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Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefox's tracking protection
I recall the mention of a CBS video streaming site, but now a major newspaper is prompting users to turn it off? Firefox's reader view works for now, but I wonder how long that will last...
- DarkWiiPlayer 8y agoSure, it's always the ads. Dem evil users want free content without ever even seeing an ad. As long as websites misrepresent their users concerns, nothing will change. The real problem is, people are starting to become aware that opening a website isn't what it used to be. Code is run, data is stored, behavior is evaluated... All that while making it seem like you're only shown dumb content.
- noobermin 8y agoPerhaps a link will help. You'll see this if you click on articles and don't have a subscription, a modal of a kind will pop up asking you to "unblock ads." Clicking on the link[0] to unblock ads brings you to a page giving steps for "disabling Firefox’s native ad blocker," showing a gif for turning off tracking protection. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/steps-for-disabling-firefoxs-native-adblocker/2018/05/21/fb95bf4e-5d37-11e8-b2b8-08a538d9dbd6_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/steps-for-disabling-firefoxs-...
- baking 8y agoI have found that I can close the tab and then click on the link again to open another tab. It usually doesn't take more than three tries.
- Vinnl 8y agoI just now realise how great it is that Firefox is calling it "tracking protection". Many people (myself included) are fine with some ads; back in the paper newspaper era, they were a reasonable trade-off for cheaper newspapers. When they're also tracking you, however, that's no longer as reasonable. While asking me to turn off my adblocker sounds reasonable to some extent, asking me to turn of tracking protection feels malicious (because it is). They can try not to mention the term here, but to actually disable it, you'll still have to go into preferences and explicitly turn off Tracking Protection, not ad blocking.
- phjesusthatguy3 8y agoThis is the minimum what I would have expected from the OP. Because I use ad-blocking, and I went to washingtonpost.com and clicked on a bunch of stories, and have no idea what the problem currently is.
- _rpd 8y agoWhy do they care?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- craftyguy 8y agoBecause they want to track you. There's really no other excuse for asking users to disable something called "tracking protection."
- mandevil 8y agoIf you are a paying customer, they don't (source: am a subscriber, never seen this). If you don't pay for a subscription, they need to monetize you in some other way- like by showing you more valuable ads. You can get a very cheap online-only subscription if you have Amazon Prime, strong recommend.
- 8y ago
- donohoe 8y agoCan you explain how it is prompting users? Working fine for me (using 62.0.3 on OSX)
- noobermin 8y agoAre you or proxygeek by chance subscribers to WaPo? If not, I'm not sure why. Also, opening articles in private windows also has it pop up on my laptop. BTW, if the take away is subscription is the answer for their sustainability over having to serve ads that utilize tracking, that's an argument to be had. Of course, inherent in that argument is that non-tracking ads are simply not profitable enough for them, which sounds terrible but I don't work in ads for a living so I wouldn't know.
- petyrbaelish 8y agoBut with subscription, they track you with even more accuracy. Unless you are ready to subscribe using a different identifier everyday.
- munchbunny 8y agoI worked in ad tech for a number of years, so maybe I can address this one. Ads that are annotated with tracking/targeting capabilities are in fact substantially more valuable. There's the obvious aspect (targeted ads in general) but there's also the ability to measure whether your ads are actually working. Analytics requires tracking too. This is an oversimplification, but let's say you're buying ads at 10 cents per thousand impressions. But you have no ability to tell who saw which adds and clicked where. Would you be willing to pay... say, 12 cents per thousand impressions to get actionable analytics? Would you be willing to pay, say, 20 cents per thousand to specifically target people who looked at your product on Amazon? Maybe not at those exact numbers, but you'd probably be willing to pay some substantial amount more, because that strategy (retargeting) works measurably better for converting an ad view into a purchase.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago> Maybe not at those exact numbers, but you'd probably be willing to pay some substantial amount more, because that strategy (retargeting) works measurably better for converting an ad view into a purchase. I do believe that, but I also wonder... Retargeting, i.e. ads of particular product stalking you everywhere you go, is the single method that so far guarantees I just won't buy the advertised thing, out of pure spite. It's also the one aspect of ad experience that I see regular people noticing and getting angry about. I wonder how big an impact of such reaction there is on retargeted ad performance, and if ad people even factor it into their calculations.
