A translation of this article with a few (minor additions). I could not find an English-language article. The original article has informative illustrations.
“Archive.Today” is a popular website for access to paid media content. Well-known domain names for the website are archive.is and archive.ph (and archive.md, archive.fo, archive.li, archive.vn).
What many users do not know: The website provides users' data to Russia.
The data goes to Mail.ru and thus to the Russian Internet company VK. A look at the website with Webbkoll shows the following Russian domain names:
privacy-cs.mail.rur.mradx.netrs.mail.rutop-fwz1.mail.ru
First and foremost, top-fwz1.mail.ru/js/code.js is integrated. Further code from Russia is then loaded.
The following applies to Russian Internet companies:
“Russia demands unconditional cooperation and extensive control options from its flourishing IT economy. It is not just about the full possession of the largest social network (VK) and the largest payment service (
Mail.ru), but in the case of Yandex also to influence the entire output of Yandex News.
The data collected show which Paywall content is particularly popular in western media, but could also provide insight about their users. One can speculate about the importance of such data in the hybrid Russian war against Europe and the rest of the West.
(the following part is about the most common originating news sites in Switzerland that are to be archived. It refers to the above mentioned paywall content)
Incidentally (and in addition), anyone who pays for the paid media content must (also) expect for user data to go to Russia:
«Until recently, Ringier sent - thanks to these cookies - the IP addresses of "Blick" readers to the Russian tech company Yandex. […] Yandex is also listed at «20 Minuten». The free news portsal of the TX Group also works with the platform of the Interactive Advertising Bureau. […] The NZZ also sent data to the east. The traditional company on Falkenstrasse has integrated dozens of trackers, including from Yandex and also from Rutarget, an advertising company that belongs to the Russian Sberbank, is fully controlled by the state and is on the sanction list of the United States. »
The operators of «Archive.Today» do not open their identity. Neither an impressum nor a data protection declaration can be found on the website.
“Liberapay” in France should be able to say who operates “archive.today”. If you click on the "Donate" button at "Archive.Today", you will be forwarded to the donation platform "Liberapay".
A (more) reputable alternative is the Internet Archive at Archive.org, best known for the archiving of websites at web.archive.org.
Posted to [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected]
edit 2 days later:
I'm aware this isn't the biggest smoking gun ever. But this particular service is in such widespread use that I feel it's important to shine a light on it.
Of course any post with certain keywords in the title will attract weird commentary, but I think you'll find that even the most contrary ones do not dispute the facts outlined in the article - just try to play them down, or ridicule them.
It's free, it has fast servers, it doesn't ask questions of you. It's a godsent!
I was instantly suspicious when I saw the Russia flag in the url.
Um, can you explain please? Because I see no such thing.
He probably uses a browser extension that shows a little flag representing a server's location.
But I'm not in Russia, and neither is the originating article (Switzerland) or my Lemmy instance (Germany). Nor did I use Tor/VPN when posting.
The best I can make out of this is that she confused flags 🤷
They were probably talking about "archive.today" and not your article or instance since their servers are located in St. Petersburg.
And your instance is actually located in Austria, which I already knew because I'm on the same one.