Comment on YSK: Social media platforms attach trackers to the end of share URLs (which you can and should delete)

gogosempai@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

YouTube has also started attaching a Share ID (si) of sorts:

youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ?si=rzmQCXsZkblahblah

The “si” part is the tracking URL of course.

Presumably, it has your user ID embedded in it so all your efforts to concele your identity by using anon IDs on Lemmy/Reddit/Twitter etc routing through VPNs Tor whatnot can be shattered with a single share of a YouTube video. Plus, they can track and associate users with each other based on who all opened your link.

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