- proxygeek 8y agoWorking fine for me as well on Android (Oreo) with Firefox Focus with all tracking disabled. No pop-ups on couple of articles I tried
- larkeith 8y agoAny time a site asks me to disable tracking protection, it has the curious effect of reinforcing my desire to leave it enabled - that site has made it clear that they are intentionally and unapologetically violating my privacy for a quick buck.
- _jal 8y agoPersonally, I appreciate the courtesy of them being up front. I'm happy to go elsewhere, and they save me the trouble of making sure my somewhat Rube Goldbergian-collection of privacy measures aren't acting up. Win-win!
- johnnylambada 8y agothe problem with this line of thinking is that newspaper people need to actually make a buck. Or else there are no newspapers.
- rhizome 8y agoSo sell regular old display ads. Native ads are the future (again).
- x0x0 8y agoNot anymore. There's very low demand / price for run-of-site dispñay ads.
- gordaco 8y agoThen let's increase the demand by diminishing the ROI of the current ad model. Something that can be done, for example, by using an ad blocker and never ever turning it off.
- rhizome 8y agoAre you saying that if WaPo started selling only native ads nobody would buy them? I'm skeptical of that prediction.
- kgwxd 8y agoGood, the word "tracking" is a lot scarier than "ad", should make most users think a bit harder about the choice. However, it's highly irresponsible for them to tell users to do it, as it's a switch, not a whitelist (which is good since that would eventually defeat the entire purpose). I think the best you get is disable for a session.
- daveFNbuck 8y agoIt is a whitelist. There's a button that says "Disable For This Site" and the preferences page lets you manage the exceptions list.
- kgwxd 8y agoWell, guess they changed it. Maybe anyone careful enough to turn on Tracking Protection already knows enough to never whitelist, no exceptions. Whitelist just Google and Facebook and you're basically back to where you were without it.
- daveFNbuck 8y agoThe whitelist switches the protection off based on the site you're visiting, not the site that's tracking you.
- qwerty456127 8y agoThis is the problem about sites that want to show ads. I don't mind reasonable (not annoying) and responsible (I want to be sure ad links don't lead to frauds or viruses so I won't have to deal with any kinds of problems if I stop blocking ads on my mom's computer) but I absolutely do mind any kind of tracking. Why do ad-funded sites insist on tracking so much? I understand tracking adds value to advertisers but are ads really worthless without tracking?
- TangoTrotFox 8y agoSince you can buy targeted ads in many places, venues that only offer untargeted ads are not competitively attractive unless they happen to appeal directly to a specific demographic you're after. And building extensive user profiles on massive numbers of people is something that can be monetized and otherwise exploited in a practically countless number of ways beyond advertising. For instance many news sites have now become overtly partisan and these profiles can be used to manipulate the general political process through razor sharp targeting and 'customized' messaging. Another thing is that even though most sites say they will not sell user information, the main motivation for that is economic, not moral. It's not a sustainable business model. Sell that information once and you've mostly blown your load, as the incremental improvements on that information are only going to be worth a fraction of the initial payload and it's something that will be get 'shared'. If a profit model emerged where selling user information could be a sustainable business they'd go back on that in a heart beat. In the terms alongside any promises of protection for your information will be a clause stating that, 'We can change these terms whenever we like to whatever we like. You agreeing to use our site/software signifies your acceptance of the changes.'
- tannhaeuser 8y agoAnd that's why blocking targetted ads and tracking not only is convenient, but should be encouraged as a necessity and social norm to everyone - to reach a tipping point where targetted ads aren't effective. The news media business has shown they're not able to get themselves out of monopolistic and privacy-invading ad and attention economics. If news outlets can't be bothered to stop contributing to this, they're displaying cluelessness in their very business, and I don't want their journalistic spin anyway. I can always go to reuters.com to read the facts.
- mirimir 8y agoI see the same behavior (v52.8.0). Damn. Also, from a German IPv4: > The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website: > We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking “I agree” below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service. But "Continue to site" doesn't work unless I check "I agree". So they're clearly not GDPR-compliant. In order to access their site, you must agree to be tracked. And you must also disable protection against tracking. Maybe there will be complaints filed?
