Today I filed a formal complaint against #YouTube with the Irish Data Protection Commissioner for their illegal deployment of #adblock detection technologies.
Under Article 5(3) of 2002/58/EC YouTube are legally obligated to obtain consent before storing or accessing information already stored on an end user's terminal equipment unless it is strictly necessary for the provisions of the requested service.
In 2016 the EU Commission confirmed in writing that adblock detection requires consent.
Webedia is a big company that owns most of the famous French websites (jeuxvideo.com , etc.). All these websites have cookie walls with an alternative : a paid subsription. What they say, is that the website is now accessible with subscription only. However, if you accept cookies, you’ll get a discount (free access).
The CNIL (a big French governemental entity) tried to forbid this. If someone reports a website, it’s for this entity to take action. There is no need to report Webedia, the CNIL knows already :-)
The Conseil d’Etat (juridical entity of the French gov) said that “non”, it’s OK for Webedia to use such paywalls. The CNIL can’t forbid Webedia to use them.
The CNIL asked the jusrists at the European level… here we are. We still don’t know.
No, that’s not that clear for the moment.
Let me explain the French case :
Here is a French website where the CNIL explains this :
https://www.cnil.fr/fr/cookie-walls-la-cnil-publie-des-premiers-criteres-devaluation