"WSJ's privacy practices pose significant risks due to extensive collection of sensitive data (financial, location, behavioral), broad sharing with 38+ advertising partners and corporate affiliates, and invasive cross-site tracking that ignores user Do Not Track signals. The policy lacks clarity on data retention timelines, allows unilateral policy changes without notice, and shares mailing addresses with unaffiliated third parties for marketing by default. While opt-out mechanisms exist for some practices, they are not comprehensive and the sheer scope of data collection and third-party monetization places WSJ in the high-risk category alongside major ad-supported platforms."
wsj Privacy Concerns & Scorecard
Broad sharing of personal data with 38+ advertising partners and ad networks for targeted advertising purposes, including sharing across corporate subsidiaries for marketing
Extensive collection of sensitive personal data including financial information, precise location data (GPS), health-related interests, and behavioral profiling across multiple digital properties
Do Not Track signals are explicitly ignored, preventing users from opting out of tracking via browser settings
Extensive user-generated content in forums and community features becomes public with no user control over downstream use or attribution
Data retention period is vague with no specified deletion timeline or mechanism mentioned in available policy segments
No recommended actions at this time.
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Data Collection & Tracking
Personal Information Collected
Account creation, subscription management, verification, and targeted marketing segmentation
Payment processing, subscription management, and income-based advertising targeting
Location-based advertising, traffic analysis, and content personalization
Service delivery, cross-device tracking, device fingerprinting, and targeted advertising
Content recommendations, personalization, audience analysis, and advertising profiling
Comprehensive behavioral profiling for targeted advertising across the internet
Publishing, community management, customer service, and content improvement
Content personalization, advertising targeting, and audience segmentation
Referral programs, social features, and contact-based marketing
Cross-Platform Tracking
WSJ extensively tracks your activity across the entire internet—not just on their own site. They partner with ad networks that monitor what you do on other websites and apps, combine this with offline purchase data, and use mobile device advertising IDs to follow you across apps. This data is used to build a detailed profile of your interests and behavior for targeted advertising purposes.
Tracking Methods:
Cookies
Persistent and session cookies used to track user activity, store preferences, and enable cross-site tracking for advertising purposes
Web Beacons
Invisible pixels embedded in emails and web pages to track whether content was viewed and to collect behavioral data for advertising
Mobile Device Advertising IDs
Unique identifiers assigned by mobile operating systems (Apple IDFA, Google Advertising ID) that enable cross-app tracking and device fingerprinting
Device Fingerprinting
Collection of device characteristics (device type, OS, browser, screen size, plugins, etc.) to create a unique identifier for users across the web
IP Address Tracking
IP addresses collected and used to derive location information, identify devices, and track traffic patterns
Account-Based Tracking
Tracking tied to user accounts that persists across login sessions, devices, and platforms when users remain signed in or log back in
AI & Data Training
wsj does not train AI on your content
Based on their public policy, your content is not used to train AI models.
How to Object
No opt-out available
This service does not currently provide a public way to opt out of AI training.
Why We Analyzed wsj
TrueTerms automatically audits privacy policies and data practices using advanced machine learning to keep you informed and protected. This scorecard is based on the latest available public terms of service and privacy policies as of 2026.