Forbes is a business-news publisher (Forbes.com and Forbes magazine) operated by Forbes Media LLC. Since 2014 it has been majority-owned through British Virgin Islands holding companies by Integrated Whale Media, a Hong Kong-based investor group. It is privately held. The only mandatory filing setting out its ownership chain is a 2022 SEC proxy for a SPAC merger that was later terminated, and a 2023 sale to Luminar founder Austin Russell also collapsed. Forbes is ad-funded, and its own Privacy Statement describes a large data operation: browsing history and inferences, data append and data co-op sources, sharing with other publishers through data co-ops, cross-device matching using third-party data vendors, and hashed-email UID2 tokens for The Trade Desk's ad ecosystem. Its ads.txt authorizes 33 ad systems. Its state-law disclosure states "We DO sell your personal information" under the broad legal definition of a sale, while adding that it does not sell personal information for money. Opt-outs exist, including Global Privacy Control in some states, but Forbes does not honor Do Not Track. Its security record includes a 2014 breach of about 1.06 million accounts attributed to the Syrian Electronic Army, malware served through its ad stack in 2016, and a 2019 card skimmer on its subscription site. In 2026 it agreed to a $10 million settlement of a California Invasion of Privacy Act class action over website trackers. Forbes denies those allegations, and a settlement is not a finding of liability.
TRACK RECORD
1 ENFORCEMENT ACTION
[2026-08-18]
The court-authorized settlement website for Berman v. Forbes Media LLC, No. 3:24-cv-09287-WHO (N.D. Cal.), archived August 18, 2026, describes a $10 million class settlement. The lawsuit alleges that from December 20, 2023 through June 11, 2026, Forbes collected California visitors' IP addresses and unique identifiers through trackers on its websites without consent and shared them with third parties, in violation of the California Invasion of Privacy Act. Forbes denies the allegations and any wrongdoing. A settlement is not a finding of liability. The archived copy is cited on purpose because the live administrator site blocks automated checks; do not repair it to the live URL.
Forbes website-tracker privacy settlement ($10M, California residents); claims due Nov. 9, 2026
You may be eligible if you were a California resident who accessed a Forbes website between December 20, 2023 and June 11, 2026, and trackers on the site shared your IP address or other unique identifiers with third parties.
In a 2022 SEC proxy statement filed for its planned (later terminated) SPAC merger with Magnum Opus Acquisition, Forbes described ForbesOne, its in-house first-party data platform, as analyzing reader behavior across Forbes platforms and grouping readers into audience segments by interests, consumption patterns and demographics such as household income, job title and decision-maker status, which marketing partners can then target.
Forbes Media's Privacy Statement (last updated June 23, 2026) lists the personal information it may collect, including browsing and search history, device and online identifiers such as IP address and mobile ad identifiers, non-precise location, demographics and "inferences we may create about you." Beyond what readers provide, the policy permits Forbes to obtain personal information about them from third-party sources, naming data append services, public or social graph data and data co-ops.
CNBC reported in July 2014 that Forbes Media sold a majority stake to Integrated Whale Media Investments, a Hong Kong-based investor group whose controlling shareholders include Hong Kong investor Tak Cheung Yam and Wayne Hsieh, co-founder of ASUSTeK Computer. Forbes declined to disclose the price, the size of the stake or the valuation.
The only mandatory public filing we found that sets out Forbes' ownership chain is a 2022 SEC proxy statement for a SPAC merger that was later terminated. It describes Integrated Whale Media Investment Inc. (IWM), a British Virgin Islands company, as owning 95% of Forbes Global Media Holdings Inc. through the intermediate holding company Forbes Global Holdings Inc., with Highlander Management LLC owning the remaining 5%. Forbes Global Media Holdings is itself a BVI company. Because Forbes is privately held, no current filing confirms that the chain is unchanged.
