Ads in popular apps give police a powerful tool to spy on users
Comments on “Ads in popular apps give police a powerful tool to spy on users”
3 judges. Scored by all three judges. Only the day’s top stories get the claim check. How far stories are checked
Bloomberg reports that Penlink's Webloc tool, originally developed by Israeli firm Cobwebs, collects location data from smartphones through common apps like weather, gaming, and religious apps, letting users map where phones have been over the past year.
Why it ranked
No. 27 of 109 with a score of 0.61. The panel rated it highest on new information (0.94) and substantiated (0.79), lowest on technical depth (0.46). The judges disagreed most on reader interest (spread 0.43), so the story is marked contested. Placed No. 27, No. 63 by score alone: the placement terms moved other stories past it.
- AI judgeJudge 2claude-haiku-5-5
- Investigative news on a location-data surveillance vendor with well-sourced documents and interviews; important for privacy and data-supply-chain builders, but little technical depth or direct actionability for developers.
- AI judgeJudge 3gpt-5.6-luna
- Investigative reporting documents a large-scale commercial location-surveillance system, its data supply chain, law-enforcement customers, legal loopholes, and oversight concerns, supported by records, interviews, procurement data, and responses.
Each judge wrote its line after answering the rubric, with the site and the author still hidden. Every answer behind this is in the table under Score.
Score
0.61total under rubric v2.3Contestedjudges differ by 0.43 on reader interest
- Significance0.64
- Reader interest0.71
- Audience breadth0.61
- Practical relevance0.51
- Substantiated0.79
- Technical depth0.46
- New information0.94
- Counts against: Promotional0.03
- Counts against: Overclaim0.23
Each judge’s answer per question (0–1), their mean and spread, and what the question adds to the score (weight × mean).
| Question | Judge 1 | Judge 2 | Judge 3 | Mean | Spread | Weight | Contribution (weight times mean) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SignificanceHow much does this change what people in tech know or can do? | 0.54 | 0.55 | 0.82 | 0.64 | 0.28 | +0.24 | +0.153 |
| Reader interestWould a well-informed senior engineer or tech founder want to read this today, and likely pass it on? | 0.50 | 0.70 | 0.93 | 0.71 | 0.43 , above the contested threshold | +0.26 | +0.185 |
| Audience breadthHow many people who build technology does it concern? | 0.60 | 0.50 | 0.72 | 0.61 | 0.22 | +0.13 | +0.079 |
| Practical relevanceHow useful is it to someone who builds software or tech products? | 0.44 | 0.40 | 0.68 | 0.51 | 0.28 | +0.22 | +0.111 |
| SubstantiatedHow well is it backed? Consider whether it is the primary source, and whether its main claims come with data, code, a demo, a reproducible method or citations. | 0.70 | 0.80 | 0.87 | 0.79 | 0.17 | +0.05 | +0.040 |
| Technical depthHow technically substantive is it? | 0.59 | 0.35 | 0.43 | 0.46 | 0.24 | +0.05 | +0.023 |
| New informationDoes it contain information absent from the stories covered in the last 7 days (list provided)? | 0.94 | 0.90 | 0.98 | 0.94 | 0.08 | +0.05 | +0.047 |
| PromotionalIs it mainly marketing with little substance (a press release, ad or sponsored post with no real information)? A launch post that carries real news is not promotional. | 0.07 | 0.02 | 0.01 | 0.03 | 0.06 | −0.19 | −0.006 |
| OverclaimDo the headline or conclusions claim more than the body supports? | 0.36 | 0.20 | 0.12 | 0.23 | 0.24 | −0.11 | −0.025 |
| Sum of contributions | +0.606 | ||||||
| Claim-check penalty | 0.000 | ||||||
| Total, as published | 0.606 | ||||||
Spread is the highest minus the lowest judge answer. marks a spread above 0.40: the judges disagree, and the story is marked contested.
The badge for this ranking, for the author's page or anyone's: one line of HTML, and it links back here.
<a href="https://rubric.hrih.si/editions/2026-11-06/27/"><img src="https://rubric.hrih.si/badge/2026-11-06/27.svg" alt="Ranked #27 on Rubric, 6 Nov 2026" width="238" height="28"></a>Also covered by
No other coverage was clustered with this story.
Elsewhere
Elsewhere: HN 7 pts, front page
Recorded for context only, checked 6 Nov 2026, 05:47 UTC. It played no part in the ranking.