- x0x0 8y agoThere is also this https://www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/? where the Post offers a free sub, a basic sub (requiring consent to the use of cookies and tracking by us), and a Premium EU ad-free sub (No on-site advertising or third-party ad tracking).
- mirimir 8y agoNo, choosing "free" prompts the agreement to track prompt. And you must agree in order to proceed.
- jasonlotito 8y agoThey are referring to the "Premium EU Ad-Free Subscription" option where they explicitly call out "No on-site advertising or third-party ad tracking"
- Rjevski 8y ago> (No on-site advertising or third-party ad tracking) The premium subscription still asks you to agree to their privacy policy and use of analytics, ads & tracking.
- negutron 8y agoNot only should you use privoxy with tight settings to block everything You should also disable QUIC in chrome Anything related to webassembly (like you know what it's doing...huge security risk there) any video card accelerator interface middleware (information ratline) you should turn all urls back to mozilla or google in the advanced settings (about:config and chrome:flags) back to 127.0.0.1 to disable them get an extension to block canvas information siphoning (fingerprinting) disable webRTC via extension or advanced settings disable "native client" in chrome (allows google to watch what your'e doing) disable any vnc disable any "help" or "spellchecking in the cloud" or "predictive blah blah in the cloud" or pipeline seems to be ok, security wise afaik disable any "protect you from malicious sites" -- that's tracking everything you do and use DNSSEC or DNS over TLS on your router, by for example flashing your router with dd-wrt or tomato or using an advanced firewall computer that can handle all this. It's kind of annoying to set up, but it will be worth it, if you care about your privacy The worst thing you can do is set your dns to 8888 and 8844 that's basically giving all your internet activity to google, because of your convenience
- negutron 8y agoSites like wapo need to find a better way to make money than being a blog for bezos and the CIA to mindrape everyone with disinfo nonsense Sometimes you can lie by omission and democracy really DOES die in darkness Ask WAPO who Imran Awan is, and why they didn't tell you for over 2.5 yrs now? Let's talk about the most viciously censored scandal in US history that is being blockaded by what has become a completely separate timeline for infocucks
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- not2b 8y agoThe Washington Post did tell you about Imran Awan, a number of times. There's no scandal. See https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-the-right-wing-got-it-so-wrong-on-the-pakistani-mystery-man/2018/07/18/d630bae6-89fc-11e8-8aea-86e88ae760d8_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-the-right-wing-g... for example.
- dejaime 8y agoThat reminds me, I forgot to enable it
- dvtrn 8y agoJust curious but installing adblock and track-blockers isn't the first thing you do with a new browser installation? Just wondering how it got turned off in the first place :P
- jiveturkey 8y agothis is where safari shines. the site thinks tracking is on but it’s effectively neutered. i guess on FF you can containerize the site.
- bscphil 8y agoWhy are different organizations taking such an affront to Firefox's tracking protection? I don't have this problem at WaPo with uBlock + uMatrix. As far as I understand it only takes effect by default in private browsing mode. I think it's more crucial than ever that everyone use adblockers and refuse to support sites that retaliate with anti-social behavior. Yes, news orgs need funding, but there's no requirement that they use the web's current ad model to get it.
- Bud 8y agoI tend to agree with you. But do you have an alternative model ready? And if not, how much of the news media are you willing to let die off completely before you would relent?
- mcbits 8y ago100% of it. I am, however, willing to view ads for an 80% share of the revenue.
- sadtruth 8y agoHow about Jeff Bezos pays out of pocket?
- lostlogin 8y agoWorkers of his just received a rise of $1-2 per hour, there are limits to what a trillion dollar company can do. https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/the-goods/2018/10/11/17963778/amazon-pay-increase-bonuses-stock-options https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/the-...
- CamperBob2 8y agoWhy, at that rate, he might have to shut the Post down in another 2 million years.
- komali2 8y agoWhy?
- chris_wot 8y agoMakes me wonder how quickly someone will either create an addin or Mozilla will make it superobvious how they are doing their tracking.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- yourduskquibble 8y agoCheck out the uBO Scope extension by the ever amazing gorhill.
- paulgb 8y agoWhat infuriates me about WaPo is that even though I pay for it, their site is pretty much unusable without an ad blocker. The text jumps around as I scroll to make room for dynamically loaded ads. And then there are the bottom-feeding Outbrain (or whatever vendor they use) ads at the bottom of the article. It's a mess.
