Tracking trap or data protection? So you read really safely today!

Tracking trap or data protection? So you read really safely today!

In today's digital media landscape, a crucial trend has prevailed: Many news portals are introducing subscriptions, which offer extensive absence of advertising and tracking. Kicker that these new offers should offer readers a pleasant and undisturbed reading experience, which is often connected with a variety of data protection issues.

It is particularly noteworthy that the Austrian news portal Standard.at is considered a pioneer in this area by offering the first advertising and tracking-free subscription in German-speaking countries. In contrast to the PUR subscriptions of the German providers, which despite their announcements often contain advertising, Standard.at actually offers an undisturbed reading experience without any external data storage. Users can thus enjoy items without using their data for advertising or tracking purposes.

data protection in focus

like netzpolitik.org in detail, such subscriptions are becoming increasingly important due to the new data protection regulations of the GDPR, the publishers are urging their users to offer alternatives to data processing. However, this also has challenges: the use of tracking and personalized advertising remains an important source of income for many publishers. For example, the PUR subscriptions of mirrors and time according to the principle of "money instead of data" work, which gives the user the choice, but also shows that there is often no complete independence of advertising.

Overall, the reports illustrate the growing complexity of the media landscape in terms of data protection and user interests. While some providers try to meet the expectations of their readers, the question remains how sustainable these models will work in the future and whether consumers are actually willing to pay for a more data protection -friendly reading experience.