02 Dec 2017

Purple box claims another victim

Linux Journal Ceases Publication. If you can stand it, let’s have a look at the final damage.

screenshot of Linux Journal with a list of third-party trackers provided by the Ghostery extension

40 trackers. Not bad, but not especially good either. That purple box of data leakage—third-party trackers that forced Linux Journal into an advertising race to the bottom against low-value and fraud sites—is not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door…but it’s there. A magazine that was a going concern in print tried to make the move to the web and didn’t survive.

Linux Journal is where I was working when I first started wondering why print ads tend to hold their value while web ads keep losing value. Unfortunately it’s not enough for sites to just stop running trackers and make the purple box go away. But there are a few practical steps that Internet freedom lovers can take to stop the purple box from taking out your other favorite sites.

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