It's not doublespeak. What would you have the message say?

It's a legacy site and they haven't finished implementing out-out-only / data-deletion / etc... I wouldn't assume malicious intent.

It's been quite awhile now since the GDRP protections have been around. If they haven't finished removing tracking by now, then they're lying when they say "your privacy matters to us".

No, it doesn't. If it mattered, then you would act like it.

This isn't the New York Times. I don't think it's reasonable to expect the local news for a mid-sized American city to prioritize implementation of the EU's data rules.

Sure, but it's plenty of time to just remove tracking cookies altogether. Which would have been easier to implement than what they're doing now (geolocating visitors, serving custom messages depending on jurisdiction, etc.)

I mean, if my privacy matters to them.

I know the online news business is difficult to monetize. Only a handful of major news orgs can put paywalls up and charge subscribers directly. I get that.

So, what they do instead is use 3rd party ad networks and analytics, and traffic in my personal data, while telling me that my privacy matters.

That's why this is doublespeak. They're saying one thing (my privacy matters) while doing another (funding their operations in part on my personal data).

Is it the only viable model for them? Maybe. That's not really relevant, though.

Your privacy matters, only if you pay. I don't click on content site links where I am not a customer.

They seem to have the technical wherewithal and motivation to prioritize all that tracking in the first place, though...

>out-out-only

What is "out-out-only"? My google fu is failing me.

It is true though. It matters to them in the same way virginity matters to someone trying to seduce someone. It is an absolute binary status that maintaining gets in the way of what they want.

it has evolved