It is my practice to delete the hash lines after question marks in URLS to defeat tracking... but the question mark has disappeared

[xtools@programming.dev]

it's similar with amazon/booking - if you use their share button, you get a neater shortened url but tracking is baked in. but you can still just copy the url from the browser search bar instead (which, acknowledged, might particularly not work well for IG)

[azzu@lemm.ee]

What do I do to get rid of the tracking now?

You stop using these services. I'm a programmer, and if they generate page URLs that are unique to you with your tracking baked in, do not allow you to view the page non-logged in, then there's no way to get rid of it, short of hacking their servers/databases.

[dallen@programming.dev]

Removing referral info from URL parameters does very little to defeat tracking. Facebook, and others, can track most of your browsing history with cookies alone.

If you’re literally signed into a Facebook account and using their services then you can’t realistically avoid tracking….

[d0ntpan1c@lemmy.blahaj.zone]

Chances are they are doing something similar to URL shortening where a reference to the destination and the tracking info is either hashed into the URL directly or stored elsewhere behind whatever ID is in the URL.

Unshortening tools can fetch the actual URL (with any tracking params) in a private context.

I have no idea if anything exists on iOS, but on Android there are tools like URL Check which replace your default browser and let you un-short or otherwise manipulate URLs before opening in a browser or sharing.

[kissaki@programming.dev]

Don't use the share with shortened url. Copy the page url instead.

Otherwise (you'll have to) accept that you don't know what's included in the shortened link.

[azzu@lemm.ee]

It's not about defeating tracking of yourself, but who you share the link to, your relationship with them.

Without that tracking parameter, if the URL is common among many people (which it usually is, since usually one thing has one URL for everyone), then it's impossible to know who shared to who.

If you have the tracking parameter, then the service can know that you shared the URL, as well as who you shared it to, being able to put that information together and thus built more of a profile on your social connections.

[tyler@programming.dev]

also, don't use Notes to try to remove the query parameters. apple is fucking idiotic and made it almost impossible to actually delete the query parameters. I literally tried for like 15 minutes the other day and it was incredible how it would completely ignore me deleting the query parameters and just resave exactly what I had originally input (even if I long pressed and chose edit). It's just easier to repaste it back into safari or whatever and delete it there.

[waz@lemmy.world]

Yep, I love it. I told my wife about it and she thinks I'm crazy.

[jackbydev@programming.dev]

With TikTok, if you copy and paste the URL into a browser you will get a link you can then copy and paste without the tracking. You can probably do the same with Instagram, but I just got a link from them and they had the tracking under a query parameter (that's the technical term for the stuff after the question mark). So I'm not sure what you're seeing.

Also, thank you for stripping tracking data off of links you share. "It ain't much, but it's honest work!"

[jackbydev@programming.dev]

Just because something isnt perfect doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. Would you rather OP share links with tracking?