6 ms·

Ironically I opened this is private mode and was turned away. The New York Times is trying to have it both ways. I can log in and be tracked by their advertiser

Ironically I opened this is private mode and was turned away. The New York Times is trying to have it both ways. I can log in and be tracked by their advertisers or I can be discreet and open articles from another source. I don't mind paying a small subscription but let me choose to deny your advertisers information on how I consume your content. If being tracked is part and parcel of being a subscriber then these pro-privacy articles look almost unethical.

dangus 8y ago
Works fine for me incognito with ads and tracker blocking extensions enabled. Keep in mind that the journalist who did the research and wrote the article did not have a say in how the employer who enabled them to write this piece generates revenue.
- linuxasheviller 8y ago
  > Keep in mind that the journalist who did the research and wrote the article did not have a say in how the employer who enabled them to write this piece generates revenue. In a way, she did. She is not an NYT employee, but rather, a professor at UNC Chapel Hill who could have published this piece elsewhere. To be clear, I don't fault her for her choice at all. Just pointing out that we all "opt-in" to this system when we participate in it, and that's a part of the problem.
  - dangus 8y ago
    I do agree with you, though I think opting out of the practices of most websites is impractical. The utility of my usage of the Internet far outweighs some advertisers figuring out what I like to buy. We do need more robust advertising privacy laws, though. By not being a NYT employee she has even less of a say in the matter. I'm sure she knows that nobody's going to read her article if it's published in The Daily Tar Heel. If someone gave you the opportunity to publish an article in The New York Times would you say no? I should also point out that the print edition of the NYT is still widely circulated, and it seems this article would have appeared in the Opinion section, tracker free :-)
    - ricardobeat 8y ago
      This is taking a bit too far, but if someone offered you a fully-paid trip to the Caribbean* would you say no? * with money from dubious origin
  - Bartweiss 8y ago
    > Just pointing out that we all "opt-in" to this system when we participate in it, and that's a part of the problem. This really is a significant point. All-visitor paywalls already crumbled, and a few of the worst excesses of tracking at least getting debated, so this is a place where users can get actual traction. It's the same sort of collective action problem as voting, true; writers and publishers have far more influence than any given reader. But it's also true that the space is far more open than voting. There are a lot of news sites (e.g. The Boston Globe) which have shut out incognito access, filled their sites with trackers, and loaded up on dark patterns to push people towards misleadingly-priced subscriptions. And for almost everything they publish, there's minimal cost to just... not reading it. If it's a major story, it will be covered elsewhere. I know I'm not changing the world when I skip their links, but I'm protecting a bit of my own data, and putting a bit of pressure on them to do better.
- wgj 8y ago
  NYT is still A/B testing this feature. It appears to be enabled an increasingly higher percentage of page loads over the past few weeks.
- idlewords 8y ago
  This is an opinion piece, not an article. Zeynep Tufekci is a professor at UNC and does not work for the New York Times.
- gatherhunterer 7y ago
  Incognito does not prevent Google from tracking you. They claim that they do not but it is not a standard for private browsing.
gruez 8y ago
Works fine on safari private mode with content blockers enabled
- m463 8y ago
  or firefox + umatrix
CharlesColeman 8y ago
> The New York Times is trying to have it both ways. No, you need to think of the NYT (and any reputable newspaper) as being two separate entities: the newsroom and the advertising department, with a firewall between them [1]. You really don't want the newsroom killing a story because it makes the practices of the advertising department look bad. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_wall#Journalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_wall#Journalism Also, demands that the people who expose bad privacy practices have perfect privacy records themselves is to demand for privacy advocates to kill themselves a circular firing squad [2], so no one wins but the advertisers and privacy-invaders. Personally, I want these exposés carried by the publications with the greatest numbers of readers, and I'm not going to gripe too much about practices of those publications as long as the message gets out. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/Circular_firing_squad https://en.wikipedia.org/w/Circular_firing_squad
- trophycase 8y ago
  So another pathological company with a personality disorder?
  - d4mi3n 8y ago
    Organizations are not people. Characterizing then as such can be very misleading and lead to wildly inaccurate conclusions about why they behave the way they do and what they are likely to do in the future.
    - tomc1985 8y ago
      The legal concept of corporate personhood kind of says otherwise
      - GavinMcG 8y ago
        The legal concept of corporate personhood demonstrates the issue.
      - ben_w 8y ago
pastor_elm 8y ago
you're not using private mode to avoid advertisers. You're using it to avoid the paywall.

