What an amazing win for Europe, and the GDPR.<p>This isn't about just the button. Until a few years, "you're not the customer; you're the product" was the norm for a typical user's interaction with the internet, and they were powerless to change that.<p>Then the GDPR came along, declaring that users have fundamental right to their data, and as such, they no longer can be forced to be "the product" without their consent. One of its most empowering rules, however, is in Article 7 (4):<p><i>"When assessing whether consent is freely given, utmost account shall be taken of whether, inter alia, the performance of a contract, including the provision of a service, is conditional on consent to the processing of personal data that is not necessary for the performance of that contract."</i><p>So consent must be (1) freely given, and (2) it's not free if you're blocking access to service A by requiring consent for service B, when B is unnecessary for performing A.<p>Hence, a search engine cannot force you to consent to tracking for advertising purposes, because technically, the search engine doesn't need it.<p>So how can the search engine make money? One popular way that has already been ruled as legal is to offer two plans: a paid plan with no ads and tracking, or a free plan with ads and tracking (in essence, it's a paid plan and you're paying for it with tracking).