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Reddit now tracks all outbound link clicks by default, existing users opted in
- benologist 10y agoThey are or have been experimenting with forced registration to view content too - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11955938 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11955938
- shostack 10y agoWhen you pull back and look at this and other announcements holistically, the writing on the wall becomes very clear: Reddit is moving towards more concrete, less anonymous identification of its users, a more advertiser-friendly environment, and a ramp-up in monetization. Not that people should be surprised. Reddit started as some magical place that got really fun as it reached critical mass. But the business realities of that in terms of funding and everything else eventually will ruin that party. Taking outside investment was one of the final nails in the coffin in that regard because that investment doesn't happen without a significant expected return. The question is, how quickly can they boil all the frogs in the pot without the majority of them jumping out, and how quickly can they keep filling the pot with new frogs once it is already boiling.
- Someone1234 10y agoEww. Pinterest does something similar, which is why I blocked it in Google Personal Blocklist. The best way of encouraging people to join your site is to show them what you have to offer, it isn't to put up a wall and make them jump through hoops. Part of Reddit's early success was due to how accessible the content was and how easy they made it to sign up (e.g. three fields, no email address required). That is not something they should throw by the wayside for short term metrics.
- rosalinekarr 10y agoI'm surprised they weren't doing this already.
- bladgod 10y agoSeriously. Tons of sites do it with Clickrouter or something similar.
- hobs 10y agoGross, as a user of any site that is definitely a sign I should be leaving and not coming back.
- TheRealPomax 10y agoBut then again, a user of someone else's site, why would you think the people who run that site don't want to make sure they get the metrics that are relevant to them? If a large part of what makes your business works _is_ links, like reddit, having link metrics makes perfect sense. It's a bit of a shame you can't tell them you only want to opt into the statistics part, not the personalisation part (so: only geo-resolve the IP and then throw the IP away). Saying you will never come back to a site that is literally doing the thing that allows them to understand their own business is super weird; it suggests you may not know, or never decided to look up, how many sites already mark which internal and outbound links you're clicking. After all, any site you're on can trivially check which links you click with a JavaScript one liner loaded on DOM completion that sends off a network even before the link is allowed to resolve (for instance: any websites that use google analytics, a free service for gathering site metrics)
- kuschku 10y agoSites may only track users if they got explicit approval. And transmitting that data into another country – as done with Google Analytics – is even more of a problem. If a site does that, either I write a filter to prevent it from running any JS, or I’ll stop using it.
- soared 10y agoDo you check the js on every site when you click a link?
- jsprogrammer 10y agoLooks like a stealth edit of the privacy policy. The policy [0] in place prior to Jan 1 of this year doesn't mention it. The "announcement" [1] of the new policy also didn't recognize the change. Also, you apparently cannot (yet) delete [2] the data reddit already surreptitiously collected. [0] https://www.reddit.com/help/privacypolicy?v=33a67dd2-e2c6-11e4-807a-22000b248ffc https://www.reddit.com/help/privacypolicy?v=33a67dd2-e2c6-11... [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3tlcil/we_are_updating_our_privacy_policy_effective_jan/ https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3tlcil/we_ar... [2] https://m.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/4rl5to/outbound_clicks_rollout_complete/d524dpl https://m.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/4rl5to/outbound_cl...
- Silhouette 10y agoThere's definitely something a bit shady about this, given that existing accounts have been silently opted in and as a long-time Redditor and someone who does actually scan privacy policies before signing up for things I still had no idea about it until seeing this story on HN. It's not as if Reddit is the only major site doing this kind of thing (hello, search engines) but that doesn't make it any less creepy, IMHO.
- jsprogrammer 10y agoIt is all kinds of shady. The policy says that if material changes are made to the policy, special notice, including sending notifications, will be made. As I noted, even the policy change announcement does not include a mention of this material change. Why is this feature being prioritized and snuck in, while the most significant announcement from their last raise (that users will receive 10% of the raise) seems to have been all but forgotten? It really puts this interview with Steve in some context: https://youtu.be/uSVqoW1rz6w?t=13m50s https://youtu.be/uSVqoW1rz6w?t=13m50s
- jsprogrammer 10y agoReally? No one can counter this?
