
Tell HN: Now Washington Post is asking to turn off Firefox's tracking protection - noobermin
I recall the mention of a CBS video streaming site, but now a major newspaper is prompting users to turn it off? Firefox&#x27;s reader view works for now, but I wonder how long that will last...
======
bscphil
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 that they use the web's current ad model
to get it.

~~~
Bud
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?

~~~
TeMPOraL
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 malware risk, and do not consume exorbitant amount of
resources on the user end, we'll talk about shutting off ad-blockers.

~~~
reaperducer
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.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _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.)

~~~
reaperducer
_Then again, were they wrong? The model works._

I think you're mistaken there. If the model worked, then thousands of
newspapers wouldn't have closed, downsized, or worse. We'd be back in the 80's
when cities like Cincinnati and Chicago had FOUR real daily newspapers, and
just about every single radio station had its own news department.

What happened is that the internet ad companies convinced newspapers that an
ad that used to cost $1,000 for 1,000 people to see in print should only cost
10¢ for 1,000 people to view online.

~~~
stickfigure
_$1,000 for 1,000 people to see in print_

What happened is that now advertisers can measure the impact of their ads and
realize they just wasted $1000. If advertising was worth $1k, ad companies
would still charge it. The people getting screwed in the old system were the
advertisers.

The world only sustained thousands of newspapers because physical delivery
made them inherently local. The internet made the market for news national, if
not global. Consolidation is natural.

------
larkeith
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.

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

~~~
michaelmrose
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?

~~~
munchbunny
Maybe so, but this discussion usually conflates four sentiments:

1\. I do/don't think the content is worth the subscription.

2\. I do/don't think advertising should be used to support the business.

3\. I have issues with the privacy implications of advertising.

4\. I don't want to pay but I also don't want to deal with ads.

Though maybe you're expressing a fifth? "I don't see why they need to spend
this much money to make this content."

~~~
michaelmrose
I read a broad selection of content and don't necessarily know ahead of time
which publications are going to produce the useful/interesting content this
month.

I cannot afford to support dozens of publications which still might not
include all the content I want to read because article foo is from yet a
different publication.

Guessing ahead of time seems both broken and expensive compared to grazing one
a continuous stream of interesting data supported by ads consumed by people
too stupid to install adblocking.

In theory modest advertising could probably easily pay for the people that
actually produce the content, In theory micropayments might work too.

In reality they insist on wasting most of the money they earn and deploying
intrusive ads and bullying to try to make me subscribe so they can keep
wasting money.

My choices are to either give them a big middle finger or surrender my
computer to their nonsense and prop up their poorly thought out business
model.

As adblockers become increasingly prevalent and decreasing numbers pay for
subscriptions this will obviously be increasingly difficult for content
creators but solving their problems isn't my problem.

Since I only control my computer I will just keep doing whats best for me.

------
mirimir
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 consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of
> cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy
> Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your
> rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.

But "Continue to site" doesn't work unless I check "I agree". So they're
clearly not GDPR-compliant. In order to access their site, you must agree to
be tracked. And you must also disable protection against tracking.

Maybe there will be complaints filed?

~~~
makomk
There's been no GDPR enforcement so far and it seems to have basically failed.
All it's done has kill off a bunch of smaller websites, games, etc that aren't
making enough money to justify the risk of being found noncompliant, whilst
the big companies whose business models rely on tracking people have carried
on regardless.

~~~
orf
Not really, I've sent a large number of GDPR erasure requests and they have
all been acted on promptly. That's cool.

The point of the legislation is not to slam the book down and start fining
everyone left right and center practically the moment it came into effect.
It's a complex regulation and the regulators are sensible, so don't expect any
action to be taken for at least a couple of years. If you're working towards
compliance that's OK for now.

------
noobermin
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-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/steps-for-disabling-firefoxs-
native-adblocker/2018/05/21/fb95bf4e-5d37-11e8-b2b8-08a538d9dbd6_story.html)

~~~
Vinnl
I just now realise how great it is that Firefox is calling it "tracking
protection". Many people (myself included) are fine with some ads; back in the
paper newspaper era, they were a reasonable trade-off for cheaper newspapers.

When they're also __tracking __you, however, that 's no longer as reasonable.
While asking me to turn off my adblocker sounds reasonable to some extent,
asking me to turn of tracking protection feels malicious (because it is). They
can try not to mention the term here, but to actually disable it, you'll still
have to go into preferences and explicitly turn off Tracking Protection, not
ad blocking.

------
qwerty456127
This is the problem about sites that want to show ads. I don't mind reasonable
(not annoying) and responsible (I want to be sure ad links don't lead to
frauds or viruses so I won't have to deal with any kinds of problems if I stop
blocking ads on my mom's computer) but I absolutely do mind any kind of
tracking. Why do ad-funded sites insist on tracking so much? I understand
tracking adds value to advertisers but are ads really worthless without
tracking?