dangus 8y ago

Works fine for me incognito with ads and tracker blocking extensions enabled. Keep in mind that the journalist who did the research and wrote the article did not have a say in how the employer who enabled them to write this piece generates revenue.

linuxasheviller 8y ago
> Keep in mind that the journalist who did the research and wrote the article did not have a say in how the employer who enabled them to write this piece generates revenue. In a way, she did. She is not an NYT employee, but rather, a professor at UNC Chapel Hill who could have published this piece elsewhere. To be clear, I don't fault her for her choice at all. Just pointing out that we all "opt-in" to this system when we participate in it, and that's a part of the problem.
- dangus 8y ago
  I do agree with you, though I think opting out of the practices of most websites is impractical. The utility of my usage of the Internet far outweighs some advertisers figuring out what I like to buy. We do need more robust advertising privacy laws, though. By not being a NYT employee she has even less of a say in the matter. I'm sure she knows that nobody's going to read her article if it's published in The Daily Tar Heel. If someone gave you the opportunity to publish an article in The New York Times would you say no? I should also point out that the print edition of the NYT is still widely circulated, and it seems this article would have appeared in the Opinion section, tracker free :-)
  - ricardobeat 8y ago
    This is taking a bit too far, but if someone offered you a fully-paid trip to the Caribbean* would you say no? * with money from dubious origin
- Bartweiss 8y ago
  > Just pointing out that we all "opt-in" to this system when we participate in it, and that's a part of the problem. This really is a significant point. All-visitor paywalls already crumbled, and a few of the worst excesses of tracking at least getting debated, so this is a place where users can get actual traction. It's the same sort of collective action problem as voting, true; writers and publishers have far more influence than any given reader. But it's also true that the space is far more open than voting. There are a lot of news sites (e.g. The Boston Globe) which have shut out incognito access, filled their sites with trackers, and loaded up on dark patterns to push people towards misleadingly-priced subscriptions. And for almost everything they publish, there's minimal cost to just... not reading it. If it's a major story, it will be covered elsewhere. I know I'm not changing the world when I skip their links, but I'm protecting a bit of my own data, and putting a bit of pressure on them to do better.
wgj 8y ago
NYT is still A/B testing this feature. It appears to be enabled an increasingly higher percentage of page loads over the past few weeks.
idlewords 8y ago
This is an opinion piece, not an article. Zeynep Tufekci is a professor at UNC and does not work for the New York Times.
gatherhunterer 7y ago
Incognito does not prevent Google from tracking you. They claim that they do not but it is not a standard for private browsing.

gruez 8y ago

Works fine on safari private mode with content blockers enabled

m463 8y ago
or firefox + umatrix

CharlesColeman 8y ago

> The New York Times is trying to have it both ways. No, you need to think of the NYT (and any reputable newspaper) as being two separate entities: the newsroom and the advertising department, with a firewall between them [1]. You really don't want the newsroom killing a story because it makes the practices of the advertising department look bad. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_wall#Journalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_wall#Journalism Also, demands that the people who expose bad privacy practices have perfect privacy records themselves is to demand for privacy advocates to kill themselves a circular firing squad [2], so no one wins but the advertisers and privacy-invaders. Personally, I want these exposés carried by the publications with the greatest numbers of readers, and I'm not going to gripe too much about practices of those publications as long as the message gets out. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/Circular_firing_squad https://en.wikipedia.org/w/Circular_firing_squad

trophycase 8y ago
So another pathological company with a personality disorder?
- d4mi3n 8y ago
  Organizations are not people. Characterizing then as such can be very misleading and lead to wildly inaccurate conclusions about why they behave the way they do and what they are likely to do in the future.
  - tomc1985 8y ago
    The legal concept of corporate personhood kind of says otherwise
    - GavinMcG 8y ago
      The legal concept of corporate personhood demonstrates the issue.
    - ben_w 8y ago

pastor_elm 8y ago

you're not using private mode to avoid advertisers. You're using it to avoid the paywall.