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I noticed this part of the spec too: > When the `ping` attribute is present, user agents should clearly indicate to the user that following the hyperlink will

by varenc 5y ago

I noticed this part of the spec too: > When the `ping` attribute is present, user agents should clearly indicate to the user that following the hyperlink will also cause secondary requests to be sent in the background, possibly including listing the actual target URLs. > For example, a visual user agent could include the hostnames of the target ping URLs along with the hyperlink's actual URL in a status bar or tooltip. Does any browser supporting pings actually do that?? Also the "Note" in that section provides a decent argument for supporting `ping`. Basically, users will have their clicks tracked anyway, but the `ping` attribute provides more transparency and a better user experience. Though the transparency part is debatable given browser implementations.

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
Third party links won't be "tracked anyway" if you're blocking JS. That's the only reason to have this feature since a site can track activity from its own links via logs.
- nephanth 5y ago
  This is wrong : what google currently does on firefox is make you go through a link that logs you clicked on it, then redirects you to your destination. This doesn't need any javascript, it just needs to log your http request, so it should work on any browser (even, say, elinks)
account42 5y ago
> Also the "Note" in that section provides a decent argument for supporting `ping`. Basically, users will have their clicks tracked anyway, but the `ping` attribute provides more transparency and a better user experience. I see this argument used a lot for including user-hostile features in browsers. I don't think it's a good argument since having a browser implementation a) makes this privacy abuse easier and b) legitimizes the practice. Meanwhile as shown in this post, user-preference to disable the feature is ignored and simply worked around by websites.

by varenc 5y ago

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago

Third party links won't be "tracked anyway" if you're blocking JS. That's the only reason to have this feature since a site can track activity from its own links via logs.

nephanth 5y ago
This is wrong : what google currently does on firefox is make you go through a link that logs you clicked on it, then redirects you to your destination. This doesn't need any javascript, it just needs to log your http request, so it should work on any browser (even, say, elinks)

account42 5y ago

> Also the "Note" in that section provides a decent argument for supporting `ping`. Basically, users will have their clicks tracked anyway, but the `ping` attribute provides more transparency and a better user experience. I see this argument used a lot for including user-hostile features in browsers. I don't think it's a good argument since having a browser implementation a) makes this privacy abuse easier and b) legitimizes the practice. Meanwhile as shown in this post, user-preference to disable the feature is ignored and simply worked around by websites.