|
 |
Here are the facts:
In 2021, 34,594 people subscribed to Popular Information after organically seeing our reporting on Google, Facebook, and Twitter (now X).
We are two-thirds of the way through 2026, and just 1153 people have subscribed to Popular Information from those same platforms.
Our work is better than it was five years ago. (We were recently awarded the David Nyhan Prize for Public Policy Journalism by Harvard’s Shorenstein Center.)
But the billionaires who control Google, Facebook, and X have made the decision to choke off traffic to independent outlets like Popular Information. They are not interested in building an audience for stories like the one you are about to read.
This means that in order to survive, we need to decouple our success from the whims of tech oligarchs. That will require investing in new ways to spread the word about our journalism.
To do this, we need your help. If just a small percentage of free subscribers like you upgrade to a paid subscription ($50/year or $6/month), we can expand our reach and magnify our impact.
Thank you for your readership and consideration.
— Judd
The hidden dangers of Musk’s votesafe.org
The slick voter registration website, currently being promoted to millions of people, is a digital surveillance machine.
| |||||||||||||||
With the midterm elections approaching, it’s a good idea to make sure you are registered. Each state has a tool to do so, and the federal government has set up a page that directs you to the right place, vote.gov.
Vote.gov, which is run by the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), does not ask for your personal information or track your activities. According to the site’s privacy policy, the EAC “does not collect personally-identifiable information about you when you visit our site, unless you choose to provide such information to us.” The exception to the policy is very limited. For example, if you email the EAC requesting information, they will retain your email address so they can send a response. Further, the EAC does not track your internet activity. “No cookies used by EAC ever store any information that may be used to identify you personally,” the commission’s privacy policy says.
But Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, is funding an aggressive advertising campaign encouraging people in key states to check their registration status at a different website, votesafe.org. That website is run by America PAC, Musk’s super PAC.
While Vote.gov collects no personal information, votesafe.org collects the following:
First, middle, and last name
Date of birth
Full home address
Email address
Cell phone number
IP address and location (This information is used to derive each user’s city, zip code, approximate longitude and latitude, time zone, and internet provider.)
Browser, operating system, screen size and language of your device
What website referred you to votesafe.org
Every link you click
Every page you look at
Your voter registration status (This is derived from a voter file held by America PAC or its vendors — not the state’s actual records.)
Your district and ballot (This is derived from Ballotpedia.)
Previously, votesafe.org had a privacy policy that provided some limitations on how America PAC could use this data:
Personal Identifying Information collected via the www.votesafe.org will only be used to support America PAC’s activities, and it will not be shared with any advertisers, political organizations, or third parties not directly affiliated with America PAC.
On August 29, 2026, the privacy policy was updated and no longer includes that language. The new version allows America PAC to “share” or “sell” personal information with “our business partners.” This includes selling information about “whether you are registered to vote” and “how you submit your vote… where permitted by law.”
In addition to selling your personal information, America PAC can also sell “inferences” it makes from the information it collects including “psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities and aptitude.” The “business partners” can then disclose your information to other parties.
You also agree to receive calls and texts, not only from America PAC, but also from “related entities as well as third parties.”
Votesafe.org is currently configured to share your information with numerous partners and to let advertising companies comprehensively track you across websites, apps, and streaming services.
As you visit votesafe.org:
Your street address is sent to Facebook and Google.
Your name, email, phone number, ZIP code and date of birth are sent to America PAC’s server that feeds Facebook’s ad-matching system, which uses them to identify your Facebook and Instagram accounts. The site sends your contact details to Google’s ad system.
A scrambled version of your email address is sent to The Trade Desk, an advertising firm, which uses it to create an identifier that follows the user across websites, apps, and streaming TV.
Your usage is shared with X, the social network owned by Musk, which attempts to connect it to an X account.
Incrementdata, another tracking company, is sent information about your use of the site.
Your email is shared with Iterable, an email and text-message marketing company.
A code based on the technical traits of the device, known as a device fingerprint, is created so a user can be tracked even if cookies are deleted.
Over the last week alone, America PAC has spent over $180,000 promoting votesafe.org on Meta. Some of the ads are innocuous-looking messages, just reminding people to vote:
 |