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Several Major Browsers to Prevent Disabling of Click-Tracking 'Hyperlink Auditing' (bleepingcomputer.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the pinging-back dept.

x_t0ken_407 quotes BleepingComputer: A HTML standard called hyperlink auditing that allows sites to track link clicks is enabled by default on Safari, Chrome, Opera, and Microsoft Edge, but will soon have no way to disable it. As it is considered a privacy risk, browsers previously allowed you to disable this feature. Now they are going in the opposite direction.

Hyperlink auditing is an HTML standard that allows the creation of special links that ping back to a specified URL when they are clicked on. These pings are done in the form of a POST request to the specified web page that can then examine the request headers to see what page the link was clicked on.
The article concludes that "Firefox and Brave win the award" for people who want this click-tracking capability disabled -- since "only Brave and Firefox currently disable it by default, and do not appear to have any plans on enabling it in the future."

5 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. Turned off by default in firefox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Went looking for how to turn it off, article was kind enough to provide the necessary about:config setting, it's "browser.send_pings".

    Firefox already has it off by default. Nice! for once.

    1. Re:Turned off by default in firefox by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Informative

      For Chrome install uBlock Origin and it's an option under "Privacy".

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  2. Re:Can't this just be done with Javascript? by MrL0G1C · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I loathe links made in that manner because when you right-click them they aren't treated as links so you can't open them in a new tab with a right-click or copy the link etc. That is a mistake IMO, if it's a link when you left-click it then it should also be treated as a link when you right-click it.

    --
    Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
  3. Chromium Issue 935978 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Chrome devs have removed the hidden setting while they debate promoting it into the regular settings UI. If you want this, star the bug (but don't flood the comments too much):
    Issue 935978

  4. Re:Tim Berners-Lee, the hypocrite by diamondmagic · · Score: 5, Informative

    No, "ping" isn't in the official HTML specification. What /. linked to is the Google's unofficial fork of HTML.

    --
    Wonder what the public key field is for?