Back in 2022, I wrote this rather grumpy post on Mastodon, the federated social media platform. @Edent@mastodon.socialTerence EdenMastodon enforces a "noreferrer" on all external links.I have mixed feelings about that.As a blogger, I want to see *where* visitors are coming from. I also like to see (and sometimes join in) with the conversations they're having.But, I get that people want privacy and don't want to "leak" where they're visiting from.Is it such a bad thing to tell a website "I was…
  • barsoap@lemm.eeEnglish
    21·
    2 days ago

    There’s legitimate interest in knowing where people come from, though, and asking on your own page “how did you get here?” is hardly going to work. Personally I don’t think it’s much of an issue if some random commercial site sees that I got there via lemm.ee, it’s not giving away much at all, not even whether I have an account here and certainly not as much as tracking cookies. OTOH I also think it could be done better, wich tech similar to Mozilla’s aggregate (i.e. you’re just a number in an anonymous mass) ad clickthrough thing. Sites would see “yep we got a number of visitors from lemm.ee, and that number from lemmy.world” but wouldn’t know which of their site impressions corresponded to which origin.

    • Womble@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      2 days ago

      There’s legitimate interest in knowing where people come from, though, and asking on your own page “how did you get here?” is hardly going to work

      I fundamentally disagree, if shops started scanning people’s phones as they walked in to find where they had been last before they entered their shop people would be outraged, but somehow this has become accepted practice on the web.

      • barsoap@lemm.eeEnglish
        21·
        2 days ago

        You think malls don’t have data on shopper movement? That a random kiosk owner can’t distinguish people who come from high school from the after-church crowd from the office workers from the tinfoil-wearing nerd always coming at 2am so that they can minimise social interaction? That they will have coffee ready for the morning shift, and beer for the club crowd?

        • Womble@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          2 days ago

          I know malls track peoples movements throught them and thats creepy as fuck too, though I dont think they tie IDs to individuals, just monitors where people move throughout them.

          The rest of your post makes no sense, yes obviously peole can tell the diference between commuters wanting coffee and people on a night out getting drunk. But that is very different to having a label on everyone saying “came from my mistresses house” or “came from my weed dealer” on each person, which is more akin to the level of detail given by referal links.

          • barsoap@lemm.eeEnglish
            1·
            21 hours ago

            “Knowing where people come from” does not imply ID’ing individual people, which is why I specifically mentioned that Mozilla technology. The legitimate interest is in aggregate data, and yes “lots of people come here from the brothel” is legitimate data. “This particular person did” is not: If you wear a suit and happen to come with the office crowd doesn’t mean you’re an office worker, you could be a travelling salesman.