Doubtful that it's illegal, they have lawyers. Hard to say it's unethical either given that there is a clear option to pay instead of be tracked (which is in any case trivially defeated by an ad-blocker). For centuries until yesterday people paid for journalism like they paid for any other service.
> In November 2023, Meta introduced a binary ‘Consent or Pay' advertising model. (…)
> The Commission found that this model is not compliant with the DMA, as it did not give users the required specific choice to opt for a service that uses less of their personal data but is otherwise equivalent to the ‘personalised ads' service.
Echoes of America's gay wedding cake case. In the US this would presumably be struck down as "compelled speech", and rightly so IMO. People refuse to pay for journalism and now publishers are prevented from allowing them to consent to pay with their personal data. They can't win, and yet we need journalism.
The solution to this whole thing has been obvious since the start: Put the power where it belongs, with the user agent (browser), by making the Do Not Track signal legally enforceable.
I'm very pro-Brussels but they've made an absolute hash of this whole thing. Cookie banners are ruining the web, which is the only open app ecosystem we have.
First, I'm not "praising" anything other than choice on the part of publishers and users. If DNT is set to 1 then a publisher should be free to withhold their content. If everybody sets it to 1 then they might well choose to make some compromises. Or not. I don't care. Just make the banners go away.
That's exactly what I do. Or rather I just mash whatever is the nearest button to smite the banner. "Refuse", "Accept", who cares? I'm blocking user-side anyway, as the web was designed for. This whole situation is completely dumb and unnecessary and makes me furious. The EU Commission should have known better.
PS: Using a Chromium-based browser would be like begging to surrender what's left of the software freedom that I just described.
That assumes that you never visit a new site. Indeed it's why I think twice before clicking links to new sites. Honest question: Are you happy with the current state of affairs, really, and just waiting patiently for all the world's websites to decide to comply with EU law so that we can have a usable web again?
About visiting new sites, that's not a problem in practice, even HN mostly shows the same websites.
About my experience, I am relatively happy with the current state of affairs. I don't want websites to use my personal information without my consent. I still like cookie banners more than ads, in particular ads that follow me across websites or devices. Also note that many websites don't track their users - and these don't show cookie banners.
