PSA: LJ tracking your clicks

[zandperl]

When you click on certain links from LJ, such as eBay, or Amazon.com, instead of actually going to that link directly it does two things: (1) pops it up in a new window, and (2) routes you through "outboundlink.net" first, so they're tracking where you go

Comments

[spazzy444]

Thank you

[rosefox]

Huh. That doesn't happen when I view your post in my custom LJ style, but it does when I view it in your style.

[zandperl]

Hm, I wonder if the javascript is only embedded in some LJ styles.

[hrafn]

It didn't happen for me. Regardless of reading it in my style or yours. I wonder if they quit it already? WTF, LJ??

[meig]

It didn't do it for me. Weird.

[meig]

None of the links on those LJs you linked to did it, either.

[benndragon]

If people aren't seeing the outboundlink.net bit, they may want to try the addon RequestPolicy. Amongst other things that reveal problems such as the one you describe, it will not auto-jump through such hoops to a site but pauses to make sure you want to continue down the link chain. (I highly recommend this addon if you're at all curious who is following you around the internet and/or want them to stop it already, plus it's an amazing adblocker, but you will frequently have to add sites (e.g. wp.com for wordpress blogs) to the allow list to get pages to appear as they should)

[hrafn]

Oh, good to know! I'm already running NoScript and Adblock - will RequestPolicy play nice with them?

[benndragon]

I wish I could tell you, but I haven't tried mixing it in with either of those addons. If you give it a go, please let me know :).

[hrafn]

Well, so far it seems to be playing well with my other add-ons, but I'm still not getting any notification about this LJ redirect thingy, regardless of whether I allow or disallow LJ. So I don't know if perhaps I have some NoScript setting that's preventing this (I don't think so), or LJ stopped doing this before I got to it or what.