PSA: How to scrub your URLs before posting and why it matters

[LearnedHand]

WHY IT MATTERS: I’ll start here. All those weird characters in a URL mean and do something. They are parameters for behavioral and advertising trackers, and they send data to third-party databases for everyone who clicks the link. One reason we become DU star members is to avoid the advertising — and by extension, ad tracking — that otherwise funds DU. Not cleaning the URLs you post sort of subverts that.

HOW TO SCRUB A URL BEFORE YOU POST IT
1. Paste your URL into a DU post while composing but before you post it.
2. Locate the question mark near the front of the URL.
3. Select and delete the question mark and everything after it.
4. Copy the clean URL and paste it over your “dirty” URL.

EXAMPLE DIRTY URL
(URL fixed to not embed the tweet and spaced to show where trackers start) All the BOLD stuff here are the tracking parameters:
https [colon whack whack] x [dot] com/GaryPetersonUSA/status/1834561559210704969 ?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1834561559210704969%7Ctwgr%5Ec3db9ef910d3c46e40c0e3ca36296f6015f8dcd7%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.miaminewtimes.com%2Fnews%2Fis-trump-having-an-affair-with-laura-loomer-the-far-right-extremist-21281352

SAME URL BUT SCRUBBED
https [colon whack whack] x [dot] com/GaryPetersonUSA/status/1834561559210704969

[FirstLight]

1. Nice

Wonder if this works in all platforms? or are the algorithms too imbedded?

I have no idea how it works but I'm down to learn

[LearnedHand]

4. It does because these parameter calls are browser-based

Meaning they are embedded in the links, and when you click the link your browser sends a response to the distant database. It’s an opaque concept to be sure, but it helps develop good browsing hygiene to be aware that all our device browsers do this.

[Random Boomer]

52. It's recommended any time, any where you post a URL

I've always pasted my URLs into Notepad, cleared out the tracking garbage, then copied again to paste into whatever platform post I'm making.

[Dave Bowman]

2. Thanks for the tip.

[mahina]

3. Thank you so very much for this. Bookmarked. I couldn't get this to post on fb today. I don't see the trackers. Are

They always found after a ? Mahalo nui! (many thanks!)

Link to tweet

[LearnedHand]

7. This is what I see when I open the link

I’m changing the URL a little so the tweet doesn’t embed again. Everything in bold strikethrough below represents the trackers:

https [colon whack whack] x [dot] com/CalltoActivism/status/1834387610115985472?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%
5E1834387610115985472%7Ctwgr%5E24b193bdc7b4e6fdd14f2802167f47ee7505fd95%7Ctwcon
%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.democraticunderground.com%2F100219458740

[LearnedHand]

9. Oh and to your question

I think so? The question mark is typically the indicator, but I don’t know if it is always the indicator. Personally, if I’m unsure of a URL, I delete the question mark and everything after it and try it. If it opens the expected page, you have scrubbed out trackers. If the expected page doesn’t open, it somehow was part of the page call itself. For example, shopping site URLs typically have question marks before the product you’re browsing. In this case, the question mark is important.

[niyad]

23. That video clip is amazing in terms of labelling. What movie is it from?

[LearnedHand]

26. Isn't that a Captain America film?

[LearnedHand]

27. Wait no. It's Avengers: Endgame

[niyad]

28. Thank you. Have never seen any of the Marvel/DC universes films.

[LearnedHand]

29. I've seen all but the MULTIVERSE films

The sort of lost me there. I’m a huge fan of the films up through Infinity Wars though. I just thought that clip was from one of Cap’s solo films at first.

[Dennis Donovan]

5. I've been doing that for years...

especially if they contain "source=twitter" - counts as an engagement or "click" for Elmo's "X" (which is how he lures advertisers) and I refuse to give him engagements from DU.

[LearnedHand]

8. Exactly!

An excellent additional reason to scrub the URL.

[Hekate]

6. Kick. Rec. Bookmark. Scrubbing URLs....

Thanks!

