Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefox's tracking protection

#1

Post by noobermin » Fri, Oct 12, 2018, 1:49 AM UTC

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...

Re: Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefox's tracking protection

#2

Post by _rpd » Fri, Oct 12, 2018, 2:09 AM UTC

Why do they care?

Re: Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefox's tracking protection

#3

Post by donohoe » Fri, Oct 12, 2018, 2:09 AM UTC

Can you explain how it is prompting users? Working fine for me (using 62.0.3 on OSX)

Re: Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefox's tracking protection

#4

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 12, 2018, 2:11 AM UTC

_rpd wrote: post #2

Why do they care?

[deleted]

Re: Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefox's tracking protection

#5

Post by noobermin » Fri, Oct 12, 2018, 2:12 AM UTC

Perhaps 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-...

Re: Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefox's tracking protection

#6

Post by 4mitkumar » Fri, Oct 12, 2018, 2:19 AM UTC

Working fine for me as well on Android (Oreo) with Firefox Focus with all tracking disabled. No pop-ups on couple of articles I tried

Re: Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefox's tracking protection

#7

Post by craftyguy » Fri, Oct 12, 2018, 2:20 AM UTC

_rpd wrote: post #2

Why do they care?

Because they want to track you. There's really no other excuse for asking users to disable something called "tracking protection."

Re: Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefox's tracking protection

#8

Post by larkeith » Fri, Oct 12, 2018, 2:29 AM UTC

Any 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.

Re: Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefox's tracking protection

#9

Post by kgwxd » Fri, Oct 12, 2018, 2:30 AM UTC

Good, 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.

Re: Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefox's tracking protection

#10

Post by noobermin » Fri, Oct 12, 2018, 2:35 AM UTC

donohoe wrote: post #3

Can you explain how it is prompting users? Working fine for me (using 62.0.3 on OSX)

Are 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.