- moultano 10y agoHopefully they can use this to substantially improve their algorithm. (Voting without clicking, click to vote interval, click duration) Lots of reddit's problems are due to algorithmic flaws that they just didn't have the data to correct.
- Someone1234 10y agoMost of Reddit's problems are due to "double-dipping" what upvotes/downvotes mean. It is both used for like/dislike AND for marking things as spam/troll/off-topic/unconstructive. So you get these incredibly articulate replies which move the conversation forward but people "dislike" so wind up hidden with -5. Which is treated no differently to pure trolling and nonsense. I can name another website with that same issue... A like/dislike system is fine. But you need three buttons, like/dislike, and "bad." No amount of dislikes should ever make a comment hidden or punish the account, that's what "bad" or "flag" should be for. Heck even the karma total on Reddit encourages an echo chamber, effectively reinforcing the idea that downvotes are "bad" and you have less "worth" with less of them.
- ddebernardy 10y agoTrue, but if you look at Slashdot they have vote reasons, plus flags, with "Overrated" for use if you disagree, and - let's be honest - commentary over here is a few notches higher. It's admittedly a different group of users, but still.
- pbreit 10y agoCan the page figure that with a JavaScript "watcher" or do the links have to be "physically" intercepted and redirected?
- soared 10y agoVery simple with js, or 0 lines of code with google tag manager. http://www.amazeemetrics.com/en/blog/google-tag-manager-tutorial-part-1-tracking-outbound-links-gtm-version-2 http://www.amazeemetrics.com/en/blog/google-tag-manager-tuto...
- pdkl95 10y agoThankfully google tag manager is one of the first things to be blocked at my router, right after GA. This kind of unethical behavior is going to bite the industry in the long run. Get informed consent first.
- jonknee 10y ago> This kind of unethical behavior is going to bite the industry in the long run. How so? It seems like this could quite easily improve reddit's content. If you're so ornery to complain about tracking outbound link clicks you probably have already blocked said tracking so it is a moot point. The rest of users (and indeed also the ornery ones!) will benefit from better content.
- pdkl95 10y ago> How so? When I explain modern tracking practices to normal, non-technical people that have never heard of it before, on e of the most common responses is, "Why aren't they in jail?" A lot of people feel unauthorized tracking should be a criminal offense. They currently feel powerless to do anything about it. In the long term, breeding resentment will eventually result in people finding a way to strike back. This is how bad regulation happens. > improve reddit's content Reddit can ask first. Getting informed consent is not hard (opt-in). Are basic manners and politeness that hard of a concept? > already blocked said tracking That requires specific technical knowledge. Privacy should not be limited to a technical priesthood. > ornery Maybe you should stop labeling people that would like to preserve privacy as "ornery".
- r3bl 10y agoSo, by the current state of things, I'll have to visit the privacy settings in every single social network I'm using on a monthly basis just to make sure that they haven't pushed something I didn't agree on by subscribing to their service? Great!
- econner 10y agoIt's probably in the privacy policy / terms of service that you don't read when signing up (no one does...). It's actually nice of Reddit to announce these sorts of changes and not just say "we updated our privacy policy"
- noir_lord 10y agoSmart not nice. Reddit has a large community of technology savvy users what looks better "We started doing X that some of you may not like" vs "We updated our privacy policy"..few days later "They started doing X, burn them!". I wish more companies would be smart.
- IanCal 10y agoI shouldn't be hearing of this through a different news site though. I received no email about this, nor a private message. It's not even in their announcements. This message is only in /r/changelog, and going backwards they first introduced this 4 months ago, had to roll back and have been rolling it out again with other options. This is not a nice way of introducing what is, to me, a fairly large privacy change.
