I see a lot of people, including friends and family, sharing URLs rife with tracking parameters.
I feel alone in making sure that I'm sharing the cleanest possible URLs to others. For example, checking if the URLs are shortened to hide plenty of tracking params.
Just need to vent, thanks for reading.
Edit: adding some context for future references.
By using url tracking params, tech companies can track who shares the content and who clicks on that specific shared urls. A simple but effective tracking method.
Try sharing Instagram post or YouTube video from the apps.
Instagram adds 'igshid=' . YouTube adds 'si='.
If you share the same IG or YouTube content from different accounts. The 'igshid', 'si' value will be different.
This can be used to tag who shares it, and who clicks on that specific url param value.
TikTok hides a ton of such params behind shortened url. Try expanding tiktok shared urls.
I had someone watch me edit a URL in the address bar and she clearly thought I was just fucking around, because there was no possible way that any human could edit the Matrix language up there and accomplish anything productive.
Thankfully uBlock Origin removes those parameters for us.
The default filters include a whole bunch of removeparam filters; e.g. privacy.txt
See also removeparam.
Maybe you could help your friends and family install Firefox and/or uBlock Origin?
Every little bit helps :)
I'm aware that with most privacy issues, a lot of people have limited understanding about it. Hell, I'm probably ignorant on many other privacy issues outside of this topic.
It looks like Lèon is for sharing (outbound) links to others whereas UrlChecker handles shared (inbound) links. Is that right? Or can UrlChecker also scrub a link before I send it?
People generally don't care (I myself am not at the level of this community). It also involves enough technical know-how that most people won't care. It's like asking people to use a CLI, not going to happen. I'm pretty sure I'm one of the few people who still C&P URLs to share, most people hit a "Share" button.
You're both right: most people don't know what any of this means, but also people who know often don't care. In my group of friends there are 2 programmers, they perfectly understand this yet they still share links full of trackers in the group chat.
My strategy is to friendly scold them (a programmer should know better) and in the same message share the same link without tracking rubbish. This way my non-technical friends can also see how short the same link can become.
The OCD part of me really wants to clean up those URLs simply because the link becomes a massive novella of garbage that's harder to read than Yu-Gi-Oh card text.
There is a Firefox plugin which I believe is called CleanURLs.
it's interesting that you mention the shorturls OP... I'm almost positive as of today that those links you can share that are like amazon.com/a/ab3cd4 are customized tracking links.
Problem is, if you paste it in your browser from the app, it doesn't go back to the original URL. You have to search the product again and customize the color, number, etc, and then strip tracking again from the url.
Most people just want to send a friend a link of the thing they think they'll like.
I do this because I hate super long URL's, but is this actually a problem for privacy? Does it not actually fuck with the tracking because now two separate people have got the same tracking Params? (Genuine question).
I care about this also. I used to clean them up, but what I've started doing is adding and replacing parts of the share id. And I'll usually put something stupid in there like "booger", just to screw up their tracking data.
I feel the same, I actually feel weird when someone shares with me a url with tracking or source tags, like bro you’re telling on yourself… do you not care?!
I shall do it, because i hate this URL ads, even more the fucking link shortener, because they disguised it and avoid to see the destination. Because of this i use 2 extension, a Link unshortener, which reveal the real URL, when i click on a shorten link also the Adguardfilter in the Vivaldi's own trackerblocker, You can find more filters here:
I sometimes leave some IDs in that don't change and seem to track me as a person so the tracking mixes them up with me if the trackers don't discard it on client change.