What is Hyperlink Audit Tracking?

[stardepp]

What does this data protection setting mean?

And is this a new feature?

[Ayespy]

@stardepp It's a relatively new feature, and only recently enabled by default.

Hyperlink audit tracking is a way to track users using something call the "Ping" attribute or navigator.sendBeacon. Each of these are different ways for page owners to know if links on the page are being followed. Unfortunately, some pages break if this form of tracking is blocked. Firefox, for instance, allows it by default, since 2019.

So blocking it does increase your privacy, but can break some pages.

[stardepp]

@Ayespy Thank you very much for this valuable information.

[DoctorG]

Ah, in Section "Do not track" we have to enable "Tracking von Hyperlink-Audits" to be untracked.

I would remove the "Tracking von" to be more clear.
Ah, ok, there is better wording in 5.6 Snapshot.

[DoctorG]

Inconsistent section of Privacy!
It is called "Tracking Prevention" and enabling checkboxes shouild logically prevent tracking.
But enabling the WebRTC setting does enable tracking.

[Pathduck]

@DoctorG Yes, much clearer now:

I think the last one should be renamed to:
"Block WebRTC IP Broadcast"
For consistency and clarity.

[DoctorG]

@Pathduck As 5.5 and 5.6 differs in text and tooltips this section, i do not know what really switches off tracking.

[Streptococcus]

@Pathduck
So checking the Hyperlink Audit Tracking actually means block it?
I have that blocked with uBlock Origin anyway.

[Pathduck]

@Streptococcus @DoctorG Yes, they changed the wording - and also the effect of checking it. That will be confusing to users once it gets into Stable

In Stable: Checked = Allowed
In Snapshot: Checked = Blocked

Easy to test, made a quick pen:
https://codepen.io/stianlund/pen/RwyeRZz
Open devtools, click the link - you should see a POST request to https://httpbin.org/post

Personally I'm not too worried about the possibly privacy implications of this. If anyone can find a site that actually uses it instead of the all-pervasive 3rd-party cookies, for you.

---

Also, that button behaves strangely when clicked sometimes, but only with uBlock Origin enabled... crazy

[DoctorG]

@Pathduck said in What is Hyperlink Audit Tracking?:

Also, that button behaves strangely when clicked sometimes, but only with uBlock Origin enabled... crazy

Confirmed for 5.6.2821 with uBlockOrigin.

[Pathduck]

@DoctorG You think I should report it? It's really not a huge problem and only for users of uBO apparently. Strange issue. But might of course be an indication on something wrong in how this button is implemented (race condition?)

[DoctorG]

@Pathduck Yes, report to tracker.

I remember in 2020/21 that uBlockO caused with WebRTC blocking similar behavior in Vivaldi UI, that was fixed by Vivaldi team.

[Pathduck]

@DoctorG OK a quick report: VB-92320

[DoctorG]

@Pathduck said in What is Hyperlink Audit Tracking?:

VB-92320

I confirmed in tracker.