- asknthrow 8y agoHave you considered voting with your wallet?
- c487bd62 8y agoI couldn't agree more. Everybody complains that monetizing content is really hard on the web, and then they try to triple dip the same user (subscription, ads, data).
- int_19h 8y agoWhile we're on this subject, check out Blendle. I find that they have the most interesting stuff from WaPo (and others) there anyway, but I pay per article (micropayments), and the reading experience is consistent across all outlets.
- paulgb 8y agoFair question. I have, and have even cancelled before over it. But they still do quality journalism and it keeps bringing me back into the fold. Now I consider paying but using an ad blocker to be a more targeted instance of paying with my wallet.
- muraiki 8y agoI briefly subscribed, was astonished that the site was still covered in ads and even crashing on mobile Safari, and canceled. I had just assumed that of course a paying account would have no ads, but I guess I'm crazy!
- runn1ng 8y ago
- StanislavPetrov 8y agoShocking that the provider for CIA cloud services would want to track you, who would have thought?
- ilovecaching 8y agoFor those of you advocating for a payment model over the ad model, I want you to consider two perspectives. First, consider the people who will be denied access to information on the basis of class. People who consider it a luxury to be online at all, let alone logging on to find a paywall for basic news. Now consider the editors at the Washington Post, who now have to cater the demographic who can pay their fees. Instead of reaching billions, the Washington Post can now only reach tens of millions. Instead of providing economic opportunity to small businesses that need to advertise online to compete with larger companies, the Washington Post now has to compete just to pay it's staff writers a fair wage. Things are never as black and white as we think they are. Privacy should be respected, but we should also respect that the internet could be much less free without advertising. We might not have the many amazing websites and services that we take for granted everyday without ad funding. Many small businesses run by entrepreneurs might never grow their bushinesses without the equalizing opportunity of online ads.
- abdullahkhalids 8y ago> First, consider the people who will be denied access to information on the basis of class. People who consider it a luxury to be online at all, let alone logging on to find a paywall for basic news. I am confused. Haven't (good) newspapers been paid products for a long time? Whats different about the internet version of newspapers?
- kd5bjo 8y agoThere’s no secondhand market for digital newspapers. Physical newspapers were often given away for free by customers that had finished with them.
- berti 8y agoThat doesn't mean we should continue perpetuating such biases when it's avoidable. It annoys me greatly when politicians use this line of reasoning. If what we had before was working we wouldn't need to change it.
- 8y ago
- Animats 8y agoAmusingly, with Mozilla's tracking protection on, Ghostery set to block everything it knows about, Privacy Badger running, private browsing mode, and third party cookies disabled, the Washington Post site not only works, it no longer nags about subscribing.
- 9712263 8y agoI try it in my firefox and I don't experience this prompt. Possibly because I don't read long enough to trigger the prompt, or ublock origin advanced mode + Privacy Badger + Tracking Protection combo suppressed too aggressively that it never appears. I tried disabling the plugins but cannot reproduce. Btw, for this kind of prompt, one ublock origin features I found very useful is cosmetic filter. I could specify which CSS element permanently to disable by right click menu. I find it useful when I want to watch a specific Facebook video but that annoying Facebook login prompt keeps bugging and it could be triggered by left clicking anything in the page, including expanding comment sections. Though, it's a cat-and-mouse game, and you never know when the countermeasures doesn't work.
- Ecko123 8y agoUse umatrix with ublock
- JAdamMoore 8y agoDon't go to their website. Problem solved. Quit whining like a baby.
- Uhrheber 8y agoHow to dig your own grave, and not even noticing it.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- mirimir 8y agoJust FYI, using Tor browser, you just get access, with no prompts to agree with tracking, or whatever.
- shmerl 8y agoThey don't need to require tracking, they can serve ads without behavioral targeting.
- sticazzi 8y agoI have AdBlock, AdBlock Plus and DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials. Anything else to recommend for Firefox?
- mackrevinack 8y agomaybe get rid of adblock and use ublock instead. its open source and anytime I hear adblock being mentioned its usually something bad check out https://www.privacytools.io https://www.privacytools.io as well or the subreddit for more discussions on that type of thing
- bkor 8y agoMake sure to use Ublock Origin instead of Ublock. Solely "Ublock" you want to avoid.
