Just wanted to say that uMatrix can disable this. Browsers have been anti-user control for so long, we can't rely on them anymore to provide basic configuration even.
Mozilla Firefox to Enable Hyperlink Ping Tracking by Default
51–56 of 56 posts
Re: Mozilla Firefox to Enable Hyperlink Ping Tracking by Default
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
That argument would carry weight if you could point to sites that deliberately avoid outbound link tracking because of the impact on the user experience. I've never heard of any.
That's not what GP was saying. They were saying that given two websites, one that doesn't track and one that does, the one that doesn't would have a better user experience as a side effect, which would give it a competitive advantage in this "department" over the one that does track. So, all things being equal, users would choose the one that doesn't track for the simple virtue of it giving them a better experience.
This argument appears multiple times in this thread. However, realistically I've never seen a mainstream website that was drastically disadvantaged by their tracking mechanisms. I'm concerned that a lot of the tech savvy people who are making this claim may be working on severely outdated machines for which this makes a difference. With even the cheapest Dell computer sold today, it doesn't really matter, which is why everyone is tracking everywhere. I'm not a huge fan of ping, but the idea that websites are going to choose not to track with JavaScript based on the bad UX on a years old Core 2 Duo is just absurd. The economic incentive you are imagining does not exist, thus ping isn't truly eliminating a critical UX difference between tracked and untracked websites.
TL;DR ITT: "Link auditing / ping will eliminate the disadvantages of tracking!" - Ad Industry and sites that serve tracking: "What disadvantages?"
Re: Mozilla Firefox to Enable Hyperlink Ping Tracking by Default
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does anyone want the ping attribute? It seems like JS-based trackers using sendBeacon are the better option for analytics.
Yes. I implement these kinds of trackers, and right now, my choices look like this: 1. Use a redirect: link However this is difficult to implement securely, so most people don't. It's also ugly: The user sees tracking urls in the URL bar and each need to load in turn, redirecting to the final target. 2. Use JavaScript: link This seems to be your suggestion. This requires JavaScript and the JavaScript could be doing o…
FWIW, I asked this since I've built client-side ads/analytics code before and I very much prefer JS-based solutions, since you can sort out the difficulties of dealing with interfering scripts once, put it in a library and still have control of what is going on.
But I guess it does provide a simple mechanism for folks who would otherwise use a redirect and don't want to deal with the complication, so thanks for the insight.
Re: Mozilla Firefox to Enable Hyperlink Ping Tracking by Default
#54I was never aware of the ping attribute but now it makes me wonder what was the rationale behind standardising it. Is there any particular legitimate (ie. non-tracking) use for such a feature? It would makes sense, of sorts, if there was a policy regarding the target of the attribute but as far as I can see the browser can ping literally anything.
The rationale is that everyone interested has been doing this with redirects (for years) in non standardised and often opaque ways.
So it’s better to standardize and make it transparent.
E.g. google search results get rewritten to redirects as soon as you hover over them or press them (and are redirects in the first place with JS off). Have been for at least 8 years now.
Re: Mozilla Firefox to Enable Hyperlink Ping Tracking by Default
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. I implement these kinds of trackers, and right now, my choices look like this: 1. Use a redirect: link However this is difficult to implement securely, so most people don't. It's also ugly: The user sees tracking urls in the URL bar and each need to load in turn, redirecting to the final target. 2. Use JavaScript: link This seems to be your suggestion. This requires JavaScript and the JavaScript could be doing o…
I absolutely think the ping attribute is preferable, but several of your solutions are to avoid conflicting with other tracking solutions that are in place already. How would you address that with ping attributes?
The ping attribute stores a space-separated list of urls.
Re: Mozilla Firefox to Enable Hyperlink Ping Tracking by Default
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
DNT arguably ceased to be a reliable symbol of user intention the moment Microsoft turned it on by default. I doubt Microsoft didn’t realize what they were doing would kill DNT acceptance, but they did it anyway to add a bullet point to their feature list.
Much like malware protection ceased to be a reliable symbol of user intention the moment Microsoft turned it on by default.
Malware protection isn’t a signal though, it’s an active process of deleting and blocking. No need or even possibility to interpret it.
The analogy in the tracking space would be something like Safari ITP, not DNT.