Here's the github, it looks like the chrome extension linked in the README is no longer there: https://github.com/huntwelch/UTM-Mangler
I use Google Analytics for a side project site I run for the video game Destiny. I like to look at referral URLs so I can see if some publication has linked to me, if a video has been made about my site, or if there's a discussion on reddit going on that would be relevant.
I know it's popular to think about the only entities using analytics are big faceless organisations and sending them to graphic porn websites is cool, but please remember that a) they're still just humans and b) people run cute little side projects like mine and I don't want to see tubgirl or whatever when going through my referrals.
Block GA, strip referrals, whatever. I don't care. Just please don't abuse people like this.
If you're doing "guerrilla advertising for those sites" - I just think you're a wanker. It's ineffective and silly.
Seriously--if you're abusing my privacy by tracking me without my consent (without my ACTUAL consent), what makes you think you have any moral claim whatsoever over me?
You really don't want to be sending offensive material out to people. you don't know who the recipient could be. The chances are it's just their job, and the decision to track you wasn't theirs.
I agree that web tracking is pernicious but responding proportionally is important. The person who ends up clicking on that link very well may have no decision making power in their organization. There's a good chance they're some random minimum wage contractor that found the job through a temp agency. Why is it okay for you to subject them to potentially traumatic content?
It's not really any different from random people sending you random links over a messaging service. Would you click on any "interesting" links sent to you by people you don't know, much less trust? It's the same thing. Offensive websites might have shock value but they're actually quite harmless after you close the tab. What if it's a malware site that exploits some 0day in your browser?
I can understand wanting to tailor your own online experience for speed or privacy. But this is petty, ugly, and vindictive.
I was casually musing about such an idea myself a while back: https://twitter.com/harry_wood/status/735048026335682561 . This offers a way to more actively fight back against the over-use of messy UTM URLs. Perhaps a gentler thing to do would be to link to a place/places which re-educate web developers on how to design URLs. (It seems there's a few folk round here who need some re-education on this matter!)
Seems a popular opinion that user tracking = bad but it's more nuanced than that.
edit: And somehow this is auto-downvoted within 30 seconds? This website is so fantastic!
My point here is that, where you see a dishonest human communication, could just as easily have been a different convention in the computer protocol. It's pretty fuzzy where bits of data you send down the wire suddenly have real human-semantic communication impact. The Law has to make those choices, but as hackers we know that it's fundamentally a bit arbitrary, and the Law will only choose to enshrine the conventions that we -- as technologists -- have already set in course anyway.
Maybe it feels dishonest to fudge tracking info -- but to me it feels more dishonest for that tracking mechanism to have become part of the convention of how the web works in the first place. The only question maybe is what point in time are we at: do our actions precede the enshrining of the standards, or are we still forging them. Am I "allowed" to save minimal amounts of bandwidth by dropping ugly parts of URLs, or is that violating a human contract we've chosen to interpret from those bits.
My voice is to the former. The web is unstable; we've let advertising companies run wild for far too long, with the real danger that it's let bad behaviour become the norm. When this goes from social-convention into law, it's too late. But the more normal it is for software to do things differently -- express digital freedom differently -- the more time we have to build a web-convention that gives more power to users.
If they choose to interpret URLs in magical funny ways, so be it, but it's their fault for trusting silly data that silly web browsers are free to do what they want with. Hack the planet.
Well, the trackers have shown none, for a long time. Now they're on the spotlight, it's all complains. Who has to shown restraint, the tracked, or the tracker?
We should turn this into an addon that automatically mangles every URL.
Why? If you found the link interesting enough to click, why worry about it getting logged?