Dickover of the Week: The Observer

Bharet Iyer:

Let’s be real … if The Observer actually cared at all about your privacy, they wouldn’t share your personal data with ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY ONE FUCKING PARTNERS. [...]

Imagine if, upon purchasing a copy of the Sunday newspaper in 1791, you were followed around town by 161 men, taking note of everything you do throughout the day. Makes you wonder who’s really doing the observing.

It’s bad enough to include 161 third-party trackers on a website. But it’s downright dystopic to declare your 161 third-party “partners” under the heading “We Care About Your Privacy”. That’s like beating someone in the head with a baseball bat while telling them “We care about your skull”, literally adding insult to injury.

Yours truly back in 2020, “Online Privacy Should Be Modeled on Real-World Privacy”:

Imagine if you were out shopping, went into a drug store, examined a few bottles of sunscreen, but left the store without purchasing anything. And then immediately a stranger approached you with an offer for sunscreen. Such an encounter would trigger a fight or flight reaction — the needle on your innate creepometer would shoot right into the red. (Not to mention that if real-world tracking were like online tracking, you’d get the same creepy offer to buy sunscreen even if you just bought some. Tracking-based offers are both creepy, and, at times, annoyingly stupid.)

★ Monday, 22 June 2026