News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Reddit now tracks all outbound link clicks by default, existing users opted in. Parent comment

Re:Reddit now tracks all outbound link clicks by default, ex... by MawNicker on Friday July 08, 2016 @03:03AM (#12053978)
The non-standard tracking system is super simple. That's the point of the comment you responded to. It's not a proprietary ad-tracker. It's 30 minutes of hacking on HN's source-code. Instead of linking you to the story directly you would be linked to an HN endpoint and then redirected. That way they would know when/what you clicked. The HN server would be the only machine that knew this information. No 3rd parties. HN would still pass Privacy Badger and Ghostery.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Reddit now tracks all outbound link clicks by default, ex... by frumiousirc on Friday July 08, 2016 @07:29AM (#12054757)
The reddit outbound link rewrote something so that when you mouse-over the link the browser (at least FF) shows the expected link. But then clicking on it you instead are sent back through reddit.com. This is intentionally deceptive.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Reddit now tracks all outbound link clicks by default, ex... by MawNicker on Friday July 08, 2016 @07:55AM (#12054844)
> This is intentionally deceptive.

I strongly disagree. I would be quite proud of myself for finding a hack to maintain expected functionality in that case. As a user of the web I constantly mouse over links to see where they will take me. It annoys me when that's broken.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Reddit now tracks all outbound link clicks by default, ex... by acheron on Friday July 08, 2016 @09:25AM (#12055291)
"expected functionality", as the other poster said, is telling you accurately where the link goes. If the link goes to an internal tracker, then that's what it should say. What document your browser requests after that is a separate issue.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Reddit now tracks all outbound link clicks by default, ex... by MawNicker on Friday July 08, 2016 @11:07AM (#12056034)
No it's not. You're being overly technical. A typical user expects to see where they're going to end up. Not the first link in a chain of transparent redirects. Even if you disagree it as at the very least controvertible. I can see how a web developer would have assumed it was expected. And in that case, it wouldn't have been intentionally deceptive. That's all I'm trying to say.
[ Parent | on HN ]