How is Pinterest allowed by Google to display full-page popups?

[rollinj]

I am continually frustrated every time I click on a pinterest.com page on Google, only to scroll down and have that annoying full page popup cover the page asking me to register/sign-in.

I thought Google penalized sites for only displaying full page popups on every page? Surely they must know about Pinterest.

What gives?

[aristotle]

Doesn't pinterest let you get a brief glimpse of what's on the page before the popup pops up?

[robzilla]

It's only annoying if you're not on Pinterest and have no interest in becoming a member. If it works for most people (and I'm assuming it does), it probably works for Google, too. And once people register they're likely to spend more time on the site.

[engine]

Point taken about the principle of the pop up, and penalisation. In my experience, I've usually found the item from the SERPs returned on the top of the Pinterest page. Hopefully, you should see the items of interest before the screen becomes covered.

One simple solution is to sign up with an anonymous member name to get past the screen being covered.

Pinterest is not alone in this; News sites have a paywall and often show a sample of an article. Additionally, some are now insisting you turn off ad blockers before you can see the editorial content, and I don;'t see any of those sites getting blocked or penalised in google.