X-RAY · 14 SEPTEMBER 2026
Six Colombian newspapers: how much tracking each front page loads
El Tiempo, Portafolio, El Colombiano, El Espectador, El Heraldo and Semana, 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 268 distinct ones seen across the whole test.
| Site | Advertising, tracking and telemetry | Its own domains | Distinct names in total | Loads the least |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| El Tiempo | 189 | 2 | 330 | |
| Portafolio | 188 | 2 | 343 | |
| El Colombiano | 121 | 4 | 207 | |
| El Espectador | 120 | 2 | 195 | |
| El Heraldo | 45 | 1 | 87 | yes |
| Semana | not measurable on equal terms (see its section) | — | ||
In this test the one loading the least tracking was El Heraldo (45 names against 189 for the one loading most). It is a result of these front pages on this day, not a general verdict.
What it says
A Colombian newspaper front page loads, in 20 seconds and without touching anything, between 45 and 190 distinct advertising and tracking names: ad networks (Google, Amazon, Teads, Criteo, Taboola), audience measurement and identity synchronisers. The two that load most, El Tiempo and Portafolio, make the machine ask for more than 300 distinct service names at once. Semana is the exception: with its consent notice unanswered, it loads very little.
Portafolio
Same group as El Tiempo; it shares much of the advertising load.
Semana
Not comparable: Semana shows a consent notice (consentmanager.net) and, until "accept" is pressed, the front page loads very little. Its figure measures the notice, not the newspaper.
What can be claimed
- Opening the front page of a Colombian newspaper in Chrome with no blocker makes the machine talk to tens or hundreds of advertising and tracking services, without the person doing anything.
- Five of the six load advertising and tracking before any consent; Semana makes it conditional on a notice.
- The names repeat from one front page to the next: the same ad networks appear on almost all of them.
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-periodicos-colombianos-2026-09-14.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.