Lots of us that are on Twitter get our news from there. There are millions of users posting links to news websites and most of these news websites, these days, are behind a paywall, so we can’t read the article unless we pay!
But there are also 100’s of news websites who do not have a paywall, but they need us to accept their cookie notice. Their cookie notice is SO big, it means that unless you accept it, there’s absolutely no way that you can read the article that you have been lured towards.
So what do you do, just click away? Well you’ve taken the trouble of being enticed to go and read the article, so you might as well click the cookie notice and read the article. But have you ever really investigated what you are giving acceptance too?
After investigating many websites who have this very large cookie notice, obscuring the article, I have discovered that there are around 250 companies, who are after your data.
They introduce their cookie notice with the following wording. I have grabbed this from a media website named archant.co.uk.
We are committed to building local communities through high-quality journalism and content. We and our partners use technology such as cookies to personalise content and advertising for you, to provide social media features and to better understand our audience. By enabling cookies you will help us to fund the journalism & content you enjoy, safeguarding it for the future and personalising your reading experience across all Archant Community Media Ltd owned brands. By choosing not to accept cookies you will receive a generic content and advertising experience, not tailored to you or your local interests. If you do not wish for us to use cookies (other than those that are strictly necessary) please change the buttons below and save & exit. You can revisit your choice at any time by clicking ‘Manage cookies’ at the bottom of this site.
Let’s be clear, this is not just Google or Facebook ads, these are 250 companies across the world, who wish to push ads to you based on your unique IP address. These aren’t just ads on their website, these are ads wherever you go.
In essence The Internet and the media websites and others, have constructed a new tax, that tax is your data and ads. If you wish to consume any content these days, that is the tax you are paying. Regardless of their suggestion that you can manage, what you receive in terms of ads, it’s not that easy to manage it and it takes time, a lot of time, especially seeing as we’re all so time poor and surf the web in split second increments.
I move away now from any website that has this huge cookie notice — I avoid them all the time. Instead I consume my news in other ways, Twitter is great, but definitely avoid clicking through to news websites. The Apple News app is not bad, but even inside there they have loads of ads and now most news channels request a subscription.
I’m afraid this is only going to get worse as media channels are trying to get their revenues up.
The company I researched by the way has a £87 million turnover and employ 1,277 people. See the stats below.
Happy news surfing, but just know what you are saying YES too.