PSA: How to scrub your URLs before posting and why it matters

WHY IT MATTERS: I’ll start here. All those weird characters in a URL mean and do something. They are parameters for behavioral and advertising trackers, and they send data to third-party databases for everyone who clicks the link. One reason we become DU star members is to avoid the advertising — and by extension, ad tracking — that otherwise funds DU. Not cleaning the URLs you post sort of subverts that.

HOW TO SCRUB A URL BEFORE YOU POST IT
1. Paste your URL into a DU post while composing but before you post it.
2. Locate the question mark near the front of the URL.
3. Select and delete the question mark and everything after it.
4. Copy the clean URL and paste it over your “dirty” URL.

EXAMPLE DIRTY URL
(URL fixed to not embed the tweet and spaced to show where trackers start) All the BOLD stuff here are the tracking parameters:
https [colon whack whack] x [dot] com/GaryPetersonUSA/status/1834561559210704969 ?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1834561559210704969%7Ctwgr%5Ec3db9ef910d3c46e40c0e3ca36296f6015f8dcd7%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.miaminewtimes.com%2Fnews%2Fis-trump-having-an-affair-with-laura-loomer-the-far-right-extremist-21281352

SAME URL BUT SCRUBBED
https [colon whack whack] x [dot] com/GaryPetersonUSA/status/1834561559210704969

[moniss]

10. thanks.nt

[cachukis]

11. Thanks.

[ms liberty]

12. Thanks, I didn't know that

[calimary]

39. Neither did I!

But I have been noticing these long-ass links lately with the letter-and-number gobbledygook.

Now, I’ll just look for the question mark, and delete from there.

[Warpy]

13. To keep trackers and beacons off your own computer, consider running Ghostery

If you can set your browser to delete cookies, history and cache when you close it, consider that.

If you must visit dodgy websites, use a VPN with antivirus.

I have no illusions about being untraceable on the web. I just don't make it easy for them.

[LearnedHand]

14. Another good browser extension is Privacy Badger by Electronic Freedom Foundation

It doesn’t block ads, so you’ll want to also run an ad blocker, but Privacy Badger scrubs all those trackers like Ghostery. Thanks Warpy!

[Warpy]

16. Thanks to you, too

Ghostery has worked so well for me for several years that I hadn't gone searching for another program.

I was a very early user of Ghostery back in the day. It did a great job of taking out the trash to the point that neither Google nor YouTube knew who the hell I was any more. I liked that. I do have to parse my searches a little more carefully.

[LearnedHand]

21. "Taking out the trash" is right!

I used to use Ghostery until I found out about Privacy Badger. I really like the work EFF does, and I appreciate all the tools they put in citizens’s hands to protect themselves. If anyone wants to learn more about self-protection on the internet, I recommend EFF’s Surveillance Self Defense.

https://www.eff.org/pages/surveillance-self-defense

[orthoclad]

63. I also like NoScript

Much surveillance needs to run a script to work, like the Meta tracking pixel. NoScript can block them.

[orthoclad]

65. It takes a finite number of processor cycles to jump over hurdles

Overload the spy computers by making it harder.

[Warpy]

67. I live to make life harder for thieves and cheats

and advertisers who use services I pay for to try to spy on me to target advertising (pr worse) are both.

[Wild blueberry]

15. Thank you

[TwilightZone]

17. Thanks for posting. I post about this a lot, but your post is more comprehensive.

I usually just say "delete everything after the ?"

[LearnedHand]

19. Honestly, it's hard to do this

If you press the Share button on a mobile device, you might not even notice the URL contains all this extra stuff. Also, it’s really hard to be vigilant, and It takes much more work. I’m just hoping to demystify it a little.

[Igel]

42. I guess the answer is to copy the link, paste it, and manually delete all the

track-related portion of the URL.

[progree]

18. Another reason - sometimes DU software doesn't render a usable link when there is all that junk

Last edited Fri Sep 13, 2024, 07:22 PM - Edit history (1)

in it.

