This not very different from when the Wall Street Journal published a story a few weeks back about how: "GOOGLE IS LETTING PEOPLE READ YOUR EMAILS (provided you've given them the permission to do so)".

It would seem that news organizations are trying to entangle google in a cambridge analytica type of controversy, maybe thinking about the potential traffic going their way or maybe they just don't like it that the bulk of ad spending is going to Google/FB, or probably they just think it's worth publishing.

The reality is that the conflict of interest is hard to ignore and the publishing industry should consider adding disclaimers when reporting on their business rivals.