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URL shorteners set ad tracking cookies

ylukem.com

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Re: URL shorteners set ad tracking cookies

#171

Post by cookiengineer »

TimLeland wrote: post #51

This is really interesting. I suppose tiny url gets a kicked back from their ad network for this. I'm the creator of the URL shortener (T.LY) and a Link Unshortener tool. I spend most of my development time fighting bad actors. My goal is to have a legitimate competitor to bitly that people benefit from. We do not set any cookies on redirects but do use cookies for authentication for users. T.LY: https://t.ly/ Link U…

> Link Unshortener: https://linkunshorten.com/

Well, Google Analytics and Googlesyndication are known to set the infamous PREF cookie (remember Snowden and PRISM?)... so I wouldn't recommend that website either if the whole point of this discussion is to avoid ad tracking cookies.

Re: URL shorteners set ad tracking cookies

#173

Post by Triv888 »

esperent wrote: post #120
eikenberry wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use u-block origin on "medium" mode where you have it block 3rd party javascript by default and it behaves the same. Unblocking the cloudflare originating javascript fixes it. I'd guess my setup is more common than having javascript disabled entirely. Not a complaint, just another data point.

Is there some reason you want to block cloudflare JS? If not, wouldn't it be easier to add an exception to uBlock rather than try to get devs to change their site for you?

Why would it be easier for all users to add an exception instead of one site owner to make one change?

Re: URL shorteners set ad tracking cookies

#174

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

samb1729 wrote: post #70
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who uses a whitelist approach, I am curious whether people ever experience false positives or missing entries with these lists? I have little experince with those lists except for going through one of them once and being shocked at what was in there. The setup I use is customised for me, i.e., Rube Goldberg would be proud. I can view and manipulate all traffic from outside the application and outside the o…

What is the user interface for your setup like? It sounds attractive but possibly prohibitively frictious to be workable for me. I currently use a combination of uBlock Origin blacklisting, NoScript whitelisting, and Little Snitch alerting, if you need a baseline to compare. I've also run a Pihole instance in the past to loop my phone in, but that's not running as of today.

No GUI.

I think what I have created is something like a cross between Pi-Hole, Burp and something yet to be named. But it's faster, more flexible, uses different software and is Java-free.

Re: URL shorteners set ad tracking cookies

#175

Post by Moru »

TimLeland wrote: post #87
samb1729 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a shame that T.LY displays only the footer without JavaScript enabled instead of degrading gracefully. Surely a plain HTML form that POSTs should suffice? I'm not sure how much work it would require for you to support this, but it would help cement your place as a good web actor if you're so inclined!

Sorry about that. I honestly didn't think anyone browsed the web without javascript enabled. How common is that? We do offer a simple to use api that you could build on top of to shorten link. Also an extension that offers the ability to shorten a url in one click. API Docs: https://t.ly/docs/ Extension: https://t.ly/extension

I also run script blocking on everything. And I block the domains for all url shorteners in my DNS so I don't accidentally go to some weird site. I also evangelize this to all my customers and some actually want me to install it on their computers too. Sadly there is so many pages that breaks down without allowing a lot of external scripts but it has to be something really important for me to bother with unblocking something.

Re: URL shorteners set ad tracking cookies

#176

Post by blackbear_ »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #66
madars wrote: post #21

Wow! https://preview.tinyurl.com/examplezoom really shows https://zoom.us/j/123456789 link whereas Chrome network inspector confirms the viglink.com redirect. uBlock origin blocks the latter via Dan Pollock’s hosts file and Peter Lowe’s Ad and tracking server list.

As someone who uses a whitelist approach, I am curious whether people ever experience false positives or missing entries with these lists? I have little experince with those lists except for going through one of them once and being shocked at what was in there. The setup I use is customised for me, i.e., Rube Goldberg would be proud. I can view and manipulate all traffic from outside the application and outside the o…

That sounds so cool, I'd love to know more about your setup!

Re: URL shorteners set ad tracking cookies

#177

Post by dannyw »

hooande wrote: post #165

If I recall correctly, Viglink does affiliate marketing. Essentially they are setting an affiliate cookie to make money from anything you purchase on Amazon, Walmart.com, Ebay, etc. This cookie will override any other that was already set. So if you clicked a link to a book from a blog post and then clicked on a tinyurl, they would get the affiliate referral money and not the blog. It's an easy way to make money beca…

Basically:

1. TinyURL does not give Zoom any more customers than they would have had otherwise.

2. Zoom pays VigLinks and TinyURL.

3. An incompetent, or unethical performance marketer gets to claim to their boss they are driving X upgrades for $Y when in reality they are driving 0 incremental upgrades for $Y.

Re: URL shorteners set ad tracking cookies

#178

Post by Moru »

sundarurfriend wrote: post #137
Baeocystin wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More than you'd think, not as many as I'd hope. Easily 2/3rds of the ones I visit work, FWIW. Google works fine without javascript. Stunningly fast.

> Easily 2/3rds of the ones I visit work, FWIW. I started blocking JS a few weeks ago, and this has been my experience as well - a pleasant surprise. For a long time I thought that would be a step too far, that browsing would become so annoying and unpredictable because of it. Any annoyance from having to turn on JS for individual sites is easily outweighed by the number of annoyances I avoid - news websites are actu…

It's funny when the blocker says 99+ scripts blocked on a news site because it can't display more than two digits. Or when you end up with a black page because they didn't bother with a no-script version.

Re: URL shorteners set ad tracking cookies

#179

Post by samb1729 »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #174
samb1729 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the user interface for your setup like? It sounds attractive but possibly prohibitively frictious to be workable for me. I currently use a combination of uBlock Origin blacklisting, NoScript whitelisting, and Little Snitch alerting, if you need a baseline to compare. I've also run a Pihole instance in the past to loop my phone in, but that's not running as of today.

No GUI. I think what I have created is something like a cross between Pi-Hole, Burp and something yet to be named. But it's faster, more flexible, uses different software and is Java-free.

Sorry if I was unclear, I wasn't asking about a GUI. I mean how do you interface with it as the user? I assume it isn't just something you launch and forget about given your description.
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