Good News for People Who Love Bad News - Centralization, Privacy, and Transparency on US News Sites.

The democratic role of the press relies on maintaining independence, ensuring citizens can access controversial materials without fear of persecution, and promoting transparency. However, as news has moved to the web, reliance on third-parties has centralized revenue and hosting infrastructure, fostered an environment of pervasive surveillance, and lead to widespread adoption of opaque and poorly-disclosed tracking practices. In this study, 4,000 US-based news sites, 4,000 non-news sites, and privacy policies for 1,892 news sites and 2,194 non-news sites are examined. We find news sites are more reliant on third-parties than non-news sites, user privacy is compromised to a greater degree on news sites, and privacy policies lack transparency in regards to observed tracking behaviors. Overall, findings indicate the democratic role of the press is being undermined by reliance on the "surveillance capitalism" funding model.