npr.org becomes text-only if your refuse their cookies?

Clicking on an article in my Google Discover feed today, I was whisked over to npr.org and the usual (or so I thought) boilerplate query on whether I would accept tracking cookies on my browser.

As is now my habit, I said "no", noticing that saying no meant I had to go to the "plain text" version of the site.

And, yep, I ended up on a very plain page, without the news article I'd gone there to read.

I've never seen this before, and the implementation is certainly buggy, but it's an interesting approach. I'm not sure if it's legal, under current cookie law, to require me to accept tracking cookies in exchange for non-crippled access to a website, but if it is this might be the next step in sites trying to retain access to tracking ad-tech.

It certainly does make you think about how much your data might be worth...

The warning...

The horrors that befall those who do not comply