Data protection or use: How much money is behind news portals?

Data protection or use: How much money is behind news portals?

In a current development, the two German news portals of Spiegel and the time have introduced so-called PUR subscriptions, which promise to be ads and not to use advertising. These models operate the reader's growing desire for more data protection and less advertising. However, it turned out in the test that these offers do not get by without tracking. So the visit to the SPIEGEL and the time due to hidden tracking methods does not remain without tracking what could cloud the user experience. According to the revelations of the network policy editorial team, there are various methodological hurdles despite the high demands on data protection at PUR-ABOS that arise when an "advertising-free" experience is artificially staged ( https://2020/nicht-ganz-ohnen/ ).

tracking despite the advertising offer

The PUR subscription of the two large German providers seems to be operated on under the guise of an improved user experience. Users report that reading on the platform should be faster and more distracted thanks to the lack of advertising covering. But behind this facade, data analyzes and versions continue to hide. In the mirror, user behavior is recorded via Adobe Analytics, while the time has information about Google Analytics. This data could potentially be used for targeting purposes, which questions the original claim of complete data sovereignty. The publisher Association BDZV has also emphasized that such ABO models could become more common in the future, since data protection is becoming increasingly important among users ( https://www.kicker.de/ingolstadt-kottbus-2024-liga-4941292/ constellation ).

In contrast, the Austrian Medium Standard.at offers an actually advertising and tracking-free subscription. Here, every form of user persecution is left out, which makes the offer particularly attractive for data protection -conscious readers. At a time when information becomes more and more valuable and at the same time the protection of personal data is at the center of the discussion, the question arises as to how reliable the promises of the great publishers are really and whether the readers are still willing to pay for partially inadequate transparent offers.