Safari 14 Report : MacRumors is the website that tracks me the most

[PsykX]

So I've installed Safari 14 as my main browser on Catalina. I posted here since it is being pushed as a Big Sur feature.

After nearly 1 week of usage, MacRumors is always popping at the top position. 🧐
The number of trackers shown in the report doesn't seem to be cumulative because it is not impacted when I refresh the page.
Also, every time I refresh the home page, the number of trackers varies between 18 to 27.

Does anybody else experience this? (the picture's in French, but I think you get the point)

 

[simonmet]

The web is infested with trackers, data harvesters, and the likes of Google and FB. It was never built to private, unfortunately. Everything we do is a hack or workaround to try and tame it. It sux.

And yeah, MacRumors doesn’t care, or they wouldn’t be doing it.

 

[Schismz]

Well, surveillance capitalism generates revenue. I haven't examined MacRumors too closely and just come here to have conversations about Apple-related tech, but it appears to be a small business with multiple employees and bills to pay. To the best of my knowledge nobody here is a paid subscriber, so your options are to either 1. Get over it, block what you like/can, and just deal with it (i.e., Google, Facebook, every other company whose core business model is surveillance capitalism and selling ads), or 2. Don't use the service. Nothing in life is "free" - if you're paying nothing for the service, then you're not the customer, you're the product.

FWIW if your issue is being tracked, followed, and spied on, then MacRumors is probably the least of your problems. MacRumors needs to generate revenue in some manner. I see ads splattered all over the place -- less so if you login -- and I see targeted ads designed to appeal to me. If I load a site from a system which is blocking trackers, uses a VPN, and disallows everything, then instead of targeted ads, I get: payday loans, how to improve my life by getting an online degree, low interest loans, and women who live nearby and want to have sex with me (which seems to be the baseline/foundational material for ads where the system knows nothing about the recipient).

Having said all that, yup, there sure are a lot of trackers; probably even more will be forthcoming as MR refines its' game and tries to generate more revenue (which is what businesses do, ya know? They're not non-profits, and even non-profits stalk you, and people who run the non-profits can pull 6-7 figure+ salaries).

Welcome to the internet circa 2020.

 

[johannnn]

I got 19 trackers on macrumors, and 4 after enabling https://better.fyi

 

[arn]

The number of trackers shown in the report doesn't seem to be cumulative because it is not impacted when I refresh the page.
Also, every time I refresh the home page, the number of trackers varies between 18 to 27.

It must be cumulative if it comes in at 18 to 27 on any given page load, and the total is 55.

I addressed this before but do want to clarify how these 3rd party trackers seem to work, and what our part in it is all.

We use the following services that may "track" you:

- Google Analytics + other analytics services. This lets us know how many people are visiting the site, and which pages are popular. Whether this is your first visit or your 100th.

- Adthrive - an ad network which handles our ads. Ad serving can be very complicated. It works on a real-time bidding system where whenever a page loads, it triggers a real time auction where multiple ad providers decide which ads to put on the page based on who is loading it. This includes if you've seen the ad before, if they think you like XYZ, etc... This is where all the 3rd party trackers come in -- deciding which ad you get. We don't personally contract with 55 different companies -- we don't have the staff for that. The ad network mediates all that.

So we don't pick which "trackers" are involved, similarly to how we don't decide which individual ads that gets shown on the site. It's part of the auction system. And I presume different ad providers get pulled in over time -- which is why it adds up to 55 over time.

Our options to reduce the number of trackers include:

1. Change ad networks - though most work the same way
2. Sell all ads directly ourselves - which requires more manpower and expertise than we have at the moment
3. Don't use ads and charge users $$

For #3, we do offer a paid upgrade for $25/year that removes all ads, which will subsequently remove all ads and ad-based trackers. (our analytics software will remain).

We are looking into pushing the paid membership model more, but there's a lot of details involved in doing that well, so we have been slow about it.

arn

 

[johannnn]

For #3, we do offer a paid upgrade for $25/year that removes all ads, which will subsequently remove all ads and ad-based trackers. (our analytics software will remain).

We are looking into pushing the paid membership model more, but there's a lot of details involved in doing that well, so we have been slow about it.

I had NO idea this existed and I visit MR multiple times every single day. You don't need a giant ad at the top of the front page telling us about it, but at least tell us somewhere.

 

[arn]

I had NO idea this existed and I visit MR multiple times every single day. You don't need a giant ad at the top of the front page telling us about it, but at least tell us somewhere.

Yeah... I hear you... we're working on it

arn

 

[PsykX]

For #3, we do offer a paid upgrade for $25/year that removes all ads, which will subsequently remove all ads and ad-based trackers. (our analytics software will remain).

We are looking into pushing the paid membership model more, but there's a lot of details involved in doing that well, so we have been slow about it.

As for johannnn, this is also new to me! I wouldn't really mind paying $25/year for a website that I visit so much.

It's a great thing that you address this issue directly here as the website owner.

Since the Privacy Report feature will gradually appear on people's computers as they install Safari 14, I believe this subject is worthy enough to also address it on your Home Page as a news article. This way, your users will already know what to expect and understand those numbers right away instead of questioning them like I did. It seems like a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" topic, but this is what I would do 🙂

 

[arn]

Yep. We should address it proactively when Safari 14 goes public. It also gives us a deadline to improve our subscription offering.

arn