MN password when I log back in.

Although I have to accept to view, it does say you can then change privacy settings but you have to do so for each page you load. It’s a faff but I’ve taken to changing settings each time and reject all, I’m just on here a lot less, which is a good thing I suppose.

People use ad blockers because the adverts, especially pop ups, make the site nigh on impossible to use without wanting to hurl your phone off the planet.

Further, the topic of some of the adverts has been distasteful.

Referring to those who choose to use ad blockers to have a somewhat half decent experience of your site as freeloaders is also distasteful. Something of a theme building here.

Equally distasteful was the way the begging bowl was being banged when premium was launched, in order to "keep the lights on", by the multi millionaire site founder.

And to round it all off, we then discover that there is no site moderation out of hours, so even though dividend payments almost reached £2m, the site decide to cheap out to the extent people are able to post vile, illegal, distressing content at night.

Absolute joke.

Me too

I just made a new account on a web browser I never use - Edge. I will only ever use this browser for Mumsnet and nothing else so there'll be nothing for them to track.
A bit annoying to have to make a new account though.

Interesting stance on the use of consent refusal is 'freeloading' since ALL content is created by the users - all of it, the stuff that the papers scrape for stories, the stuff you use to promote the site, the reason advertisers want to attract users' attention - there would be absolutely fuck all without that content...

Maybe every poster who gets quoted by the Mail should get a rebate on their membership?

<Sigh>

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5270819-adverts-in-front-of-the-writing-impossible-to-use-site-like-this

We've carefully considered ICO Guidance in making this change and we're confident that we meet it, having taken into account the four key areas, namely power imbalance, appropriate fee, equivalence and privacy by design.

@BeckyAMumsnet if someone wants to reject the cookies - and then cancel/delete their account, how can they do this? I cannot see a way