Accept all or bust: how cookie walls are creating a two-tier internet

Conceptual image with a bunch of floating eyeballs in different sizes overlooking a red computer, could symbolize ideas around malware and computer viruses.

You'll likely have come across, at least once, a cookie pop-up with only one choice – "Accept all." Paying a fee may be the only way to avoid invasive online tracking, at times, under the so-called "Pay or Consent" model. After taking its first steps in the EU, cookie walls and privacy paywalls have landed in the UK, too. But, should this practice be legal at all?

Cookie pop-ups offer us a choice to exercise our right to withdraw consent to online tracking, as regulated by the landmark data protection legislation GDPR. With such a choice stripped away, experts fear this would create a two-tier internet instead. The legal approach may be changing but, ethically, it doesn't seem that cookie walls should be an accepted practice.