And oftentimes I want the URL to show so people know exactly what they are clicking, and I want it to appear (and be) clean, not 4 lines of mostly worthless junk which might not work anyway when click on it.

e.g. a clean and transparent links:
https://finance.yahoo.com/
https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/interest-rates/cme-fedwatch-tool.html

ETA - and when the link is exposed, it also can be scraped and pasted to somewhere else (a Word file, notepad file, another post, whatever) and it shows, which is usually what I want.

[LearnedHand]

22. Exactly right!

It’s also the reason there are visible characters after an embedded tweet or video or image. DU doesn’t embed the tracker portion of those URLs, so they hang out visible after the embedded thing.

[Picaro]

20. Thank you

Don’t post a lot of 3rd party content, but very nice to know.

[MagickMuffin]

24. Also works on YouTube videos and social media sites

I figured it out after posting, you can see the ? once you post something. I then went deleted everything after the ? And everything worked fine!


Thanks for helping the forum!

[LearnedHand]

25. You're exactly right

And you’re very welcome!

[RidinWithHarris]

30. Somebody posted about this a long time back (when I was just lurking) and the advice helped for a while

It's good to see a refresher.

[tavernier]

31. So you're saying...

Lighting a bundle of sage in the room and chanting repeated phrases of wisdom from Dylan aren’t as effective?

Hmm.

[et tu]

34. only ifyou are on firefox lol nt

[LearnedHand]

40. Always helpful, but advertisers don't care

Freaking sharks are always looking to defeat our protections. As someone said above, we can’t be completely invisible, but we can sometimes make it more annoying for them.

[orthoclad]

32. Thank you

The net is corporate surveillance hell. We don't need to help them.

For example, read this article:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/sep/04/yes-it-sounds-like-a-conspiracy-theory-but-maybe-our-phones-really-are-listening-to-us

Despite the fact pretty much everyone has a story involving chatting about something only to see an ad for that something pop up on a device, the idea that your phone actively listens to you has long been dismissed as silly. After all, brands don’t need to eavesdrop like that – they already have access to millions of data points that build up a detailed picture of your habits and predicted purchases.
...
404 Media, a tech-focused news site, recently got hold of a pitch deck from Cox Media Group (CMG), touting its “Active Listening” software, which targets adverts based on what people say near their device microphones. The presentation doesn’t specify whether this voice data comes from smart TVs, smart speakers, or smartphones but the slide where it extols “the power of voice (and our devices’ microphones)” has a picture of people looking at their phones.

Follow some of the links in the article for truly hair-raising reading. Do we really think this listening will be confined to just sending us ads?

(edit: I use a landline and a flip phone, have no "smart" devices, and disable Siri and Alexa on all computers - at least I hope they're disabled.)

[LearnedHand]

41. I saw that the other day

I do have a smart phone and use it exclusively (no landline). But I do try to make it harder for the surveillance capitalism to work.

[orthoclad]

61. When I do have to break down and get a snarkphone,

I will strip it of apps and try to find a physical mike mute (tape doesn't work well). I don't trust software indicators showing the mike off, easy to fake them.

It's getting difficult to operate with a computer. Very little new software for desktop machines.

I miss having separate mikes and cameras I can unplug. I favor refurb hardware and old OS's, from earlier times ( like 2 years ago, snark).

Landlines are protected by wiretap laws. It takes a court order to legally listen in. Anything cellular, tho, is open to anybody at all, no warrant, no court order. Police commonly use a device called a Scorpion to spoof cell towers and listen to conversations. Anybody can buy a Scorpion and use it.

We're moving into a police state with a grin on our face. We need a wiretap law for cellular, including most internet connections these days.

[LiberalLoner]

33. Thanks, I didn't know this!

[SharonAnn]

35. Thank you.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

36. I do that with YouTube links.

Maybe because of being slightly OCD and not liking the extra characters. Thanks for filling us in on what they do.