~~~
TangoTrotFox
Since you can buy targeted ads in many places, venues that only offer
untargeted ads are not competitively attractive unless they happen to appeal
directly to a specific demographic you're after. And building extensive user
profiles on massive numbers of people is something that can be monetized and
otherwise exploited in a practically countless number of ways beyond
advertising. For instance many news sites have now become overtly partisan and
these profiles can be used to manipulate the general political process through
razor sharp targeting and 'customized' messaging.

Another thing is that even though most sites say they will not sell user
information, the main motivation for that is economic, not moral. It's not a
sustainable business model. Sell that information once and you've mostly blown
your load, as the incremental improvements on that information are only going
to be worth a fraction of the initial payload and it's something that will be
get 'shared'.

If a profit model emerged where selling user information could be a
sustainable business they'd go back on that in a heart beat. In the terms
alongside any promises of protection for your information will be a clause
stating that, _' We can change these terms whenever we like to whatever we
like. You agreeing to use our site/software signifies your acceptance of the
changes.'_

~~~
tannhaeuser
And that's why blocking targetted ads and tracking not only is convenient, but
should be encouraged as a necessity and social norm to everyone - to reach a
tipping point where targetted ads aren't effective. The news media business
has shown they're not able to get themselves out of monopolistic and privacy-
invading ad and attention economics. If news outlets can't be bothered to stop
contributing to this, they're displaying cluelessness in their very business,
and I don't want their journalistic spin anyway. I can always go to
reuters.com to read the facts.

------
Animats
Amusingly, with Mozilla's tracking protection on, Ghostery set to block
everything it knows about, Privacy Badger running, private browsing mode, and
third party cookies disabled, the Washington Post site not only works, it no
longer nags about subscribing.

~~~
9712263
I try it in my firefox and I don't experience this prompt. Possibly because I
don't read long enough to trigger the prompt, or ublock origin advanced mode +
Privacy Badger + Tracking Protection combo suppressed too aggressively that it
never appears. I tried disabling the plugins but cannot reproduce.

Btw, for this kind of prompt, one ublock origin features I found very useful
is cosmetic filter. I could specify which CSS element permanently to disable
by right click menu. I find it useful when I want to watch a specific Facebook
video but that annoying Facebook login prompt keeps bugging and it could be
triggered by left clicking anything in the page, including expanding comment
sections. Though, it's a cat-and-mouse game, and you never know when the
countermeasures doesn't work.

------
kgwxd
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.

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

~~~
kgwxd
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.

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

------
DarkWiiPlayer
Sure, it's always the ads. Dem evil users want free content without ever even
seeing an ad. As long as websites misrepresent their users concerns, nothing
will change. The real problem is, people are starting to become aware that
opening a website isn't what it used to be. Code is run, data is stored,
behavior is evaluated... All that while making it seem like you're only shown
dumb content.

------
paulgb
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.

~~~
runn1ng
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/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/)

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

~~~
jasonlotito
Did you actually try to sign up with it? It does not work outside the EU.

~~~
runn1ng
Really? I am signed up now. But, I started to sign up in EU, so that might be
why. I am now outside of EU and it keeps working. I assumed wrong then

------
jiveturkey
this is where safari shines. the site thinks tracking is on but it’s
effectively neutered. i guess on FF you can containerize the site.

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

~~~
noobermin
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.

~~~
munchbunny
I worked in ad tech for a number of years, so maybe I can address this one.

Ads that are annotated with tracking/targeting capabilities are in fact
substantially more valuable. There's the obvious aspect (targeted ads in
general) but there's also the ability to measure whether your ads are actually
working. Analytics requires tracking too.

This is an oversimplification, but let's say you're buying ads at 10 cents per
thousand impressions. But you have no ability to tell who saw which adds and
clicked where. Would you be willing to pay... say, 12 cents per thousand
impressions to get actionable analytics? Would you be willing to pay, say, 20
cents per thousand to specifically target people who looked at your product on
Amazon? Maybe not at those exact numbers, but you'd probably be willing to pay
some substantial amount more, because that strategy (retargeting) works
measurably better for converting an ad view into a purchase.

~~~
reaperducer
_there 's also the ability to measure whether your ads are actually working._

This is not unique to online advertising. It's possible to tell is ads are
working in paper/radio/television, as well. Companies have been doing it for
literally hundreds of years.

The only value online ad tracking adds is near real-time feedback, and
granularity. Which is useless to 99% of companies, since the process of making
large ad buying decisions still takes weeks or months.

The benefits of online ad targeting have been perverted from a nice add-on to
something that is absolutely necessary because it helps fuel the paychecks of
the advertising middlemen.

Want to advertise your movie to movie fans? Put ads on a movie fan web site.
Want to attract car buyers in Bedrock City? Put your ads on a Bedrock City web
site. Want to increase sales of Slurm Cola to American man 18-25? Put Slurm
Cola ads on content of interest to American males 18-25.

It's not rocket surgery.

