In the decision of July 31, 2018, GZ: DSBD213.642/0002-DSB/2018, the data protection authority had to deal with the DSGVO-compliant design of pre-formulated declarations of consent in the course of an official review procedure. The subject matter of the proceedings was the text section of a member registration form in which the data protection consent pursuant to Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. a GDPR has been obtained for marketing purposes. In this context, the data protection authority noted three key points: First, consent is only voluntary if the data subject is free to decide whether and in what form he or she consents to the data processing. The suggested impression of merely being able to determine through which medium (mail, electronic transmission or telephone) marketing mailings are received therefore contradicts both the criterion of voluntariness and that of comprehensibility, which are essential for a GDPR-compliant consent according to Art. 7 in conjunction with Art. 4 Z 11 GDPR. On the other hand, the placement of the declaration of consent directly above the signature confirming the registration for membership also does not meet the aforementioned criteria, since such a structure creates the erroneous impression that consent to data processing for marketing purposes is required for registration for membership. On top of that, the presentation of the declaration of consent in a direct textual connection with the revocation option is also not GDPR-compliant, because this creates the false appearance for the data subject that he or she must in any case consent to the data processing for the time being and can only prevent it by revoking it later (not permissible “optout” solution). This decision is legally binding.