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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

#111

Post by rusk »

jarcane wrote: post #103
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…

> Why are different organizations taking such an affront to Firefox's tracking protection? The same reason some orgs started blocking the entire EU rather than obey GDPR.

> The same reason some orgs started blocking the entire EU rather than respect GDPR.

Fixed

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

#112

Post by reaperducer »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #87
Bud wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Personally, all of it. Honestly, it's not our job to find a business model that works. It's literally the job of a company trying to make money. Find a way that works. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for cooperating and working together to solve things. But the ad industry is so out of control that there's no cooperating with that. If they find a way to serve ads that are not privacy-invading, do not expose users to malw…

The problem is that the management at traditional media outlets have been conned into believing that they need tracking in order to serve their advertisers.

Advertising worked fine before internet tracking was a thing. Everything from Coca-Cola and the New York Times down to Fred's Corner Dry Cleaner and The Podunk Tribune survived and thrived on the old, low-tracking model.

It's companies like Google and the other internet ad-serving companies that turned the ad industry into a data arms race, and the media outlets got caught up in it.

There's a cliché about "the internet killed newspapers." No, internet ad companies killed newspapers by falsely convincing them that an ad view on a screen is worth 1,000 times less than an ad view on printed paper, so they have to make up the difference by harvesting everyone's data.

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

#113

Post by komali2 »

sadtruth wrote: post #64
Bud wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

How about Jeff Bezos pays out of pocket?

Why?

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

#114

Post by lobotryas »

Bud wrote: post #47
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?

You're edging in on a fallacy. A person can critique something without needing to have an alternative or a solution available.

I am ready to let all news media die if it truly is unable to evolve beyond the ad/classifieds model. I don't believe the news we receive now are high quality as it is, so I don't see much loss.

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

#115

Post by reaperducer »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #79
Bud wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I will wait till we get a micro-transaction system built directly into the browser (same system for every browser) that allows me to pay 1 cent per news article - maybe 5 cent for a super duper long essay. I am poor but I am willing to pay as much as 5 dollars a month. My personal information is not for sale or distribution and I refuse to allow any computations on my computer that enable someone to gather it.

I am poor but I am willing to pay as much as 5 dollars a month.

So subscribe to your local newspaper. One of my subscriptions is $25/6 months of Sunday delivery and you get free unlimited online access. That's $4.16/month — below your stated budget.

If more people put their money where their mouths are, then we could break the media of their third-party ad serving addiction.

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

#116

Post by jlarocco »

SCAQTony wrote: post #71
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…

Are we really blocking ads or are we really blocking malware? Calling our privacy tools adblockers is a misnomer don't you think for any site can simple put ad in a div and not get it blocked.

I would say I'm blocking both. There's a tool in uBlock that allows blocking individual DOM elements, and I block "native" ads embedded in pages, too.

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

#117

Post by olex »

lysium wrote: post #60
davidgh wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The Germans kind of have that (formerly called GEZ) and people complain about that, too! It pays for the wrong content! And the private news sites hate it, too! It’s an unfair advantage! I don’t think it will make a difference if a private company collects the cash, but who knows?

People who complain about the GEZ/Rundfunkgebühr complain about the fact that it is compulsory, even though the content and media being offered is irrelevant for many people (who don't watch TV or listen to the radio). Also there's significant issues with the way the pricing model is designed, putting very unequal load on singles living alone vs. families or shared apartments.

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

#118

Post by LoSboccacc »

_rpd wrote: post #2

Why do they care?

remember how just one election ago building undecided voter profiles and serving them target propaganda helped influence the outcome massively?

people still believe it's just for monetization and advertisement like it's 2005, but tracking people getting information across multiple sources can build an extremely accurate profile to be targeted at an election cycle.

Those undecided voters profiles are worth a lot more per unit than facebooks' to the right group.

Why else would anyone target newspapers for profiling, people don't consume and don't exhibit targetable purchasing behavior on those sites. No, they are interested on what you think, not what they can sell you.

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

#119

Post by reaperducer »

flukus wrote: post #99
Bud wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Nearly all of it. My country and many others have a national tax funded news organisation that does a far better job of informing than any of the commercial operators. This is a much better funding model that doesn't rely on sensationalism or pandering to a particular audience to drive eyeballs.

doesn't rely on sensationalism or pandering to a particular audience to drive eyeballs.

In theory, it should. But anyone who follows the internal drama of the BBC, for example, knows this isn't the case.

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

#120

Post by TeMPOraL »

reaperducer wrote: post #112
TeMPOraL wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, all of it. Honestly, it's not our job to find a business model that works. It's literally the job of a company trying to make money. Find a way that works. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for cooperating and working together to solve things. But the ad industry is so out of control that there's no cooperating with that. If they find a way to serve ads that are not privacy-invading, do not expose users to malw…

The problem is that the management at traditional media outlets have been conned into believing that they need tracking in order to serve their advertisers. Advertising worked fine before internet tracking was a thing. Everything from Coca-Cola and the New York Times down to Fred's Corner Dry Cleaner and The Podunk Tribune survived and thrived on the old, low-tracking model. It's companies like Google and the other i…

> There's a cliché about "the internet killed newspapers." No, internet ad companies killed newspapers by falsely convincing them that an ad view on a screen is worth 1,000 times less than an ad view on printed paper, so they have to make up the difference by harvesting everyone's data.

I think it's a little bit of both. Internet commoditized newspapers and unbundled them, allowing us to peruse individual articles without the regard for whole. But you're right that instead of figuring out a proper way to deal with this, papers just got convinced by adtech companies and doubled-down on ads on-line.

(Then again, were they wrong? The model works. Much like for a factory that dumps all its toxic waste into the nearby river, the model works. Doesn't mean it deserves to, and that it will work forever.)

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