A site discussing how to imagine, build, analyze and use cool code and web tools. Better websites, better stories, better developers. Technology won't save the world, but you can.
I want people to read my RSS feeds. but I also want to know how what my RSS readership is without breaching their privacy. RSS feed readership measurement is an… imperfect affair. Because it is a service that people generally charge for (or require you to give up audience data for ) it isn’t well documented. Here’s how I did it. I’m a big proponent of setting up fast, small, flat websites on the…
Summary The Global Privacy Platform is intended to absorb the functionality of TCF and expand on it, as a consent-string-based privacy solution. While GPP expands the scope that the system can cover it does not resolve any of the intrinsic problems of the TCF approach. The result is a compounding of a deeply flawed system that, while it improves on the underlying concepts, does not resolve the…
With the Topics API now in origin tests , it has been interesting to see just how the web gets categorized. I do see a lot of potential in the technology and I can’t argue with the privacy promise being a significant improvement over third party cookies. The biggest issue with Topics is how it will exist within the larger network of advertising technology entities and the market mechanics of the…
What follows is the written copy of my comments to the California Privacy Protection Agency. I spoke to the CPPA on behalf of The Washington Post about privacy law and rights to opt out. Hello, I am Aram Zucker-Scharff, the Lead Privacy Engineer for The Washington Post and Senior Solutions Engineer for our Zeus advertising technology group, which serves over 100 news sites. I also co-chair the…
Google recently announced they are delaying their plan to disable third-party cookies in Chrome, along with their Privacy Sandbox initiative. It’s tempting to look at this as a reprieve, a little extra time to relax and move post-cookie efforts into low gear, hoping the additional time will be enough to find better solutions. However, it’s important to recognize that nothing has really changed.…
A really great post by Jeremy Keith: You can choose to make it really complicated. Convince yourself that “the modern web” is inherently complex and convoluted. But then look at what makes it complex and convoluted: toolchains, build tools, pipelines, frameworks, libraries, and abstractions. Please try to remember that none of those things are required to make a website. This [the web] is for…
I listen to a lot of music and one of the things I noticed over the years is that I got stuck in a rut. Listening to the same things over and over again and not really picking up anything new. A problem with algorithmic recommendations, of music, or anything really, is that they can trap you with more and more specificity, narrowing around your interests instead of broadening horizons. This…
A great interview in VICE today with an engineer who quit GitHub over their ICE contract. Sophie Haskins: It certainly frustrates me how apolitical tech is. It’s so individualistic and siloed. It’s unacceptable. The idea of tech for its own sake, and tech on its own terms makes me angry to no end. Technology should be tools to help people, to enable humans. Even beyond moral questions, many…
A presentation on our responsibility of designers and by association technologists to change the world. This is a great presentation by Mike Monteiro which is well worth watching. The presentation appears to have occurred at Joint Futures recently. via: https://twitter.com/JanKorsanke/status/1184534571951575040
The Washington Post is taking a proactive approach to digital display advertising issues with a new project that is set to fix bad code, while saving brands from code errors and cross-platform bugs in ad code. The Ad Performance and Safety Protocol (APSP) focuses on accidentally harmful ad behaviors to ensure a better user experience for all readers on The Post’s Classic iOS App. Ad safety has…