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

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

#41

Post by x0x0 »

ralfd wrote: post #37
mirimir wrote: post #13

I 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 c…

Does GDPR compliance require a site to work if a user is not agreeing to be tracked? Functionally the user never clicking the agree button and not be able to access the site is equivalent to what the latimes is doing: http://latimes.com http://www.tribpub.com/gdpr/latimes.com/ > "Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries."

I tend to think it's not compliant, but given there is a complete opt out (that does cost money), and the Post is, by its nature, very US oriented, I think it's unlikely to be a priority for regulators.

What is the loss to a European of being unable to read the post?

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

#42

Post by x0x0 »

rhizome wrote: post #22
johnnylambada wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the problem with this line of thinking is that newspaper people need to actually make a buck. Or else there are no newspapers.

So sell regular old display ads. Native ads are the future (again).

Not anymore. There's very low demand / price for run-of-site dispñay ads.

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

#43

Post by tomc1985 »

michaelmrose wrote: post #26
johnnylambada wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the problem with this line of thinking is that newspaper people need to actually make a buck. Or else there are no newspapers.

Maybe the newspapers entire value is tied to a fraction of the staff and they wonder why we are all collectively disinterested in funding their worthless printing presses, managers, secretaries, and buildings?

You mean the institutional infrastructure that allows journalists to do their jobs with some measure of job security and editorial integrity?

(not that there's a whole lot of that left... but its still better than getting news from facebook and youtube vloggers)

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

#44

Post by agotterer »

davidgh wrote: post #38
gwbas1c wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the payment model is broken. I'm not going to subscribe to a site that I only want to read a single article. We need a way to pay a few cents to read an article, ad and tracker free.

Agree. I hope someone comes up with a “Netflix for online content”. I’m not going to subscribe to a dozen news sites individually and I also don’t want to make a purchase decision, even if tiny, every time I visit a site. For me a bundle of the top 10-15 high-quality news sites, perhaps letting me choose from different packages at different price points, and allocate the revenue to sites based on which content I read…

Upvoted. But why is this being down voted? It’s a perfectly reasonable product desire, a welcome opinion, and is overall a productive comment.

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

#45

Post by not2b »

negutron wrote: post #17
negutron wrote: post #16

Not 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…

Sites 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 sep…

The 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-g... for example.

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

#46

Post by asknthrow »

paulgb wrote: post #40

What 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.

Have you considered voting with your wallet?

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

#47

Post by Bud »

bscphil wrote: post #30

Why 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 th…

I 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?

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

#48

Post by mikekchar »

ralfd wrote: post #37
mirimir wrote: post #13

I 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 c…

Does GDPR compliance require a site to work if a user is not agreeing to be tracked? Functionally the user never clicking the agree button and not be able to access the site is equivalent to what the latimes is doing: http://latimes.com http://www.tribpub.com/gdpr/latimes.com/ > "Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries."

They can't offer to give you access in exchange for consent to use your data. By not granting access at all, they are complying with the GDPR. However, as always, it's important to point out that you don't ever have to ask for consent with the GDRP. If the data you are gathering necessary in order to complete the service, then people can't even object to it. If the data you are gathering is a legitimate interest (for marketing, or whatever), then you don't have to ask for permission, you just have to allow people to object after the fact. It's only if you don't technically need the data to do the job and you have no legitimate interest in the data that you have to ask for consent.

Not to put too fine a point on it, if they have no need for the data and they have no legitimate interest in it and they don't even want to ask for your consent... do you really want to go to that site? It's pretty clear what they think of you.

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

#49

Post by daveFNbuck »

kgwxd wrote: post #27
daveFNbuck wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a whitelist. There's a button that says "Disable For This Site" and the preferences page lets you manage the exceptions list.

Well, 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.

The whitelist switches the protection off based on the site you're visiting, not the site that's tracking you.

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

#50

Post by runn1ng »

paulgb wrote: post #40

What 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.

Washington Post have a secret, hidden "Premium EU Ad-Free" subscription that removes all the ads.

You have to go specifically here and click on the third option - but NOT when you have a subscription already (you need to cancel it first)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/

Despite "EU" and "GDPR" in the name, it works outside of EU too

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