[DoBW]

37. book marked.....nt

[B.See]

38. Re. Scrubbing urls: many thanks.

[Igel]

43. Thanks.

(This isn't a word I often use online.)

Useful info, and info from the thread's already implemented.

But part of me is especially grateful because now I have a short word for "backslash": "whack."

I rather like how "whack whack dot" rolls off the tongue and can be slightly re-emphasized to tell a recalcitrant HS senior a URL that I've already said a half-dozen times.

[LearnedHand]

46. It's a shortcut we use in IT when describing URLs

Very handy.

[DoBW]

47. ifbyoudelrte the URl ...

is that wacking off?

[KS Toronado]

44. This one has no "?" but I believe it's tracking software

hXtXtXpXsX:X/X/Xblogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjULBPpGCaIFxwHxwGTmWahvYdphylNeTdAxi35HZpI4G7wNiNaT0ubNG9z5V-BExeJ9H9covzDGyu7xSHNH_kXytMCYIoJIK9jadmMpWBekjEMWmlF9oNwehjUBCW8PKrPrVc7UFE7HIquJSkjYGdNu0DD_qPQk4SPt2mjUd9Ik38Q95ibmrL3VfDh16xJ/w473-h468/2c94ccf3-a8a8-4733-975b-9d94b54af547_362x358.jpg

What to erase here?

[LearnedHand]

45. No I think not actually

The URL itself is wack, but if you look all the way to the end it ends with “.jpg”. This is literally how the browser translates googles URLs to their photos, maybe in someone’s google drive or maybe a search?

[SorellaLaBefana]

48. Yet another reason to use FireFox (nee Mozilla) which has right-click "Copy Link Without Site Tracking"

Just saying...

Admittedly, am writing this on Chrome tho, since The Google still actively breaks many sites which do not use Chrome.

There are right-click extensions for Chrome, some of which (I believe) may allow for similar behaviour—however try to avoid extensions when possible.

Do use FF on morning startup, as always begin with the same sites (which all work w FF, else they get dropped), and often find myself sending links

[bagimin]

49. Oh god

just shoot me

[JohnnyRingo]

50. Thanx for clarifying that.

[Pluvious]

51. Thank you for the effort... One additional thing:

I always test the trimmed URL, to affirm none of the query parameters of the URI are required for a successful request

Cheers

[LearnedHand]

60. Great advice!

To all on this thread, imagine this is Step 4.

[wolfie001]

53. I use postimage.cc all the time here to post images

Can someone please decipher this url and let me know if I have to do any thinning out? Obviously, there's no question mark. Thanks

*********https //i.postimg.cc/cJkRSTwx/Baby-Huey-publicity-cel-600.jpg

[LearnedHand]

62. This looks like a clean URL

It’s just the address of a jpeg image. Well done!

[wolfie001]

66. Thank you!!!

I've been using that site regularly

[generalbetrayus]

54. Thanks for the tip.

As a star member, I still get ads off and on. I'm not sure, but maybe it happens after I post a URL.

[SidneyR]

55. Is there a way to copy an URL to paste elsewhere but make it play on the page instead of going to X? (nt)

[FemDemERA]

56. Thanks LearnedHand for this post and

To all the others adding helpful tips. Bookmarking this one. 😊

[SalviaBlue]

57. Thanks!

[Easterncedar]

58. Thank you! Very good information.

Very helpful

[SpankMe]

59. Good point. Good tutorial. Good advice.

Last edited Sun Sep 15, 2024, 12:16 PM - Edit history (1)

I discovered and learned about query strings with the question mark separator a couple of years ago and have been sanitizing my URL's ever since.

What would be nice is if there was some kind of scrubber in the forum software that would remove the separator and query string automatically when the preview and post buttons were pressed.

[LearnedHand]

64. I wondered about that myself

I don’t think the forum software has any such functionality, but someone above mentioned a browser extension that will do this. It’s worth investigating!

[Auggie]

68. Kick