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Comment by theshrike79 | Hacker News Reader

The issue is this:

https://aliexpress.com/item/4000336900709.html?spm=a2g01.126...

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000336900709.html

Both take you to the same page.

URLs, especially when clicked from ads tend to have a HUGE amount of extra crap that's in no way needed for any kind of functionality.

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This is a case where using HN's "code" feature can help

The first link is:

  https://aliexpress.com/item/4000336900709.html?spm=a2g01.12617084.fdpcl001.8.2665mpnYmpnYMH&gps-id=5547572&scm=1007.19201.130907.0&scm_id=1007.19201.130907.0&scm-url=1007.19201.130907.0&pvid=65430901-7ec6-4584-a620-4618974e03ae

The second:

  https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000336900709.html

(HN normally truncates links to ... 60 characters, it seems.

If you've clicked an ad, you've already lost to marketers. If you've seen one, you've lost too.

_I_ know how to remove the crap when sharing the link. Other people don't. This is why we need extensions like this.

It's not fun to get a 2048 character long URL to a product linked to me on mobile, where it literally doesn't fit on the screen all at once. =)

Indeed. We should just block all marketing, absolutely no exceptions. Drive their return on investment as close to zero as humanly possible.

Its not "crap" its literally the same parameters to understand where the traffic comes from.

AKA crap. When you walk into the store, does the clerk know which street have you used to drive to the store? Do you tell him on purpose even if he didn't ask? I didn't think so.

I'm regularly asked for my zipcode and I give it happily. Feels like the right tradeoff between allowing marketers to do their job and preserving my privacy.

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