Firefox users can check the setting for hyperlink auditing under about:config > nd_pings. Firefox has plans to follow suit in the near future, which is surprising as Firefox is one of the few browsers that has it disabled by default. However, now major browsers are removing the option for their users to disallow hyperlink auditing.Īs of presstime, Chrome, Edge, Opera, and Safari already allow link auditing by default and offer no option to disable it. Which browsers allow link auditing?Īlmost every browser allows hyperlink tracking, but until now they offered an option to disable it. Hyperlink auditing does not give users this choice. But these other methods use Javascripts, and browser users can choose whether they allow scripts to run or not. Some of you might argue that there are other ways to track where we go and what we click. What’s the difference between this and normal tracking? This can be done on the same domain, but it can also point to another domain or IP where the data can be processed. Under normal circumstances, the second URL will point to some kind of script that will sort and store the received information to help generate tracking and usage information for the site. A website builder can use this syntax to use hyperlink auditing:

The syntax of this HTML5 feature is easy. These pings are done in the form of a POST request to the specified web page that can then examine the request headers to see what page the link was clicked on. Hyperlink auditing is sometimes referred to as “pings.” This is because “ping” is the name of the link attribute hyperlink auditing uses to do the tracking.įrom a technical perspective, hyperlink auditing is an HTML standard that allows the creation of special links that ping back to a specified URL when they are clicked on. Hyperlink auditing is a method for website builders to track which links on their site have been clicked on by visitors, and where these links point to. For those already in the know, you might be surprised to learn that browsers are taking away your option to disable hyperlink auditing. Which is why we want to bring the practice of link auditing to your attention: to make you aware of its existence, if you weren’t already.

(And awareness is a good start.) In a state of awareness, you can adjust your behavior accordingly, and if you feel it’s necessary, you can take countermeasures. Most Internet users are aware of the fact that they are being tracked in several ways.

There is a relatively old method that might be gaining traction to follow users around on the world wide web.

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