Cookie wall
Restricting access to a site only to those who are subscribers or those who accept the tracking of their personal data is not excluded in principle by the European legislation on the protection of personal data, the GDPR. This is what was declared by the Privacy Guarantor, at the end of a preliminary examination on the particular cookie walls that appeared in the last few days on the sites of numerous Italian newspapers. Despite this initial opinion, the Guarantor has however opened a series of investigations to ascertain the compliance of these practices with European legislation.The banners at the center of the Guarantor's investigation carry a very simple message: if you want to access to the contents of the site or make a subscription or accept the profiling of your personal data. This kind of cookie wall, recently used by various Italian media, represent a binding mechanism, in which the non-subscriber user is in fact obliged to give his consent to the receipt of cookies. The practice has sparked many protests, both on the internet and through official channels. For this reason, following the numerous reports received, the Privacy Guarantor immediately examined these initiatives, in order to "evaluate the adoption of any interventions on the matter".
Why the cookie walls of some newspapers are discussed Some newspapers have decided that those who do not subscribe must accept advertising tracking to read the articles. The Privacy Guarantor wants to see clearly The response arrived a few days later and the Guarantor noted that "the European legislation on the protection of personal data does not in principle exclude that the owner of a site subordinates access to content by of users, to the consent given by them for profiling purposes (through cookies or other tracking tools) or, alternatively, to the payment of a sum of money ". A comment that seems, at least for now, to allow the use of the cookie walls in question to be kept active. However, in the press release issued by the authority for the protection of personal data, the Guarantor underlined that he had opened "a series of investigations to ascertain the compliance of these initiatives with European legislation", thus postponing the final response at the end of further investigations. .