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There is a really good privacy feature on Mastodon and the rest of the Fediverse:
When you post a link on Mastodon etc, it remains exactly as you posted it. There is no analytics or tracking going on, no one is monitoring clicks on links.
By contrast, on Twitter/X and Bluesky the links people post are redirected so clicks can be monitored. We don't know exactly what Musk or Bluesky do with this info, but they do it by redirecting all links to sites they control (t.co & go.bsky.app).
That's why i never click on links to those domains. If someone shares a link directly from a Twitter feed it will route through Twitter before the site you want.
The problem is Bluesky hides this redirect domain. The links you click on look like normal links, you can't see the redirect domain in any way, not even by hovering the mouse over it. Most people probably don't realise they are being redirected.
The only way you know about it is because the redirect URL very briefly flashes on the screen after clicking, and because Bluesky itself said they had introduced this.
@FediTips @RnDanger Wow, yeah, that's a new one for me too... They're using plain <a href> tags. Must be hooking into the onclick event at a global level or something.
But, since it only applies to the mouse click events, you can right-click there and choose "open in new tab" and that bypasses their tracker.
@FediTips that's lovely. I wonder if when you enter a link from elsewhere with tracking Mastodon should warn you, perhaps even help you clean.
@FediTips Great for publishers, not great for privacy :(
@TheHCJ@floss.social @FediTips@social.growyourown.services I mean, fediverse is not privacy space? It's more like public square to hangout, but that's mine feeling 
@TheHCJ @FediTips
There's nothing to stop Bluesky giving publishers a useful Referer [sic] and legally binding themselves from using that information for marketing.
They just don't.
(They also don't strictly need to use a redirect to track links themselves. But maybe the other way is not as good, idk).
@sourcejedi @FediTips I doubt they would be using it for marketing as they don't plan on advertising in the future. Things can change though 
I didn't remember that. For privacy-trap purposes, I think it's fair to be cynical. It'd be great to see a non-ad funded model, but it's fairly novel (ignoring user donations).
I was reading the privacy policy. They do allow themselves to use "personal information" for marketing.
Though, it doesn't explicitly say they can share it for marketing purposes. AFAIK, "partners with whom we jointly offer products or services" is not an accepted euphemism for 3rd party ads.
Bluesky have said on multiple occasions they may introduce advertising in the future, and as a for-profit owned by VCs it's very likely they will do this.. This kind of redirect is perfect infrastructure for promotions etc.
Pretty good 
@FediTips i just noticed the bsky redirection today! (i rarely open the app)
@FediTips link tracking is a hallmark feature of shitty services
@FediTips I’d always assumed it protected the user from having their profile or group leaked to websites they visit (which is good IMO for privacy if there’s not another way to achieve that). Hadn’t considered Facebook using it for tracking and did not look into getting more website-related metrics from them.
The most blatant tracking, of course, is when social media sites try to map your network of contacts with share IDs tacked onto URLs (or just unique URLs) you share.
Clicking on a direct link doesn't show your profile to websites? I've not heard that before?
Whatever info leaks to a website, it's the same whether you click directly or via a redirect. The redirect just leaks additional info to whoever controls the redirect site.
@FediTips I didn’t mean that direct links don’t show your profile to websites, of course that would happen if following a link from someone’s profile (at least on the web).
Looking at Google analytics for Facebook referrals in the past, I only saw a redirect URL as the referrer, not the URL of anyone’s profile (same with Twitter). Facebook offered a more private experience by default, so it seemed to make sense to me that way. But it’s quite obvious now that they have nefarious uses for that data with tendrils that spread across the web to collect an entire profile about you.
Ahhh gotcha, now I understand what you mean 
Thanks!
@FediTips Its the same thing facebook does with the added fbclid at the end of the URL