- duaneb 10y agoIf you want to be private, don't use a social network where you are the product. Did you seriously expect reddit to NOT track your actions? If you ran the product, you would also want to collect metrics to understand how your users use the site. Of course, I imagine the big win here would be people not logged in, so even registering to opt out would be a win for reddit.
- Dylan16807 10y ago
- frou_dh 10y agoSomething I find bizarre about the current mobile reddit website is notifications at the bottom of the screen which must be dismissed, that include "you have been disconnected from the internet" and "you have been reconnected to the internet", as a consequence of Wifi changes. You are just a damn website! I do want every website considering itself so important that it needs to subsume duties of the OS and present them with its own branding.
- Someone1234 10y agoI don't follow. The banner is based on if the JavaScript on the page can communicate with the Reddit server so things like upvote/downvote/save/hide will be correctly stored.
- frou_dh 10y agoShow an error if/when the user tries to initiate an action. It's ludicrous to have to tap to dismiss "you have been reconnected to the internet" popovers on (potentially multiple) websites.
- __derek__ 10y agoIf that's the intent, those messages are not at all specific enough to be useful to the user. If there's an issue communicating with the server, let the user know in a targeted notification that can be easily associated to the action just taken.
- digi_owl 10y agoIt if had said "connected to Reddit" nobody would blink. But "the internet"? Straight hubris.
- PeCaN 10y agoI downloaded a different Android browser (Lightning¹) that I set to send a desktop useragent and use that for redditing. Works nicely for avoiding reddit's impressively awful mobile site. ¹ https://github.com/anthonycr/Lightning-Browser https://github.com/anthonycr/Lightning-Browser
- 10y ago
- LeoPanthera 10y agoI first noticed this yesterday when nothing was loading. Turned out "out.reddit.com" was down, thus breaking every single link. That got turned off immediately.
- djsumdog 10y agoTheir warrant canary is gone, they've banned tons of subs that were barely controversial, and they added a way to block people you don't like making it an echo chamber. I'd say I want to hack on a federated Reddit clone, but looking at the state of federated social networking, I already feel it'd be dead in the water. Having to opt-out of tracking feels like another nail in the coffin.
- whamlastxmas 10y agoVoat.co It's full of racism and bigotry and it's not nearly as active as Reddit, but it's something.
- effingwewt 10y agoHa! As if those things don't exist on reddit.
- whamlastxmas 10y agoIt's more that it's the overwhelming number of users on Voat.co, and the annoying minority on reddit (and they typically stay to their own subreddits because they're usually downvoted everywhere else).
- sdegutis 10y agoThe world is a museum of echo chambers. You can't escape it, it's in our nature. People want confirmation bias.
- simonswords82 10y agoLook no further than Brexit and /r/unitedkingdom for a perfect example of this. You would not think that half the UK population voted to leave the EU based on the rhetoric in that sub. The pro-remain echo is deafening.
- keithpeter 10y ago
- soared 10y agoI'm stunned they weren't already doing this. It takes all of 30 seconds [1] to track this and is /incredibly/ useful, especially on a site that's used largely for outbound links. I have outbound link tracking set up for every client and personal website. Same with email address clicks, button clicks, file downloads, etc. Did anyone really think websites weren't doing this? This is incredibly innocuous compared to other things. [1] http://www.amazeemetrics.com/en/blog/google-tag-manager-tutorial-part-1-tracking-outbound-links-gtm-version-2 http://www.amazeemetrics.com/en/blog/google-tag-manager-tuto...
- Noseshine 10y agoGiven that they always had the occasional, well, quite frequent actually, "all our servers are busy" problem, while having a monetization problem (meaning investing in infrastructure isn't something decided lightly), I find it perfectly reasonable. Or do you have a concrete - and I mean concrete monetization plan for that data? Not just an "idea", it should be as real as the cost of creating and maintaining the additional server(s) for tracking (even more) stuff, and also why it's more important than finally solving their "busy servers" problem. Everything sounds easy from a high-level management perspective. Until you actually have to do it and can't just wave hundreds of "details" aside.
