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Advertising The Internet Games

Wordle Is Watching You (gizmodo.com) 69

Posted by BeauHD from the shady-shit dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: It's been less than a month since the New York Times bought Wordle, but it's wasting no time in ruining everyone's favorite word game in all the shitty ways you'd expect from a billion-dollar behemoth. And -- you guessed it -- that means your little daily puzzles are being loaded with ad trackers now, too. Most of us assumed that this was going to happen eventually. I mean, the Times dropped a cool seven-figure sum on a game that's still free to play (at least for right now), so those profits would need to be recouped from somewhere. And this week, some code-savvy Worlders stumbled onto where that "somewhere" was: a dozen different trackers shoved into places where there were literally zero before. Taking a look for ourselves, Gizmodo found that some of the trackers were from the New York Times proper, but most were used to send data to third-party players like Google. [...]

Here's just one nightmare scenario out of the bajillion or so that could come out of a system like this: Ad trackers were created to shove t-shirts and mugs onto all of our timelines, but they can also be used for outright surveillance. There are countless cases of cops using the data gleaned from those shitty ads to track protestors, immigrants, and anyone else they'd want completely warrant-free. And two of the companies that officers tap on the regular for this work -- Google and Oracle (via its infamous Bluekai subsidiary) -- are tied up in Wordle's shiny new trackers. Every time you open the page to see the day's puzzle to complain about how hard it is, the page pings details back to those companies -- and the data it shares can be extremely detailed, as Bluekai's own documents (PDF) lay out. At the very least, it's likely sending broad strokes to say you were on the site at a certain time, while your device was at a certain location.

Sure, adtech players can (and will) pull much shadier shit to share more data on the regular. But as a for instance, if a cop wanted to set a geofence warrant around your neighborhood -- tracking which devices are caught in a specific area at a specific time -- they could easily tap into Bluekai's ad data to get those wheres and whens. And now the fact that you Wordle'd at your local coffee shop on a Tuesday becomes one of the reasons that you ended up on some fed's watch list for a crime you didn't commit but will somehow end up jailed for anyway. This absolute nightmare is almost certainly not what's happening on Wordle right now (phew). And again, this scenario applies to most of the sites you likely visit every day, not just Wordle. But the real scary part about all of this -- at least to me -- is that it can.
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Wordle Is Watching You More

Wordle Is Watching You

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  • this is the tech world (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ickleberry ( 864871 ) <web@pineapple.vg> on Thursday February 17, 2022 @05:04PM (#62277877) Homepage
    As soon as something "catches on" even if it's free some megacorp will somehow monetise the feck out of it

    • There's nothing free in this world. If someone has spent time and money to create something that they give to you for free, then they intend to get paid in some fashion down the road (either through future sales, ad views, monetizing your data, etc.).

      • Re: (Score:4, Informative)

        by splutty ( 43475 ) on Thursday February 17, 2022 @05:37PM (#62277979)

        They did not however create any of this. They bought it from the person who created it, who had it online for free, without any intrusive ad trackers or monetization at all.

        • Yeah the guy who built it didn't monetize it , he sold it. That's how most innovators get paid. The person who buys it is someone who knows how to make money with it.

          For example , most science patents or copyrighted science software doesn't make money because the scientist built a company to make the patented product but because they sold or liscenced it to someone who can.

          This is a good thing. Creators get paid and get to keep doing what they love: creating.

          • My iPhone blocks an insane number of trackers on slashdot .

            Recently my iPhone safari developed a problem with slashdot after I turned on the iPhone tracking protection . I no longer stay logged in. What's up with that? Doesn't slashdot use first -party cookies to maintain persistent logins? Or is safari blocking those too? I suspect the new Apple iOS is obscuring my IP address to slashdot ( yay!) but surely cookies still work?
            This isn't happening to me on other sites. So I'm wondering if slashdot is u

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by splutty ( 43475 )

              I use Slashdot without Javascript activated at all, and it works mostly fine.

              Of course you need to use the classical layout, since all the fancy schmancy new stuff obviously doesn't work without JS and its accompanying trackers.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              Allowing cookies for *.slashdot.org allows me to stay logged in.

    • Find a copy of the old site and download the page; all the puzzles are in the page code, no phoning home required.

      • No need to download anything, the original site is on archive.org.

        Slow to start up, as usual with archived sites, but the game play is just fine.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ebob ( 220513 )
          Yes, but if you play it this way you won't be able to compare scores with your friends because the word lists are different. And that's one of the big reasons people play it: to compete with their friends.

          • My understanding is that the original version shows the same word to everyone each day because the wordlist is in the code for the page itself. So, if you save a .webarchive or whatever your browser of choice uses, you will still get the same new word as everyone else each day*.

            *Unless the NYT change wordle so that it does fetch the daily word from somewhere else, which is even more reason to grab a copy of the original. I'm not going to subscribe to a foreign newspaper just to play a mildly amusing word g

            • The NYT version was changed to use a different (sanitized) wordlist. So far as I know the word list is still part of the page, not fetched from somewhere else, but it's not the same as the original. Anyone playing the NYT version will be unable to compare their scores against their friends playing the classic Wordle game available from archive.org or on IPFS [dweb.link].

