[nwellnhof]

If this was true, every major German news website would violate the GDPR because that's exactly what they do. Can you cite the relevant GDPR article?

[layer8]

Those websites are in violation of the GDPR. Article 7 item 4:

“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.”

This basically means that if providing the service is made conditional on consent of personal data processing despite the processing not being necessary for the service, then the consent can’t really be considered to be freely given.

[nwellnhof]

That's a misconception. "Provision of a service" only means paid services and doesn't apply to websites offering content for free.