Earlier today I came across a Reddit comment with a link to an Instagram post. The link had ?igsh= at the end.

When I clicked on the link, I got this popup. It had a name and profile photo that was different from that of the post being shared.

Join Firstname Lastname on Instagram

See photos, videos, and more from Firstname Lastname.

[ Open Instagram ]

not now

I avoid link trackers. However, I did not realize it was this bad.

To my knowledge, TikTok does the same thing and lists the name of the person that shared the link. Assuming this increases engagement, any website could enable such a feature, even on old links that you shared in the past.

You should manually remove any trackers before sharing, or use an app for it.

  • helenslunch@feddit.nl
    4·
    3 hours ago

    Pretty much every site on the internet is using tracker links at this point. And many times they won’t even be visible if you click or hover on them.

    For instance, on Facebook literally any link you click will look like a normal link but when you click on it, it sends you to a tracking domain at l.facebook.com. I just blocked the entire domain. If there’s an Instagram or YouTube video posted it’ll actually hide the link altogether, and even the title, so there’s literally no way you can reach that content without going through their tracking service.