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Your title is, at the very best, poorly phrased. At worst, intentionally misleading. Whether or not you approve of what they are doing, and regardless of whethe
by mthoms 6y ago
Your title is, at the very best, poorly phrased. At worst, intentionally misleading. Whether or not you approve of what they are doing, and regardless of whether what they are doing is moral - they are not "hijacking links". That practice of "hijacking links" specifically means re-writing/modifying existing links on pages that you don't control (hence the term "hijacking" - or taking what belongs to someone else).
A URL typed in an address bar is not "a link". It's a typed URL.
Curiously, your article seems to describe what is happening pretty accurately so it's hard to see why you chose the title you did (other than to be clickbait-y and sensationalist - you are selling a book on the topic after all).
Again, that's not to excuse what they are doing. At all. But link hijacking has come to have a specific meaning and this isn't it.
TL;DR - Link is short for hyper-link. There are no hyper-links involved here.
- mthoms 6y agoI know I'm not supposed to reference downvotes on HN. But I would like to kindly ask downvoters to explain why what I've written is incorrect.
- fault_lines 6y agoRegardless of whether the terminology is technically correct, it's easily understood what the meaning is. Modifying links and modifying typed URLs are equally bad, so your claim that it is sensationalist doesn't make sense. Your post is pure pedantry that does not make any substantive contribution.
- ketamine__ 6y agoIf he operates within a technical space (as he clearly does) surely correctness isn't too much to ask. I assumed from the title that Brave was adding affiliate codes to links on the page. That is not the case and now the author feels that he is a victim because Eich pointed this out. The author also added an inflammatory HN comment from this thread to his blog post. This doesn't make any substantive contribution and is sensational.
- mthoms 6y ago>Modifying links and modifying typed URLs are equally bad Sorry, but you're plainly wrong. "Modifying links" implies another victim in the scheme: The party who authored the link in the first place. It implies that a third party is being deprived of their affiliate revenue because the link they wrote was "hijacked". That's not what happened. No one is having anything stolen. If that distinction is not important to you.... then I don't know what to say. Words matter. Never more so than when making serious accusations.
- fault_lines 6y agoThey are equally bad because in both cases the user is taken to a place that they did not intend to go. They are not bad because something is getting "stolen", they are bad because the user is no longer in control. That is a significantly more concerning aspect than someone not receiving affiliate revenue, which to be completely honest, I couldn't care less about.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- mthoms 6y agoSo a third party also being wronged does not change anything because... you don't like the third party? Classy. Do you have an actual argument or is that it? Edit: This has got to be the first time I've seen an HN'er defend someone adding a clickbait title to their submission. A submission that points to their own marketing website. The guy is selling a book. Don't be so naive. The accusation stands on its own without sensationalizing it.
- fault_lines 6y agoI simply don't believe that mistakenly saying "links" instead of "URLs" is sensationalist. The author is not engaging in clickbait by substituting that word. A layman understanding of the web will not make a distinction between a URL and a link. The issue is clearly the fact that the browser deceives the user, whether it is changing a link in a page or changing the URL typed in the address bar, these are both equally deceptive from the user's point of view. Hell, I have a reasonably good knowledge of the terminology and I will regularly ask people to "send me links" or "send me URLs" interchangeably. It's just needlessly pedantic.