- KozmoNau7 8y agoDitch Adblock and ABP, and get uBlock Origin instead. Cookie Autodelete, Ublock Origin, Decentraleyes, Don't touch my tabs!, FB Purity, First Party Isolation, google-no-tracking-url, HTTPS Everywhere, Link Cleaner, Privacy Badger, Smart Referer and of course uBlock Origin in advanced mode with all 3rd party scripts and frames blocked by default.
- StevePerkins 8y agoI know that Brave draws a bit of controversy on HN, but the fact that you just named a DOZEN plugins is the reason why I switched. That's just too much to keep up with, I need more sane defaults and built-in behavior.
- KozmoNau7 8y agoThere's nothing to keep up with, really. You could very servicably get by with only uBlock Origin's default blocklists and the advanced mode with 3rd party scripts/frames on default-deny. The rest are there because I'm slightly paranoid.
- IloveHN84 8y agoSimple: stop reading the Washington Post and let them change idea
- dorfuss 8y agoI would like the publishers to understand that I use the blocking software because their JavaScript is so poorly written that it consumes 90% of my CPU power, which is not acceptable on a laptop. There must be a better way, and I'm happy to pay for the subscription.
- xte 8y agoWP reader should then write down a simple letter, perhaps a paper one, to the journal saying that they pay for a journal not for feed a company milking data from then. A simple claim: "I'm a Citizen, not a (paying) lemon to be squeezed". A simple cease and desist invite.
- vermilingua 8y agoPrivacy dies in darkness.
- fgheorghe 8y agoAnd how exactly are these organisations to make money, if not through ads?
- 127 8y agoThrough subscriptions, one time purchases and donations.
- bdcravens 8y agoAdvertising in and of itself isn't bad. Degrading performance (via crazy Javascript that ad networks use) and degrading privacy (via tracking) is the problem.
- alkonaut 8y agoThey can show me 200 ads per article if they want. But I don't want them to show me "more relevant ads" by tracking me. Simple as that. If they want to make their content subscriber-only that's fine. If they want to have an ad-funded tier without tracking ads that's fine. If privacy-intruding tracking ads is the only way to give advertisers enough "value" for the impressions to make the economics work - then that business model is a failure and they should just pick another. The usual questions here are "Shouldn't the option to give up (sell) some privacy in exchange for something of value (such as viewing an article) be a decision that is up to each visitor"? And the answer is: Absolutely not, no. Why? because I don't think the transaction is, or can be made clear to consumers wrt what is being exchanged.
- aembleton 8y agoI'll just have to use outline.com then
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- bonsai80 8y agoI get why companies feel they need to do this (although I personally find the tracking to never be OK). I'd suggest a modified approach to these "please turn off" notices: Show a form asking for alternatives and also having users enter how much money they would pay for the site to remove all ads and/or tracking. A step further could even be to allow people to enter what they'd pay for 1yr along with payment info. If the site decides that is a fair price at some point in the future, they charge the card.
- 6d6b73 8y agoProblem with that is that they will still be able to track you as you will need to login to get the subscription, and now they will have all your information.
- thelasthuman 8y agoI guess privacy will be destined to become a purchaseable product. I guess that's just a inevitable conclusion considering our economic system. But it's okay so long as it is a corporation doing it to us and not the government right? Never mind how corporations have grown to be bigger and more powerful than some nation states. On the internet, humanity can be it's true self, and we are ugly. Marketing has been ugly forever (or at least since the introduction of psychology to the field post WWII). It makes sense that marketing on the net is malicious to the point of attacking the user. That's who we are deep down inside.
- satyaaa 8y agoGood thing I couldn't be bothered reading anything on that trashy blog anyway.
- ummonk 8y agoAny site that does this should be marked as a spyware site and blocked by the browser. Enough is enough.
- extremum134 8y agoI have to say it again and again, that `web tools` may use JS but plain `web blogs` should not. Those designer people don't care anything about performance, they aren't programmers still call themselves to be. Why does a blog site even need Javascript? Perhaps no AdBlocker may recognize a non-intrusive ad like good olden days without computer vision. Anyway, I thought I was only one worried about use of JavaScript by `nonprogrammers` as Crockford puts it.