- soared 10y agoThat is a good point. I forget how small of a team they have and their existing/significant problems. I guess I should be more amazed at reddit's lack of .. success? They have so many users and so much engagement and yet they tried to monetize with a 3rd part affiliate link program. I suppose data isn't something they could competently use.
- toomuchtodo 10y agoUsers and engagement don't always make for profit unfortunately (or even revenue for that matter!).
- Klathmon 10y ago
- 1_2__3 10y agoYeah I found this out the hard way when my content blocker stopped letting me click on anything in Reddit. It's actually pretty shady.
- necessity 10y agoWhat are you using? I'm using NoScript, but had to allow reddit.com and redditstatic.com, otherwise "reply" and "edit" buttons do not work. HN works just fine without JS. I find it odd that before allowing redditstatic, NoScript offers to block googleanalytics.com, but after allowing there isn't that option anymore, as if it was somehow being loaded.
- J_Darnley 10y agoI hope to see all those complaining over on Voat (https://voat.co/ https://voat.co/) tomorrow. The programming subverse definitely needs more activity.
- kup0 10y agoDoesn't seem to be a good decision for Reddit to only post this to r/changelog and not post it in r/announcements. Even if it's overall an innocuous thing, I find it shady that an opt-out tracking system is not announced publicly to Reddit. Were they trying to hide it until someone found it? Seems it would have been smarter for them to control the message around this option than let their users do so.
- dang 10y agoHow would you guys feel if we tracked outbound clicks on HN? I've always assumed people would hate it, but on the other hand users frequently ask things like how many people vote for a story without clicking on it, and it would gratify curiosity (the name of the game here) to know things like that. Edit: I suppose it's a dumb question because the answers can only be one-sided.
- jychang 10y agoMake it opt in, because most people wouldn't like it here. Even if only a certain percentage of people make up your sample size, you can still get valid data.
- philipov 10y agoI suspect that the sort of person who would opt in to this would not be a random sample of the population of HN, and so the data would be biased by default.
- beagle3 10y ago> you can still get valid data. That would be stretching the definition of "valid". You would get statistics about a group of "I don't care I'm being tracked" people, which is surely statistically different than the group of "I do care about being tracked" people. At the very least, they would have significantly different click rates (and involvement) with the subject like "how to disable web site tracking", but I suspect it's deeper than that -- e.g., they will have statistically significant involvement with security related subjects.
- andybak 10y agoYep. I would count any 'opt-in' analytics as irretrievably tainted even if by some miracle the sample size made it useful.
- Razengan 10y agoAs long as we can still right/control-click on a link and copy it unmodified for someone, I see no problem. That's one of the worst things I hate about Google.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- beedogs 10y agoJust another reason to delete your reddit account with regularity. I've lost count of how many accounts I've been through now.
- scrollaway 10y agoReally? 1. Why do you think deleting and creating a new account helps? The data isn't account-bound, it's aggregate. 2. Do you realize there's an option in the account settings to disable it? Deleting your account only serves to reset that option. 3. If you're against reddit's behaviour, why do you continue using the site? It's funny, your post feels pretty representative of what I've come to realize is "privacy extremism". In the name of privacy, refusing to tolerate or even understand what websites, companies etc are doing. It's counterproductive to your own cause. I mean, even if you thought you were doing yourself a favour deleting your own accounts, you're a fool if you think it's not possible to associate your old accounts to your new ones.
- beedogs 10y agoFrankly, I don't care what you think is ideal user behaviour. Users on reddit are by-and-large such feral pieces of garbage that deleting one's account and starting over every couple of months is a necessity anyway. Once the trolls there start stalking you simply for making comments, you'll understand.
- chii 10y agothe thing i hate isn't that there's tracking, but that it now takes an extra redirect to click on anything. Also don't like tracking in general for privacy reasons, but it's a minor concern next to performance.
- known 10y agoChange it in https://www.reddit.com/prefs/ https://www.reddit.com/prefs/
- cJ0th 10y agoI don't mean to be snarky but I guess I am genuinely 'out of the loop' as they say: What user base is reddit trying to attract atm ?