Vermont: Burlington Free Press Staff In Union Protest Over ‘Snooping’

By Ted Cohen

The parent company of Vermont’s largest daily announced a new endeavor collecting reader data, triggering immediate backlash from news staffers.

The Burlington Free Press is part of the publishing conglomerate USA Today that will be collecting “actionable intelligence” on its audience.

The Nieman Foundation, a journalism think tank, broke the news about the newspaper’s partnering with a company known as Palantir, “whose artificial intelligence software has been used to advance widespread surveillance,” the news guild wrote in a statement opposing the plan.

Platner Technologies is an American software company headquartered in Miami, Florida, specializing in big-data analytics and AI-driven decision-making platforms like Gotham and Foundry.

Founded in 2003 by Peter Thiel and Alex Karp, it serves major government defense agencies and commercial enterprises.

Palantir has been criticized for its role in expanding government surveillance using artificial intelligence and facial recognition software, according to Wiki.

The News Guild, which represents Free Press staffers as well as others in the newspaper chain, accused USA Today Co of not disclosing details regarding the new partnership and raised concerns over how readers’ personal information and data will be treated and protected, Futurism.com is reporting.

USA Today Co. - formerly known as Gannett - announced the partnership during its second quarter earnings call as a way to “strengthen how we collect, connect and activate audience data to drive more effective and faster monetization across our platform.”

Palantir’s software would be used to analyze and monetize customer behavior amid an industry-wide decline in search traffic, according to Nieman Lab writer Hanaa' Tameez.

USA Today CEO Mike Reed told investors last week that USA Today would retain ownership of its audience data.

Reed said Palantir’s AI software would help the company make the most of it.

USA Today Co. owns more than 200 local newspapers in the United States, including the Burlington Free Press, making it the largest newspaper chain in the country.