PSA: LJ tracking your clicks

[asterroc]

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.

Try clicking on this link for example:

http://www.amazon.com/Applied-Cryptography-Protocols-Algorithms-Source/dp/0471117099/

Do NOT right-click to open it in a new window or you'll miss it. Just click once to open it in this window.

If you think that's a crock of shit too, there is a way to "opt out" of it. Go to the admin console here, and type in "set opt_exclude_stats 1" (without the quotes) and reload any page that you were reading for it to take effect.

More posts on this:
http://shatterstripes.livejournal.com/1065670.html
http://caffeinepuppy.livejournal.com/214632.html

Pass it on.

Edit: Some people report not seeing it. There's a few possibilities: (1) it's happening too fast for you to see the bump forward, in which case look for the new window popping open when you directly click. Try installing an add-on that explicitly pauses with each bump forward - see brynndragon's comment for one for Firefox. (2) It may be that this only happens in some styles (including mine), so it may be that the javascript is only embedded in the code of some styles that LJ provides rather than being LJ-wide.

Edit again: There's some evidence that rather than tracking our visits to other websites, that the purpose of this is that LJ is actually trying to scrape off some profit by inserting their referral info when we visit commercial sites such as Amazon - the links above have more informed discussion about it. The actual insertion of LJ's referral info would be by the "outboundlink.net" website. This does not exclude the possibility of LJ/outboundlink tracking where we go from LJ, they could very well be doing both.

Son of Edit: Apparently the original intent was to add the affiliate/referral info if the original link did not have it, not to strip the original affiliate/referral info from links that had one originally. It was also supposed to be a transparent process, meaning the interference/tracking by outboundlink was supposed to be hidden so we weren't supposed to ever know about it. Jah, that's so much better. Source

Comments

[spazzy444.livejournal.com]

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.livejournal.com]

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

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

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.livejournal.com]

It didn't do it for me. Weird.

[meig.livejournal.com]

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

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

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.livejournal.com]

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

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

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.livejournal.com]

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.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

It's been reported that LJ has taken out the outboundlink.net code. I don't know if you use Gmail, but if you do you can see the behavior in question by clicking on the reply-to link in the e-mail.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Thanks, adding! :)

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

thanks, done