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How The New York Times Thinks About Privacy

10 points by tysone 8y ago

shard972 8y ago
> 24 requests blocked Tell me when they are doing something about privacy and not just thinking about it and writing op-eds about how they are the leader of the pack about writing about privacy.
- hkhanna 8y ago
  I'm not sure what this comment adds. Mr. Sulzberger precisely calls out this fact out: > The averaged results show how ubiquitous this practice is: The Financial Times had 19 trackers, The New York Times had 24, The Wall Street Journal had 53, The Guardian had 54, The Washington Post had 58, Fox News had 63, BuzzFeed had 67, HuffPost had 77, CNN had 83, Vox had 95, and USA Today had 100. And he addresses the hypocrisy of the situation: > As with a politician railing against high drug prices while accepting campaign donations from big pharma, a news organization cannot talk about privacy on the internet without skeptical readers immediately, and rightly, examining its own practices for signs of hypocrisy. To be sure, an attempt to improve privacy practices by a business that relies on digital ad revenue should be met with a healthy dose of skepticism. But dismissing the project for lack of privacy purity seems counterproductive. Let's not let perfect be the enemy of the good. I'm very happy to see the an organization like The Times calling attention to the problems of privacy online. They're not perfect, but steps like these should be encouraged.
musicale 8y ago
"Countless companies are wrestling with these trade-offs, many of them doing the best they can within a digital ecosystem they can’t hope to unilaterally reform. The internet doesn’t have to be this way. But change needs to be driven at a societal level — by politicians, leaders of major technology companies and the public at large." That sounds like an excuse for making it "someone else's problem" when the NYT itself could actually take a stance for privacy by switching to self-hosted ads without tracking and removing any other trackers (such as social media integration buttons) from the site.
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  I wonder, though, what fraction of the value of the ad is in the tracking? That is, if the NYT did what you said, would the rate they could charge for ads go down? Do advertisers (or somebody else) pay extra for the tracking info?

10 points by tysone 8y ago

> 24 requests blocked Tell me when they are doing something about privacy and not just thinking about it and writing op-eds about how they are the leader of the pack about writing about privacy.

hkhanna 8y ago
I'm not sure what this comment adds. Mr. Sulzberger precisely calls out this fact out: > The averaged results show how ubiquitous this practice is: The Financial Times had 19 trackers, The New York Times had 24, The Wall Street Journal had 53, The Guardian had 54, The Washington Post had 58, Fox News had 63, BuzzFeed had 67, HuffPost had 77, CNN had 83, Vox had 95, and USA Today had 100. And he addresses the hypocrisy of the situation: > As with a politician railing against high drug prices while accepting campaign donations from big pharma, a news organization cannot talk about privacy on the internet without skeptical readers immediately, and rightly, examining its own practices for signs of hypocrisy. To be sure, an attempt to improve privacy practices by a business that relies on digital ad revenue should be met with a healthy dose of skepticism. But dismissing the project for lack of privacy purity seems counterproductive. Let's not let perfect be the enemy of the good. I'm very happy to see the an organization like The Times calling attention to the problems of privacy online. They're not perfect, but steps like these should be encouraged.

musicale 8y ago

"Countless companies are wrestling with these trade-offs, many of them doing the best they can within a digital ecosystem they can’t hope to unilaterally reform. The internet doesn’t have to be this way. But change needs to be driven at a societal level — by politicians, leaders of major technology companies and the public at large." That sounds like an excuse for making it "someone else's problem" when the NYT itself could actually take a stance for privacy by switching to self-hosted ads without tracking and removing any other trackers (such as social media integration buttons) from the site.

AnimalMuppet 8y ago
I wonder, though, what fraction of the value of the ad is in the tracking? That is, if the NYT did what you said, would the rate they could charge for ads go down? Do advertisers (or somebody else) pay extra for the tracking info?