## Trackers to the left of me, surveillance to the right…
‘Progressive activist news site’ Alternet comes in 11th with 74 trackers on the [Alexa Top 500 News sites list](/sites/alexa-top-500-news), ordered by number of trackers.
This week we discover that love of tracking and profiling people unites the conversative and progressive media like nothing else.
The conservative news site [The Drudge Report](/sites/drudgereport.com) scores only slightly better in 12th position with 71 trackers.
Progressive news site Alternet comes in 11th with 74 trackers on the [Alexa Top 500 News sites list](/sites/alexa-top-500-news), ordered by number of trackers.
Conservative news site [The Drudge Report](/sites/drudgereport.com) scores only slightly better in 12th position with 71 trackers.
One’s the darling of the left, the other a beloved cornerstone of the right. And yet they’re both in the same business: behavioural advertising. The bait they use to entice you is different but the goal is the same: [to farm you](https://ar.al/notes/the-nature-of-the-self-in-the-digital-age/).
> “Brief description of the site” – [Source](link)
> “The Onion is an American digital media company and news satire organization” – [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Onion)
## Farming people is no laughing matter
While The Onion may have trouble coming up with extreme enough satire to outdo [the ridiculousness of actual news](https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/) these days, one thing they don’t have a problem with is tracking you and profiling your behaviour.
You are the product The Onion sells to their advertisers. The satirical articles are the bait. Once they’ve reeled you onto their site, they expose you to a plethora of third parties that track and profile you across the web. Among the Alexa Top 500 News sites, ordered by number of trackers, The Onion was one of the worst, coming in 10th with 75 trackers.
