I’ve noticed a rise in people sharing links to YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and reddit that include tracking parameters in the URL.
It might largely be harmless for now, but it’s not good to let companies build a web of links between users of this site, and to link the usernames of users on this site to their off-site accounts, which may include sensitive info.
| SM | URL Part | Appearance in URL | Filtration technique |
|---|---|---|---|
| Youtube | Query | ?si=* | Remove query string |
| Query | ?igshid=* | Remove query string | |
| Query | ?t= | Remove query string | |
| Tiktok | Subdomain and path | (vm/vt).tiktok.com/(random_string) | Block |
| Path | /(sub_name)/s/(random_string) | Block |
This site should only allow canonical links to the content to limit the information exposed.
Firefox started to have “copy without site tracking” on right click as an option.
Doesn’t always work, but at least it’s something. There might websites that do that too, but people here also forget to use archive links so idk how enforceable it is.
At least there’s the bot comments that do a private front end for links to big sites sometimes, but yeah people should be more careful about helping to build shadow profiles that’ll probably exist regardless.
The ClearURLs extension has a very robust link copying tool, but I think if we’re relying on the users to have initiative about link cleaning then we’re only as private as the least compliant users on this site.