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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by narwhal@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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.

If you use android, use this app to expand, analyze and clean up urls https://github.com/TrianguloY/UrlChecker

If you use Firefox (you should), install ublock origin and add this url tracking filter maintained by adguard: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AdguardTeam/FiltersRegistry/master/filters/filter_17_TrackParam/filter.txt

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[-] WarmSoda@lemm.ee 281 points 1 year ago

Friends and family don't know what cleaning a URL means. Nobody does.

[-] StereoTrespasser@lemmy.world 100 points 1 year ago

And ironic that OP doesn't share how to clean them.

[-] IronKrill@lemmy.ca 23 points 1 year ago

Because it's different for every website.

[-] CoderKat@lemm.ee 16 points 1 year ago

There's a lot of common patterns, but you have to understand how URLs work. You have to recognize which URL parameters are tracking ones or even just might be tracking. And that means you have to know how they work and that takes a moment.

In brief, URL parameters start after a ? in the URL and are formatted like key1=values&key2=value2. You can't usually remove all parameters because not all are tracking. To further complicate things, URLs can also have an anchor starting with a # character which will be after the URL parameters. You often don't want to remove that (though theoretically the anchor could in fact contain tracking details).

It's often trial and error to see which parameters you can remove. I do this a lot since I write a lot of technical documentation. Clean URLs make the documentation more compact and less likely to break. It's not just tracking stuff, but sometimes you need to remove temporal data that makes a page display data from a specific time when you want it to just default to the current time (etc).

[-] AlexWIWA@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

On YouTube links, delete anything after the ?

Someone post the next website

[-] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 37 points 1 year ago

That's terrible advice, you'd just be left with

https://youtube.com/watch

You need the "?v=" and the jumble of letters immediately after.

For example: https://youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

[-] VonReposti@feddit.dk 20 points 1 year ago

XcQ, link stays blue

[-] PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks 14 points 1 year ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

https://piped.video/watch

https://piped.video/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

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[-] tomatocake@feddit.de 10 points 1 year ago

They're talking about the query param that gets added when using the Share button: https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ?si=dwX01vG-EivlOoYe - the ?si=... should be removed.

[-] lud@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

That shit is so annoying and they just started to add it.

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[-] chevy9294@monero.town 6 points 1 year ago

I have memorized this link so I know what is rickroll without opening it.

[-] _cnt0@unilem.org 4 points 1 year ago

That's terrible advice, [...]

Is it really? It reliably protects people from all the garbage content on youtube.

[-] AlexWIWA@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Wait shit you're right. I'm too used to the mobile links that have the ID after the slash

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[-] can@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

Remove everything after the question mark.

[-] originalfrozenbanana@lemm.ee 22 points 1 year ago

This may work for sharing links to static content, but it is terrible advice for anything interactive. That removes all URL params and will break lots of interactive sites.

[-] WarmSoda@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

What would be considered interactive vs static? How would I explain that to someone, for example?

[-] originalfrozenbanana@lemm.ee 13 points 1 year ago

Most things you share will be static. These are things like news articles and webcomics where the output of the page is always the same no matter what you do. Things like google searches or YouTube links that are different depending on some way you interact with the site are dynamic. If you search for “apples” in google you’ll get different results than if you search for “oranges.” If you share the apple search with someone, your apple text will be coded as a parameter after the ?. If you strip that off they’d go to google.com and not see any apples. Trackers and other surveillance tools are also captured in the query params so for dynamic content it can be tricky to know which params to remove and which to keep. For static content you can just remove them all because the content doesn’t change based on the params you pass it

[-] WarmSoda@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

Very helpful, thank you

[-] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 year ago

Like a YouTube link with a timecode, for example

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[-] mo_ztt@lemmy.world 55 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] WarmSoda@lemm.ee 35 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That's part of my point. Most people just don't know.
That's like telling someone to just tune their carburator.

[-] pixelscript@lemmy.ml 16 points 1 year ago

inb4 you get an indignant reply suggesting that carburetor tuning is a must-have skill for absolutely anyone who owns anything that has one

[-] JokeDeity@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

LOL, wait, is it copypasta or does that guy just post that a lot?

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[-] Yearly1845@reddthat.com 14 points 1 year ago

I mean carburetor tuning is a must-have skill for absolutely anyone who has one. Otherwise you can never be sure that you are getting an ideal fuel-air mixture, and the ratio changes over time with the temperature, humidity, seasons, etc. Really, it's irresponsible to not know how to do this if you have a car with a carburetor.

[-] Damage@slrpnk.net 9 points 1 year ago

Brake line bleeding is a must-have skill for anyone with brakes. Otherwise you can never be sure not to have air in the brake lines. Really it's irresponsible not to know how to do this if you have a vehicle with idraulic brakes.

[-] psud@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Or you can get your mechanic to do it. It's not like brakes get air bubbles during normal operation, it's only a risk when working on the brakes in any other way

(Was your comment a poke at the previous one, pointing out that one doesn't really need those skills? If so I think it's reasonable for a person with a carburettor vehicle to learn how to tune it, as the skills are becoming rare)

[-] _cnt0@unilem.org 11 points 1 year ago

Being able to adjust your sarcasm detector is a must-have skill. Sarcasm levels fluctuate wildly depending on platform, community, season, and topic. Otherwise you can never know if you're making an ass of yourself when replying to other comments. Really, it's irresponsible to partake in social media without a finely tuned sarcasm detector.

[-] psud@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I take it you missed my bracketed comment acknowledging it was probably sarcastic.

[-] _cnt0@unilem.org 2 points 1 year ago

I take it you missed that the "previous one" was also sarcasm.

[-] JokeDeity@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

LMFAO, I'm actually dying over here. 😂

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[-] otl@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 1 year ago

They don't necessarily need to; hopefully we can help people install uBlock Origin which removes tracking query parameters from URLs. See privacy.txt

[-] netchami@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago

That's why I always install ClearURLs on my family members computers

[-] killeronthecorner@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Great extension and good recommend

[-] WarmSoda@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

Thank you for the suggestion. Downloaded

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this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2023
733 points (96.9% liked)

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