~~~
munchbunny
You are applying a lens of what you think should happen to a question of what
is currently happening. Sure, I actually do agree with you about ad tracking,
but if the question is why ads with tracking data are more valuable, then my
answer is a statement of what advertisers are willing to buy, which is not
what I think the advertising industry should be doing.

> _Want to advertise your movie to movie fans? Put ads on a movie fan web
> site. Want to attract car buyers in Bedrock City? Put your ads on a Bedrock
> City web site. Want to increase sales of Slurm Cola to American man 18-25?
> Put Slurm Cola ads on content of interest to American males 18-25._

And then some company decides that there is an arbitrage opportunity in
inferring who the 18-25 year old males are and selling you the ability to
target them on cheaper websites and on undifferentiated inventory. In order to
get access to that inventory, publishers are paid part of the difference.
Voila, programmatic advertising.

> _This is not unique to online advertising. It 's possible to tell is ads are
> working in paper/radio/television, as well. Companies have been doing it for
> literally hundreds of years._

That's not true. That's certainly not what pretty much any big brand marketing
department thinks. It's notoriously hard to tell whether any specific strategy
is working if you do a lot of advertising. Which is why the extra granularity
is _considered_ valuable, regardless of their ability to infer conclusions
from it.

> _The benefits of online ad targeting have been perverted from a nice add-on
> to something that is absolutely necessary because it helps fuel the
> paychecks of the advertising middlemen._

That's certainly a factor, but they're not all idiots. Some of it actually
does work in theory and in principle, and dismissing that is underestimating
the beast you are fighting.

------
dorfuss
I would like the publishers to understand that I use the blocking software
because their JavaScript is so poorly written that it consumes 90% of my CPU
power, which is not acceptable on a laptop. There must be a better way, and
I'm happy to pay for the subscription.

------
thelasthuman
I guess privacy will be destined to become a purchaseable product. I guess
that's just a inevitable conclusion considering our economic system.

But it's okay so long as it is a corporation doing it to us and not the
government right? Never mind how corporations have grown to be bigger and more
powerful than some nation states.

On the internet, humanity can be it's true self, and we are ugly. Marketing
has been ugly forever (or at least since the introduction of psychology to the
field post WWII).

It makes sense that marketing on the net is malicious to the point of
attacking the user. That's who we are deep down inside.

------
bonsai80
I get why companies feel they need to do this (although I personally find the
tracking to never be OK). I'd suggest a modified approach to these "please
turn off" notices: Show a form asking for alternatives and also having users
enter how much money they would pay for the site to remove all ads and/or
tracking. A step further could even be to allow people to enter what they'd
pay for 1yr along with payment info. If the site decides that is a fair price
at some point in the future, they charge the card.

~~~
6d6b73
Problem with that is that they will still be able to track you as you will
need to login to get the subscription, and now they will have all your
information.

------
extremum134
I have to say it again and again, that `web tools` may use JS but plain `web
blogs` should not.

Those designer people don't care anything about performance, they aren't
programmers still call themselves to be. Why does a blog site even need
Javascript? Perhaps no AdBlocker may recognize a non-intrusive ad like good
olden days without computer vision.

Anyway, I thought I was only one worried about use of JavaScript by
`nonprogrammers` as Crockford puts it.

------
dejaime
That reminds me, I forgot to enable it

~~~
dvtrn
Just curious but installing adblock and track-blockers isn't the first thing
you do with a new browser installation? Just wondering how it got turned off
in the first place :P

------
xte
WP reader should then write down a simple letter, perhaps a paper one, to the
journal saying that they pay for a journal not for feed a company milking data
from then. A simple claim: "I'm a Citizen, not a (paying) lemon to be
squeezed".

A simple cease and desist invite.

