The End of Privacy Episode 3 - Data brokers - the news business' awkward little secret

Advertisers and data brokers collect information about you as you move from site to site across the internet – including your hobbies, your politics, your religion and race, how much debt you have, what health issues you look at and much more.

There are dozens of data trackers on most news sites, too. But most news organizations only reveal that in the middle of impenetrable privacy policies. Is it time for news publishers to be more transparent about their roll in how your data is collected?

With Josh Sterns, director of journalism and sustainability at the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation; Cooper Quintin, staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation; Wendy Davis, senior writer at MediaPost; Tim Libert, researcher at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania; and Mike Zaneis, executive VP and general counsel at IAB. Music by Bobby McElver.

If you’re really interested in ad tech, tracking and news sites, I would definitely suggest reading Don Marti. He has some of the most cogent, lucid writing on the topic. Here are a couple posts to start you off:

• News sites and the tracking game
• Beyond blocking vs. tracking
• Targeted Advertising Considered Harmful
• Digital dimes in St. Louis

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