Part 2: Link Tracking

Section explaining link tracking, URL stripping, private browsing, data theft, personally identifiable information (PII)

Link tracking uses special links in place of “plain” URLs and is common in email, and in links to websites. If you click on the tracked link, the tracker’s server gets “pinged” with your IP address and can access information including when you clicked the link or received or opened an email, frequency of clicks or links, geolocation information and even what device you used.

How do I stop link tracking?

This is known as URL stripping and generally it is quite intuitive.

Hover your mouse pointer over the link you want to strip in your email. You should be able to see the tracking data in the link – it is all the information that appears after the first question mark. In this example, it is everything after “landing-page”:

https://www.example.com/landing-page?utm_campaign=Example-Campaign&utm_content=image&utm_source=email

Instead of just clicking the link, follow this process:

1. Hover over the link in the email

2. Right click to reveal the copy option

3. Copy the link

4. Paste the link into your browser address bar

5. Delete all the information after the first question mark (in the example above this would mean deleting ?utm_campaign=Example-Campaign&utm_content=image&utm_source=email

6. Press go!

Now the tracking data is absent, and your activities on https://www.example.com/landing-page will not be tied back to your email address (unless you are logged in) or your identity.