Eventually I think sites will customize every URL for each user.
TikTok is quite sneaky. Sharing from their mobile app, you get:
https://www.tiktok.com/t/[9digitCode]/
Only by opening the URL in a browser will you see:
https://www.tiktok.com/@[user]/video/[19numerals]?_t=[alphanumericIdentifier]&_r=1
…which can be sanitized.
Here’s how they took it a step further too: YCombinator.
Same with Reddit, FB Messenger, Instagram, TikTok... Some of them are harder to spot, like how Reddit now goes reddit.com/r/example/s/8913y4h93
Would be nice if social networks and messengers would automatically strip these parameters.
I started using URLCheck on Android and SO MANY links have some kind of tracker that you can drop and not lose any functionality. Things like Signal (and even Lemmy/Mastodon) could do something similar and throw up a little warning when it encounters a known tracker, then offer to clean the URL for you.
Another advantage is that the clean URLs are a lot more descriptive
I'm using FairEmail on Android. When tapping a link, thr app detects tracking parameters and offers to remove them. I really like that feature and wish other apps would offer something similar.
That was the first place I noticed it, thought it was really smart of them, someone would send me a meme or whatever and it would show their account at the top. Was impressed that they generate so many links, now they can see who knows who so easily