Weblog on the Internet and public policy, journalism, virtual community, and more from David Brake, a Canadian academic, consultant and journalist

Archive forMay 3rd, 2002 | back to home

3 May 2002
Filed under:Uncategorized at3:14 pm

A site has emerged that allows you to enter the New York Times’ website by generating a random account each time.

Sure this is handy, but is using it wise? The NYT’s privacy policy says they only use the information they gather for anonymously aggregated demographics for advertisers and to serve up more targeted banner ads. You only get emailed if you give the NYT permission when you register.

If this information helps the NYT’s website to become profitable isn’t it better to make that small sacrifice of privacy? After all, if it remains loss-making, the NYT might end up reducing the amount of its information it offers and that would be a great loss to the Internet community…