        • The site isn't actually on the Archive.org servers as this pops up

          https://www.powerlanguage.co.u... [powerlanguage.co.uk] |
          05:30:11 February 17, 2022

          Got an HTTP 301 response at crawl time

          Redirecting to...

          https://www.nytimes.com/games/... [nytimes.com]

          and then it redirects.

          If someone plans on playing this a few years from now, they will have to look elsewhere for the archived pages.

      • There is a copy of "Wordle Classic" (the pre-NYT version) hosted in IPFS [dweb.link]. The daily word won't match the NYT version, but it will match any other copy of the original—so just make sure your friends all play the classic version from IPFS or archive.org or anywhere else it can be found. The IPFS version has the advantage of being immutable; no one can change the word list without changing the content ID (and URL).

    • I've seen no ads whatsoever, but I've only played wordle for a couple weeks. Maybe it's the adblock I have on my ipad.

    • What will happen next? Will they ban offensive words like "slave" from the word list?

      Oh wait.

  • That says it all. Not much of a reputation left there.

  • Fuck Gizmodo (Score:5, Insightful)

    by apoc.famine ( 621563 ) <apoc...famine@@@gmail...com> on Thursday February 17, 2022 @05:13PM (#62277897) Journal

    I'm as anti-ad, anti-tracking as anyone, but this is just clickbait bullshit.

    It's what every major website on the internet tries to do, and there is zero to do with Wordle except that it's the viral game of the month. Don't like it? Just play one of the hundred clones that have popped up in the last two weeks.

    Or do what most of us here do and lock down your browser so there's minimal attack surfaces for this sort of shit.

    If gizmodo was in any way a legitimate news outlet they'd have called out the top 1000 websites for this exact same behavior. But no, gotta jump on whatever is trending and make a huge deal about something that is a constant in our daily lives and which they don't post about every single fucking day for the last 10 years because there wasn't a trending website to carry their non-story.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by aitikin ( 909209 )

      I'm as anti-ad, anti-tracking as anyone, but this is just clickbait bullshit.

      It's what every major website on the internet tries to do, and there is zero to do with Wordle except that it's the viral game of the month.

      ...and they point this out themselves multiple times in the article and once in TFS:

      And again, this scenario applies to most of the sites you likely visit every day, not just Wordle. But the real scary part about all of this -- at least to me -- is that it can.

      so...yeah...

      the author even call Gizmodo itself out for it in the article...

    • Yup, 17 advertising trackers on Gizmodo, 44+ "analytics" (many of which funnel data to Google and others), along with others, for a total of more than 67. Slashdot has at least 16. Everyone does this. The New York Times made clear from the start they were going to move it to their platform. It already had trackers on it. It's not as if it now has more than their normal site.
    • Gizmodo is one of the worst offenders on the internet. Dozens and dozens of 3rd party scripts, and they've got their site built so that it's completely broken unless you allow nearly all of them.
    • Yup. I like New York Times, so I want them to make money. I'm not at all concerned that they will sell my protest locations to cops so they can crack my skull and if the guy who wrote this is he's a fucking idiot.

    • The game is also COMPLETELY client-side. The words are all stored internally and it selects the day's current word from a simple date-based algorithm.

      Save a local copy, strip out the garbage, and play it free forever.

      • There is the added advantage of creating your own wordlist, and passing out offline copies to your friends.

        I would be very surprised if somebody hasn't created an editor and tool to fully automate this process by now.

        • It's ridiculous how much the game has been dissected already. There are already bot leaderboards and statistical analysis galore. Soon there will be PhD dissertations with titles like Optimizing Machine Learning Techniques to Bifurcate Wordle Search Space.

  • I'm only seeing two google things being blocked (Score:5, Informative)

    by caseih ( 160668 ) on Thursday February 17, 2022 @05:14PM (#62277903)

    uBlock Origin is only detecting two things, something about Google Tags, which it has blocked. Privacy Badger shows nothing.

    Contrast that with this very Slashdot page, where uBlock Origin is blocking 8 things, and privacy badger is blocking two, ml314.com and c.aaxads.com.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Merk42 ( 1906718 )
      How many does Gizmodo, the source of the article, have?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by caseih ( 160668 )

        On Gizmodo, uBlock Origin is blocking 22 thing, and Privacy Badger is blocking no less than 11 trackers! Pretty much pure hypocrisy, Gizmodo!

    • Contrast that with this very Slashdot page, where uBlock Origin is blocking 8 things, and privacy badger is blocking two, ml314.com and c.aaxads.com.

      Yeah, and it keeps trying, too. Just leave the Slashdot front page loaded for a day or so and your blocked tracker attempts will be up into the thousands. BizX is sleazy AF. Which, frankly, we knew.

  • So the Wordle web page is just like all the rest now? Unfortunate, but hardly news.

