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Have you recently tried to share a link with someone? There's so much tracking shit appended onto the end of the link that by the time they get it and whatever

Have you recently tried to share a link with someone? There's so much tracking shit appended onto the end of the link that by the time they get it and whatever url parsing algorithm their device uses maims it, the url is no longer in tact and trying to click it brings you to a broken page. I make a concerted effort to remove all of that before sending, but Google et. al. are working very hard to make that harder and harder by continuing to make changes to obscure the link. I already have to copy it, and re-paste it into the mobile address bar just to see what the entire link looks like. The vast majority of users won't even know what parts of the url to trim, nor will they care enough to do it. So they just send a screenshot.

haskal 5y ago
> and trying to click it brings you to a broken page. Can you give an example of this (with the real link to compare)? Tracking info can be added to the URL but should not break the page. There are extensions and addons that remove the tracking data for you, you might want to give them a try.
- sathackr 5y ago
  It's not the tracking info that breaks it, it's that when the receiving device tries to parse the long url and figure out what part is a link and what part is just text, winds up with a broken link. I'm not able to find an immediate example but usually happens when sharing links via a format that doesn't explicitly format them as links, such as SMS As a rule I don't install any add-ons or extensions. Because a trusted extension today can become malicious tomorrow as has happened so many times.
- 542354234235 5y ago
  >There are extensions and addons that remove the tracking data for you, you might want to give them a try. Yes, but we are talking about why the average person just sends a screenshot. Insanely long links filled with tracking data that may or may not result in a clickable link on whatever app-browser-OS they are using is the reason. There is always a workaround for people that A: understand the problem, and B: care enough to find and use the workaround. But since the average person is not likely to pick this topic to use their limited time, energy and knowledge on, they go with the easy consistent option. Whenever there is a problem and the two options are 1. have all individuals change their behavior or 2. fix the system so the better option is the easiest, the answer is always 2.
toomanybeersies 5y ago
It wouldn't just benefit users if UTM params were automatically stripped off links when they were shared, it would also benefit the marketers/analysts, since they'd have less crappy data.

haskal 5y ago

> and trying to click it brings you to a broken page. Can you give an example of this (with the real link to compare)? Tracking info can be added to the URL but should not break the page. There are extensions and addons that remove the tracking data for you, you might want to give them a try.

sathackr 5y ago
It's not the tracking info that breaks it, it's that when the receiving device tries to parse the long url and figure out what part is a link and what part is just text, winds up with a broken link. I'm not able to find an immediate example but usually happens when sharing links via a format that doesn't explicitly format them as links, such as SMS As a rule I don't install any add-ons or extensions. Because a trusted extension today can become malicious tomorrow as has happened so many times.
542354234235 5y ago
>There are extensions and addons that remove the tracking data for you, you might want to give them a try. Yes, but we are talking about why the average person just sends a screenshot. Insanely long links filled with tracking data that may or may not result in a clickable link on whatever app-browser-OS they are using is the reason. There is always a workaround for people that A: understand the problem, and B: care enough to find and use the workaround. But since the average person is not likely to pick this topic to use their limited time, energy and knowledge on, they go with the easy consistent option. Whenever there is a problem and the two options are 1. have all individuals change their behavior or 2. fix the system so the better option is the easiest, the answer is always 2.

toomanybeersies 5y ago

It wouldn't just benefit users if UTM params were automatically stripped off links when they were shared, it would also benefit the marketers/analysts, since they'd have less crappy data.