[RodgerTheGreat]

The article I referenced boils down to dismissing fears of online privacy invasion as alarmism. Exploring his own site's dependencies, Ben concludes that the third parties phoned home to for every visitor are probably harmless. He recommends that discourse focus on striking a balance between technology being convenient and secure, and not worrying too much.

This essay reflects a profound failure of imagination with respect to the present and future of online tracking, and the risk it poses to consumers and citizens. This is an issue which is at the heart of the business models and strategy of the world's most powerful corporations, so in my opinion having this blind spot (or, perhaps, degree of ethical flexibility) seriously undermines the veracity and objectivity of his analysis in many areas.

[ajb]

This.

Say some company found that they could pay landlords to let them borrow everyone's keys, and used them to go inside while you are out and stick an ad inside your bathroom where you will see it when you're taking a dump. Sure, the ad is harmless. But you can't just shrug it off because then you've accepted the principle that companies can pay your landlord for access to you and your house.

[legitster]

Wow. That is a SERIOUS mischaracterization of the article and his conculusions. The third parties in question were services like Stripe (since he monetizes with subscriptions, not advertising) or Cloudflare. His whole point was he takes privacy seriously, but fundamentalist policy punishes good and bad actors equally.

But even all that aside, by your own words, it's not his treatments of the facts but his failure to account for the worst possible hypothetical situation that you have imagined in this specific area that is most important to you that makes him an unreliable journalist on any-and-all subjects? I would challenge you that this is an unhealthy purity test for him to pass.

[munk-a]

Except that using CDN services is a privacy hole in itself - I don't know whether Cloudflare[1] currently collects or sells tracking data on usage (including referrer information) but there is definitely a technical capability there and no legal impediment. If they don't do it now then whenever a vulture capitalist scoops them up you can be sure they'll start.

1. To be clear, I am specifically referring to cloudflare because it's the service under question. I have no opinion on Cloudflare or knowledge of any specific and current privacy issues.