Europe has banned sites from using the "cookie wall"

[Tomcat]

The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has published updated guidance on how sites get permission from users to process their information. Among other things, the management now prohibits sites from making access to them dependent on whether the user has given consent to the processing of their data (the so-called "cookie wall" or cookie wall).

According to European law, the presence of user permission is one of six prerequisites for the processing of personal data. In accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), authorization must be clear, specific, informed and voluntary. However, site owners have found a way to solicit the coveted permission of visitors using the "cookie wall", and began to provide users with access to their resources only in exchange for permission to process their data.

The operator of such a cookie wall in Europe is the Internet Advertising Bureau Europe, which requests consent from website visitors to process data if they want to access content. However, the problem is that such “consent” is not voluntary, as required by the GDPR, so the updated EDPB guidelines have banned the use of the “cookie wall”.

In addition, the new edition of the document clarifies that scrolling through pages (scrolling) does not constitute the user's consent to the processing of his data. "Actions such as scrolling or scrolling a web page or similar actions of users, under no circumstances can be considered as satisfying the requirements of clear and affirmative action," - says the updated manual.