Ask HN: Recommend GIF service that does not track users

4 pointsindulona3 comments

Since gfycat got bought out and shut down, there seem to be no longer any GIF service to use in chat/forum/comments that does not track its users and collect their data. Tenor and Giphy are owned by Facebook and Google, the main bad guys in the industry, so that is completely a non starter. Are there alternatives, even paid, but with large collections?

View on HN

I didn't realise that tenor and giphy tracked everyone, do you have a source so I can read more about that?

it's like free CDN, they track users by referrer/ip and usually cookies(many people are signed to fb and google). which allows them to track your movement across the web. with gifs, they can additionally track mood/topics based on how the images are tagged and whether you are posting them or viewing them. they can create a psychological profile based on which images you are seeing since you'll most likely frequent the same places with specific topics. you don't need to be rocket scientist to figure it out. when something is free, you are ALWAYS the product.

But is that something they are known to do, or just something they could do?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com