------
fgheorghe
And how exactly are these organisations to make money, if not through ads?

~~~
alkonaut
They can show me 200 ads per article if they want. But I don't want them to
show me "more relevant ads" by tracking me. Simple as that. If they want to
make their content subscriber-only that's fine. If they want to have an ad-
funded tier without tracking ads that's fine. If privacy-intruding tracking
ads is the only way to give advertisers enough "value" for the impressions to
make the economics work - then that business model is a failure and they
should just pick another.

The usual questions here are

"Shouldn't the option to give up (sell) some privacy in exchange for something
of value (such as viewing an article) be a decision that is up to each
visitor"?

And the answer is:

Absolutely not, no. Why? because I don't think the transaction is, or can be
made clear to consumers wrt what is being exchanged.

------
IloveHN84
Simple: stop reading the Washington Post and let them change idea

------
proxygeek
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

------
ummonk
Any site that does this should be marked as a spyware site and blocked by the
browser. Enough is enough.

------
sticazzi
I have AdBlock, AdBlock Plus and DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials. Anything else
to recommend for Firefox?

~~~
KozmoNau7
Ditch Adblock and ABP, and get uBlock Origin instead.

Cookie Autodelete, Ublock Origin, Decentraleyes, Don't touch my tabs!, FB
Purity, First Party Isolation, google-no-tracking-url, HTTPS Everywhere, Link
Cleaner, Privacy Badger, Smart Referer and of course uBlock Origin in advanced
mode with all 3rd party scripts and frames blocked by default.

~~~
StevePerkins
I know that Brave draws a bit of controversy on HN, but the fact that you just
named a DOZEN plugins is the reason why I switched. That's just too much to
keep up with, I need more sane defaults and built-in behavior.

~~~
KozmoNau7
There's nothing to keep up with, really. You could very servicably get by with
only uBlock Origin's default blocklists and the advanced mode with 3rd party
scripts/frames on default-deny.

The rest are there because I'm slightly paranoid.

~~~
StevePerkins
I'm concerned about fingerprinting.

~~~
zamadatix
Not much a way to get around that. Removing 99% of fingerprinting
identification gives a stronger fingerprint than many defaults.

------
mirimir
Just FYI, using Tor browser, you just get access, with no prompts to agree
with tracking, or whatever.

------
shmerl
They don't need to require tracking, they can serve ads without behavioral
targeting.

------
vermilingua
_Privacy dies in darkness._

------
satyaaa
Good thing I couldn't be bothered reading anything on that trashy blog anyway.

------
ilovecaching
For those of you advocating for a payment model over the ad model, I want you
to consider two perspectives. First, consider the people who will be denied
access to information on the basis of class. People who consider it a luxury
to be online at all, let alone logging on to find a paywall for basic news.
Now consider the editors at the Washington Post, who now have to cater the
demographic who can pay their fees. Instead of reaching billions, the
Washington Post can now only reach tens of millions. Instead of providing
economic opportunity to small businesses that need to advertise online to
compete with larger companies, the Washington Post now has to compete just to
pay it's staff writers a fair wage.

Things are never as black and white as we think they are. Privacy should be
respected, but we should also respect that the internet could be much less
free without advertising. We might not have the many amazing websites and
services that we take for granted everyday without ad funding. Many small
businesses run by entrepreneurs might never grow their bushinesses without the
equalizing opportunity of online ads.

~~~
abdullahkhalids
> First, consider the people who will be denied access to information on the
> basis of class. People who consider it a luxury to be online at all, let
> alone logging on to find a paywall for basic news.

I am confused. Haven't (good) newspapers been paid products for a long time?
Whats different about the internet version of newspapers?

~~~
berti
That doesn't mean we should continue perpetuating such biases when it's
avoidable. It annoys me greatly when politicians use this line of reasoning.
If what we had before was working we wouldn't need to change it.

~~~
abdullahkhalids
I don't think creating a surveillance dystopia that gives corporations and
potentially evil governments enormous powers over the population is quite the
right price to pay for free news.

I believe that it would be great if free news is available to everyone, but
there are alternate ways of achieving it. For instance, in a microtransaction
system giving poor people a reasonable sum to spend every month.

------
aembleton
I'll just have to use outline.com then

------
chris_wot
Makes me wonder how quickly someone will either create an addin or Mozilla
will make it superobvious how they are doing their tracking.

~~~
yourduskquibble
Check out the uBO Scope extension by the ever amazing gorhill.

------
_rpd
Why do they care?

~~~
mandevil
If you are a paying customer, they don't (source: am a subscriber, never seen
this). If you don't pay for a subscription, they need to monetize you in some
other way- like by showing you more valuable ads.

You can get a very cheap online-only subscription if you have Amazon Prime,
strong recommend.

~~~
witten
New York Times solicits paying subscribers to disable their ad blocker (on
mobile).

~~~
anoncake
If you don't pay for the product, you are the product.

If you pay for the product, it shows that you have disposable income, making
you an even more valuable product.

------
Uhrheber
How to dig your own grave, and not even noticing it.

------
StanislavPetrov
Shocking that the provider for CIA cloud services would want to track you, who
would have thought?

