Consent or pay, also called pay or okay, is a model in which website visitors have two options: they consent to tracking and personalised ads, or they take out a paid subscription and use the site without tracking. In Germany it is also known as "Pur-Abo", mainly on news sites.
Why is the model controversial?
Under the GDPR, consent must be freely given. Critics argue that consent is not free if the alternative costs money. Supporters reply that content has to be financed and that a fair subscription is a genuine choice.
What do regulators and courts say?
- EDPB Opinion 08/2024: the European Data Protection Board considers consent or pay insufficient for large online platforms in most cases. It recommends a third, free option with less or no personalised advertising.
- Meta and the Digital Markets Act: in April 2025 the European Commission fined Meta 200 million euros because its "pay or consent" model breached the DMA. Meta appealed. Since January 2026, EU users of Facebook and Instagram can also choose a version with less data and less personalised ads.
- Austria: according to reports, an Austrian court ruled the pay or okay model of derStandard.at unlawful in August 2025.
- noyb: the privacy organisation keeps challenging such models, for example in 2026 with a complaint against the Norwegian media group Schibsted.
What does this mean for advertisers?
For most companies running ads, consent or pay is not an option. It affects you indirectly, though: if fewer users allow personalised ads on Facebook and Instagram, Meta has less on-platform data. Conversion data from your website, sent with consent through the Meta Pixel or the Conversions API, becomes more important as a result.