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. Each front page was opened alone, in a clean browser with no account, and measured from the inside.
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.
| Site | Advertising, tracking and telemetry | Its own domains | Distinct names in total | Loads the least |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CNN | not measurable on equal terms (see its section) | — | ||
| The New York Times | 74 | 13 | 111 | yes |
| Fox News | 123 | 10 | 188 | |
| The Washington Post | 182 | 8 | 316 | |
| USA Today | 214 | 4 | 372 | |
| The Wall Street Journal | 123 | 13 | 182 | |
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.
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, so its figure does not belong in the ranking.
USA Today
The front page never finished reporting itself as loaded within 45 seconds (it kept asking for things); it was measured anyway, with the same timings as the rest.
What can be claimed
- Opening the front page of a big US newspaper in Chrome with no blocker makes the machine talk to between 74 and 214 distinct advertising and tracking services, without the person doing anything.
- All six load advertising and tracking before any consent: none showed a notice first, from Colombia.
- The names repeat from one front page to the next: four appeared on all six (Google advertising, DoubleClick and AppNexus) and 66 on at least four of them. Amazon's ad network (amazon-adsystem.com) appeared on 5 of the six.
What cannot be claimed
- That the machine went on to connect to those services, or that it sent anything: what is seen here is that the machine asked for the name. A connection almost always follows, but a browser also looks names up ahead of time and sometimes never uses them.
- What is sent when there is a connection, or what anyone read: GUARDIANA sees names, not content.
- That a site is "spying": these are documented advertising, measurement and delivery services, and each name is published.
- That the one loading least is the best, nor that a low figure means no tracking: they are names, not intentions.
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.