"The Austrian Federal Administrative Court on Monday said that newspaper Der Standard violated the EU’s data protection rules when introducing a "pay or OK” model on its website, confirming an earlier decision by Austria’s Data Protection Authority (DSB).
This "pay or OK" approach – introduced on the newspaper’s website when the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force in 2018 – gives users a choice between paying a monthly €9,90 fee to access the website without having their data tracked, or giving consent to data collection and processing for targeted advertising.
The Austrian privacy watchdog already said in its decision in 2023, that the approach of one of Austria's most-read newspapers was unlawful, as it only allowed a global consent or rejection. The EU's privacy law requires the option to consent to specific types of processing.
Der Standard appealed this decision and argued that such a "granular" consent is not doable in a "pay or OK" system, as it required tracking and statistics to sell its advertisement in the non-paid version."
