Probably so bluesky can get affiliate money, either changing affiliate links with their own a’la honey or just tracking them to report to advertisers how much traffic is going through their platform to garner deals.
Not sure why they have it go through a redirect like that; you can just trap click events and do whatever with them, including sending tracking info back before sending the user to the new page.
I’m thinking they’d want to control misuse of the platform. Someone links malware and it is shared enough, they may want to be able to intercept that. At least, that’s what I’d want to be able to do.
Most companies implement for malicious link control. They can actively scan as needed and they can prevent users from going to any links deemed malicious. It also adds tracking for amount of clicks on a specific URL. There are more nefarious uses that others have stated redirection for paid links to them and user profile building for ad targeting
Anybody know what the real reason for this is?
All websites can track how often a link is clicked, and what the link is, and who clicked it (especially if you have an account).
Probably so bluesky can get affiliate money, either changing affiliate links with their own a’la honey or just tracking them to report to advertisers how much traffic is going through their platform to garner deals.
In other words, money
So far no one seems to know what the real reason is. That is why there is a lot of guessing.
They said themselves its for publishers to track outgoing clicks.
Not sure why they have it go through a redirect like that; you can just trap click events and do whatever with them, including sending tracking info back before sending the user to the new page.
I’m thinking they’d want to control misuse of the platform. Someone links malware and it is shared enough, they may want to be able to intercept that. At least, that’s what I’d want to be able to do.
Most companies implement for malicious link control. They can actively scan as needed and they can prevent users from going to any links deemed malicious. It also adds tracking for amount of clicks on a specific URL. There are more nefarious uses that others have stated redirection for paid links to them and user profile building for ad targeting