Categories: OLD Media Moves

Read the Wall Street Journal for free online

Farhad Manjoo of Salon writes Friday that The Wall Street Journal can be read for free online, even though owner Rupert Murdoch said earlier this year that he will maintain a subscription online.

Manjoo wrote, “The Wall Street Journal also wants traffic from search and link sites, but instead of doing away with its pay gate, it has set up a technical method to let people from these sites come in for free.

“The system works like this: If you click on a subscriber-only WSJ link from an ordinary Web site — say, a link that I post here, or a link from within the Journal’s own site — you’ll be sent to a limited version of the article, and you’ll be asked to log in to read the whole thing.

“But if you click on a link to that same article in Google News, you’ll be sent to the full story for free. This is true, also, of WSJ links on Digg, and probably a few other big referral sites, too.

“Understanding this practice gives us two ways to get full Journal articles.”