Monday, July 08, 2019

News Media Alliance urges Google to rethink Chrome changes


Google is making alterations to it Chrome browser’s incognito mode that will mean publishers won’t be able to tell if a reader is in incognito mode, Nieman Lab and others reported.
The changes will hurt publishers with “soft paywalls,” the News Media Alliance says.
Many news publishers use soft paywalls, which allow readers to access a limited number of articles per month for free without subscribing. “This arrangement only works, however, if publishers can accurately determine who reads their content, and how often. The planned changes to Chrome’s incognito mode would make such data impossible to obtain and force publishers to adopt a subscription-only model,” writes News Media Alliance Pres. David Chavern in a recent post on the organization’s website urging Google to rethink the planned change.
The change is scheduled to happen with the latest version of the browser, Chrome 76, set to launches in late July.

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