  • Wordle always had Google Analytics (Score:4)

    by bustinbrains ( 6800166 ) on Thursday February 17, 2022 @05:16PM (#62277909)

    The original version of the game had Google Analytics tracking code baked into it. At least that much of the article/report is wrong since it's not actually new.

    It's kind of funny how Gizmodo, known for putting ads and tons of user tracking across their own website, are "calling out" the NYT for the exact same practice.

  • Someone is going to mention /etc/hosts.

    Someone a bit more savvy is going to mention privoxy.

    Someone may even mention Tor and VPNs.

    These all have their drawbacks, but they are options. We are all citizens of Eumeswil.

  • This article was brought to you by NordVPN (Score:3)

    by barlevg ( 2111272 ) on Thursday February 17, 2022 @05:18PM (#62277917)
    Use the code HERB at checkout to receive twelve months of VPN service for only...

  • ... unlike gizmodo, which Brave blocked 18 trackers on, Brave only found 2 on wordle.

    Pot, kettle, same shade.

  • Obviously every web site you visit tracks you and labels you. If it is an issue /. Is the last place to be, as they have ads, teachers, and every time someone defends hackers it is flagged to the police and added to your file. Or that is what delusional people who think they are so important that they have a file.

    Wordle is a game. If you like it, play it. Otherwise be part of the control group. It costs money to serve,and obviously the money will be paid for by tracking, just like any other service.

    At t

    • At this point there is no login, can be run behind a VPN with all other counter measures enabled.

      Or even better, it you could create your own CLI implementation of the game in your favorite scripting language with about 10 minutes of coding and a copy of /usr/share/dict/words.

    • Capitalism is king, you commies!

      Companies have the right to abuse and control us because freedom!

      If you don't want to be abused and controlled, then it must mean you are a communist freeloader.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by fermion ( 181285 )
        And this is why capitalism wins. People want stuff and instead of making informed decisions of cost and benefit, just dive into the chess pool. Wordless is a game. Donâ(TM)t play it of the costs are too high. 20 years ago watching online porn was a risk, and you pay the corporations, or risk the video player was in fact a virus. It was your choice to not just go out and have sex. No corporations was making you be an Intel. Posts such as this, whose basis is we have no choice, merely codifies the corpo

  • Sometime when I'm bored, I plan to modify it so I can play a new Wordle anytime I want rather than just once a day. It looks like it should be pretty easy to do.

    I guess it's a good thing I don't live in Missouri...

  • We block all these anyway (Score:3)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Thursday February 17, 2022 @05:30PM (#62277955)

    So what's this?

    A call to educate the newbies?

    Sounds a bit like "Let's get torches and pitchforks and go to the castle."

  • It would be funny if everyone stopped playing it now and let NYT have it for themselves
  • "But as a for instance, if a cop wanted to set a geofence warrant around your neighborhood -- tracking which devices are caught in a specific area at a specific time -- they could easily tap into Bluekai's ad data to get those wheres and whens. And now the fact that you Wordle'd at your local coffee shop on a Tuesday becomes one of the reasons that you ended up on some fed's watch list for a crime you didn't commit but will somehow end up jailed for anyway."

    Wow, in one sentence we went from "playing wor

  • I mean is anyone surprised at this point? Snowden already told this years ago and we're still surprised?

    That's why I use Firefox Portable.

  • Ya, but ... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Thursday February 17, 2022 @06:43PM (#62278159)

    Will they track the words and if I can figure them out, to see how smart/dumb I am and tailor the ads for that? :-)

    • Will they track the words and if I can figure them out, to see how smart/dumb I am and tailor the ads for that? :-)

      I'll be playing the 3 letter version soon!

  • "And now the fact that you Wordle'd at your local coffee shop on a Tuesday becomes one of the reasons that you ended up on some fed's watch list for a crime you didn't commit but will somehow end up jailed for anyway. " Happens to me almost every day, but I wordle on, nonetheless.

  • Wordle is written entirely inside the browser, and it does not need a server side component to run.

    (And that is how people discovered word lists, anyway).

    So grab your copy from the Web Archive:
    https://web.archive.org/web/*/... [archive.org]

    And set it on your own local http server, never pinging home, adding trackers, or serving ads.

  • Lots of complaints from people saying it's gotten more difficult (and that's true) since switching to nytimes.com. This fad is going to die out like Words with Friends and all the others. NY Times bought it at its peak, and ironically enough, NY Times was the cause of the peak.

    • I'm sure the target audience aren't the hardcore games, or people under 60.

        The fact that they are targeting a group who is not famously known to be computer savvy or aware of the rotten shitfest that modern gaming has turned into is very nauseating.

  • I think you're confusing Wordle with Worldle. https://worldle.teuteuf.fr/ [teuteuf.fr]

  • Please, please shut the f*ck up about this damn game. Jeeze. Every other headline mentions it.

  • They should start stocking those handheld electronic Scrabble games in the pharmacies again. No internet, no apps, no trackers, no computers. Just a simple device that goes beep and bloop and entertains Grandma.

  • The game isn't new. The creator used an existing idea. But now that's it's sold does that mean no one else can create a free version?

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