• Saledovil@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      31 minutes ago

      Actually, it’s a a bit of a shitpost. Anything after the ‘?’ is an argument for the html request. Can and is used for tracking, but is also used for website functionality.

  • Samsy@lemmy.ml
    10·
    4 hours ago

    There are URL shortener Apps on F-Droid. Simple share the link to this app and get a short link without this privacy mess.

  • dan@upvote.au
    18·
    10 hours ago

    This is kinda true but also kinda fear mongering. UTM parameters are just to track where you clicked the link from. They’re usually not dynamic, and don’t contain anything about you personally. The example in the screenshot utm_source=newsletter is probably added to all links in a company’s newsletter email, so they can tell that people get to the page via the newsletter.

  • gerald_eliasweb@reddthat.com
    6·
    8 hours ago

    I did not know what those were for before seeing this but I remeber seeing “source=chat_gpt” next to a link to a source in a news article and thought that it was odd.

  • Korhaka@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    41·
    14 hours ago

    I usually just do it because shorter links look better than 30 lines of crap

    • vithigar@lemmy.ca
      10·
      13 hours ago

      Right? The fact that this is an extra bit of tracking information I don’t want makes this an easy sell for anyone looking for a reason to do this, but for me it’s because it just makes links uglier.

  • NotSteve_@piefed.caEnglish
    75·
    17 hours ago

    Everything after the ? can be safely removed

    This is usually true but but not always. There’s often times when a URL query like that is used to choose the page to load. I believe wordpress does this

    • kungen@feddit.nu
      214·
      16 hours ago

      Only on “I have really bad SEO” kinds of blogs. Query strings have been considered a negative thing for many many years.

      • lime!@feddit.nuEnglish
        141·
        15 hours ago

        whuh? querystrings are integral to things like pagination. they are by no means a negative thing.

          • keegomatic@lemmy.world
            8·
            13 hours ago

            Pagination query params can be in the URL params, but that’s not normal at all. They’re pretty much always use query params, and it’s very reasonable to do so. Filtering, search, and pagination all typically go in query params.

          • lime!@feddit.nuEnglish
            2·
            14 hours ago

            that’s very hard to make idiomatic, and if it’s in the querystring it’s easier to change manually because you can annotate each entry more easily.

    • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
      6·
      15 hours ago

      WordPress uses a taxonomic system you choose with a mix of the Settings page and how you organize your template hierarchy. To my knowledge there is no out of the box query url functionality in the core system.

    • brown567@sh.itjust.works
      1·
      15 hours ago

      Sometimes I’ll post a picture straight from a duckduckgo search, and it doesn’t work without the stuff after the ?

      (I’m also not sure how long the url is valid for, so I try not to do this too often)

  • Eheran@lemmy.world
    1061·
    18 hours ago

    So annoying to always have to find out how far you can trim a URL before it breaks.

  • Microw@piefed.zipEnglish
    7·
    12 hours ago

    If you run across a link with a regular “?utm_source=…” , that can not tell people anything about you. It simply tells the website “register one click onto this article coming from this specific newsletter we sent out”. It does not tie this information to you.

    With other tracking things, what is described here is absolutely possible though.

  • Dharma Curious (he/him)@slrpnk.net
    5·
    12 hours ago

    Most of my internetin’ is done on mobile, because I’m very rarely at my desk, and when I am, I’m normally working on school. Are there any solutions to handling this easily on mobile without having to manually erase part of the pasted link when I go to send it to someone? A few people have mentioned that’s it’s not 100% guaranteed that the anything after ? Is worthless, so I don’t know how to ensure I’m not breaking a link