TechCrunch reported in November 2023 that Integrated Whale Media, Forbes' Hong Kong-based parent, ended an agreement to sell an 82% stake in Forbes Global Media Holdings to Luminar founder Austin Russell after investors failed to fund the deal. This followed the 2022 collapse of a planned SPAC listing. Forbes has repeatedly been put up for sale, and its ownership has stayed with a privately held offshore parent.
Some sections of Forbes.com are run by separate companies under their own privacy policies. Forbes' Privacy Statement says Forbes Advisor, Forbes Health and Forbes Home Improvement are managed by Forbes Digital Marketing Holdings Limited, and ForbesPredict by Axiomcasts LLC. A reader on a forbes.com page may therefore be dealing with a different data controller than Forbes Media LLC.
In the same 2022 SEC proxy statement, Forbes stated that its consumer database includes first-party data and that, in select circumstances, it shares certain first-party data with third parties that run campaigns for its advertising and marketing clients.
Forbes' Privacy Statement says the company shares certain personal information about its subscribers and visitors with other publishers through data co-ops, and that it may share personal information with business partners for marketing or interest-based advertising. In its state-law disclosures the policy states "We DO sell your personal information in exchange for monetary or other valuable consideration," while adding that Forbes does not sell personal information for money and that "sell" has a broader legal meaning. Opt-outs are available by phone, web form and, in some states, Global Privacy Control.
As of 2026-09-30, Forbes' own ads.txt file at www.forbes.com authorizes 33 advertising system domains to sell its ad inventory (58 DIRECT and 30 RESELLER entries), including Google, Amazon, Criteo, Index Exchange, Magnite (Rubicon Project), PubMatic, OpenX, Xandr/AppNexus and Yahoo. Each authorized seller can receive bid requests for Forbes readers' ad impressions.
Have I Been Pwned (haveibeenpwned.com) lists a February 2014 Forbes breach that exposed 1,057,819 accounts, including email addresses, passwords, usernames and user website URLs. HIBP attributes the attack to the Syrian Electronic Army, which also posted fake news stories to forbes.com. Under the methodology, a breach of this size never ages out of the record.
In January 2016, Engadget reported that Forbes.com required visitors to disable their ad blockers, after which researchers who complied said they were served pop-under malware through the site's ad supply chain. The incident shows the security cost of Forbes' dependence on third-party ad networks.
In May 2019, BleepingComputer reported that attackers had injected a Magecart card-skimming script into Forbes' magazine subscription site (forbesmagazine.com). According to the security researcher who found it, the script captured card numbers, expiration dates and CVV codes along with customers' names, addresses, phone numbers and emails.
The court-authorized settlement website for Berman v. Forbes Media LLC, No. 3:24-cv-09287-WHO (N.D. Cal.), archived August 18, 2026, describes a $10 million class settlement. The lawsuit alleges that from December 20, 2023 through June 11, 2026, Forbes collected California visitors' IP addresses and unique identifiers through trackers on its websites without consent and shared them with third parties, in violation of the California Invasion of Privacy Act. Forbes denies the allegations and any wrongdoing. A settlement is not a finding of liability. The archived copy is cited on purpose because the live administrator site blocks automated checks; do not repair it to the live URL.
Press Gazette reports that the plaintiffs in Berman v. Forbes Media accused Forbes.com of running third-party trackers, including the LinkedIn Insight Tag, the Bing Universal Event Tracking Tag and the Adnx tracker, which they said sent visitors' IP addresses and other unique identifiers to LinkedIn, Microsoft and other third parties without consent. Press Gazette also reports that the settlement commits Forbes to give California visitors enhanced notice of third-party trackers and a banner to control them. These remain allegations: the court-authorized settlement site records that Forbes denies them.
Forbes' Privacy Statement says Forbes and its advertising partners may match a reader's devices to one another, relying on third-party data vendors' demographic, geographic and interest data, and then target ads across those devices. The same policy says Forbes and certain advertising partners may convert readers' hashed email addresses into pseudonymized token identifiers (The Trade Desk's UID2) for targeted advertising, and that Forbes does not honor browser Do Not Track signals, though it says it honors Global Privacy Control where the law requires.