Pay-or-Okay / Consent-or-Pay Models
Pay-or-okay (also called consent-or-pay) is a business model in which users can only choose between paid, advertising-free access and consenting to tracking or personalised advertising, with no third, tracking-free option offered free of charge. On 13 August 2025, in case W291 2272970-1, the Austrian Federal Administrative Court (BVwG) held the consent obtained by a provider of journalistic content to be invalid, because only a blanket overall consent covering several purposes had been collected instead of separate, granular consent; the court did not declare the pay-or-okay model as such unlawful. It expressly refused the referral to the CJEU suggested by the parties, holding that the proposed questions were not decisive for the case. For one operative part it allowed an appeal to the Administrative Court (VwGH) under Article 133(4) B-VG, so a final ruling by the highest courts is still outstanding. In the published text of the decision, all parties are anonymised throughout.