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X-RAY · 17 SEPTEMBER 2026

Six US newspapers: how much tracking each front page loads

CNN, The New York Times, Fox News, The Washington Post, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal, opened one by one in a freshly installed Chrome, 20 seconds each, with GUARDIANA recording every name the front page made the machine ask for.

How to read this. GUARDIANA writes down every name the machine asks to resolve (DNS). It sees names, not content. Here each front page was opened alone, in a clean browser measured from the inside; what is counted is the names the page asked for, and whatever other apps on the test machine resolved during that time is left out. Websites change their advertisers every day: this holds for the date above.

The record

Scoreboard

How many advertising, tracking and telemetry names each front page loads in 20 seconds, out of the 333 distinct ones seen across the whole test.

SiteAdvertising, tracking and telemetryIts own domainsDistinct names in totalLoads the least
CNNnot measurable on equal terms (see its section)—
The New York Times7413111yes
Fox News12310188
The Washington Post1828316
USA Today2144372
The Wall Street Journal12313182

In this test the one loading the least tracking was The New York Times (74 names against 214 for the one loading most). It is a result of these front pages on this day, not a general verdict.

What it says

A big US newspaper front page loads, in 20 seconds and without touching anything, between 74 and 214 distinct advertising and tracking names: ad networks (Google, Amazon, Taboola, Outbrain, Criteo, Rubicon, OpenX, PubMatic and more), audience measurement and identity synchronisers. USA Today and The Washington Post load the most: each made the machine ask for more than 300 distinct service names. The New York Times loads the fewest, with 74. CNN stands apart because from Colombia it serves its international edition.

What only a guardian on the machine sees

The browser shows the page; GUARDIANA writes down every name the page makes the machine ask for, including the ones no content blocker ever shows you:

Detail

MeasureCNNThe New York TimesFox NewsThe Washington PostUSA TodayThe Wall Street Journal
Distinct names that left the machine33111188316372182
· advertising8589815418597
· trackers11625282926
· telemetry000000
· on no list that knows them24376513415859
Advertising + trackers + telemetry974123182214123
The site's own domains913108413
Requests the pages made (distinct names)26110185306367181
Names the browser blocked000000
Blocked names that reached the DNS anyway000000
The machine's other services in that time (other apps; not published)222448412514
Attempts to use someone else’s encrypted DNS (the “DNS evasion” signal)000000
Measured from the inside (DevTools)yesyesyesyesyesyes

CNN

Not comparable: from Colombia, cnn.com redirects to the international edition (edition.cnn.com), which in these 20 seconds asked for 33 names, 9 of them advertising. The US front page was not measured; its figure is not compared with the other five.

Advertising, tracking and telemetry it loads (9)

The twenty with the most queries; the rest is in the data.

Its own domains (9)

The New York Times

Advertising, tracking and telemetry it loads (74)

The twenty with the most queries; the rest is in the data.

Its own domains (13)

Fox News

Advertising, tracking and telemetry it loads (123)

The twenty with the most queries; the rest is in the data.

Its own domains (10)

The Washington Post

Advertising, tracking and telemetry it loads (182)

The twenty with the most queries; the rest is in the data.

Its own domains (8)

USA Today

The front page never finished reporting “loaded” within 45 seconds (it kept asking for things); it was measured all the same, with the same timings as the others.

Advertising, tracking and telemetry it loads (214)

The twenty with the most queries; the rest is in the data.

Its own domains (4)

The Wall Street Journal

Advertising, tracking and telemetry it loads (123)

The twenty with the most queries; the rest is in the data.

Its own domains (13)

What can be claimed

What cannot be claimed

What you can switch off

Data and method

Full data: seis-diarios-de-eeuu-2026-09-17.csv. Method: each site opened alone with site/src/radiografia/navegar.mjs (Chrome, empty profile, no scrolling, 20 s + 15 s); names taken from the machine's GUARDIANA ledger for each time window, this machine's queries only; only the ones the page asked for are counted. The tools are in the program's repository (site/src/radiografia/); anyone can repeat the test with GUARDIANA installed.

Brands named as the names of their owners. If you are the owner and something here is inaccurate, write to hola@guardianagroup.com: it is corrected, with the date.

All x-rays

See it with any website. In the ZERO browser, the X-ray shows you who each page talks to, with no account. Enter →