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How is everyone being blind to the fact that they will now simply start collecting their own user data and do targeted ads by themselves? And yes this includes
by safog 6y ago
How is everyone being blind to the fact that they will now simply start collecting their own user data and do targeted ads by themselves? And yes this includes potentially sensitive stuff like location data, not just NYT reading history. Adverts are not going away and they're not going subscription only, they're just going to figure out what ads to run by themselves instead of relying on 3rd parties.
Imagine every single publisher does this and how many security holes that will open. Sure maybe you trust NYT to generally do the right thing with data (very debatable) but what happens when Buzzfeed does this? Do you think they'll adopt sensible data collection policies? What about the S*n?
What about the data they collect? Can we guarantee that they simply won't become data brokers again? I would much rather have entrenched players like G / FB collect and take the blame for privacy misses than have every single organization build their own leaky data collection systems.
- tootie 6y agoThey pretty much are subscription only at this point already. Secondly, just because they aren't serving third-party cookies doesn't mean they are rolling their own tracking service. You can convert a third-party cookie to first party with a DNS entry. It just prevents browsers from sharing data.
- safog 6y agoErr.. but they are rolling their own tracking service + ad exchange. They say they will create user segments that advertisers can use to target ads - that is basically an ad exchange. Instead of advertisers using AdWords (or whatever they currently use to advertise on NYT), they will use a custom built NYTWords to run their ads. What I meant by subscription only is that their revenues won't be purely through subscription - ad revenue is still going to be a very significant part of their total revenues - they're not simply ditching it.
- tootie 6y agoIt doesn't say they are building it from scratch. It says they are offering an exchange on top of whatever data is collected. This could easily be done on top of another platform. It may not be Adobe/Google/Facebook, but this is a huge market and they'd be nuts to reinvent the wheel.
- look_lookatme 6y agoIt's in the Axios story... https://twitter.com/antoniogm/status/1262757541710139392 https://twitter.com/antoniogm/status/1262757541710139392
- anewdirection 6y agoThis is indeed the case. NYT is now an AdTech company according to recent business press, and will be selling the data themselves.