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[protomech]

What is viglink?

Viglink is a URL "click-tracking" scheme operating on this forum. Essentially, the way it works is it silently replaces off-forum URLs in posts on the forum with a URL that records the click and then directs you to your intended destination.

For example, if I paste a link in a post like so:
http://www.google.com/

When you mouseover the link, it displays the intended URL in the status bar:
"www.google.com"

Here's the actual link that your browser follows when you click. You can see this if you right click the link and select "Copy URL".

Code: [Select]

http://api.viglink.com/api/click?format=go&key=bcfea0fd476a8a822a6a6ba786ff02e1&loc=http%3A%2F%2Felectricmotorcycleforum.com%2Fboards%2Findex.php%3Faction%3Dpost%3Bboard%3D1.0&v=1&libId=094f7693-1b5f-4a1d-b762-0ba4c0594006&out=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&ref=http%3A%2F%2Felectricmotorcycleforum.com%2Fboards%2Findex.php%3Fboard%3D1.0&title=Start%20new%20topic&txt=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&jsonp=vglnk_jsonp_13746828093879
The link can be unescaped to see the parameters being passed to viglink:

Code: [Select]

http://api.viglink.com/api/click?format=go
key=bcfea0fd476a8a822a6a6ba786ff02e1
loc=http://electricmotorcycleforum.com/boards/index.php?action=post;board=1.0
v=1
libId=094f7693-1b5f-4a1d-b762-0ba4c0594006
out=http://www.google.com/
ref=http://electricmotorcycleforum.com/boards/index.php?board=1.0
title=Start new topic
txt=http://www.google.com/
jsonp=vglnk_jsonp_13746828093879
Basically, viglink tracks the link you click, what page you were on when you clicked, the previous referring page you were on, and then some parameters about the page and the viglink library version.

Here's the description for the viglink SMF mod:

VigLink is a Google backed company.

VigLink enables you to get paid for doing what you normally do on forum. Whenever you link to a product, website, or promotion, VigLink automatically turns that link into an affiliate link so that you receive a commission for any purchases made. It does this silently and perfectly. Your users will probably not even notice that you are monetising via VigLink... unless you want to tell them.

You can even override affiliate links that your sneaky users have placed in your forum!

Note that if you click the link to the SMF forum then your click is being silently logged by viglink.


Why worry about a third party tracking your clicks on links?

1. Any link click now involves an extra hop. On a mobile device in particular this means clicking any link is slower and uses more battery, as your device has to make an extra connection.

2. The links you click on this board, including links going off-site, are all being sent to a third party. I don't know whether this information is anonymously collected or if it is tied to your username. I've never been presented with their privacy policy information.

A hypothetical (and perhaps paranoid) example of how this could be used would be a member on this forum clicking a number of links about Zero motorcycles, or links from the forum going out to Zero Motorcycles' website. Brammo might be interested in correlating this with their preorder customer list and targeting that member for additional advertising or sales outreach, etc.

You can flip Brammo and Zero in the example above if you like.

3. Nowhere in the forum's Terms of Service indicates that your browsing activity going offsite is being tracked.

There's this snippet from the registration agreement (note that you will have to be logged out to view this agreement, you can open an incognito window in your browser to easily do this):

Also note that the software places a cookie, a text file containing bits of information (such as your username and password), in your browser's cache. This is ONLY used to keep you logged in/out. The software does not collect or send any other form of information to your computer.

Emphasis added.

4. It makes using the forum more difficult. Want to copy a URL from a post here? Tough, you're getting the ugly viglink version. Your link is buried somewhere within, if you want to http-unescape it!


Why are brammoforum and electricmotorcycleforum doing this?

The simple answer is that the forums cost money to host - which you and I do not pay. Viglink cuts the site operator a small check. The forums don't get enough traffic that it's likely to be a big check; I would be surprised if it even covers the forum hosting costs.

You may have noticed the other advertisements going by the wayside recently. Presumably viglink replaced these as a form of revenue for the site. You may or may not find this to be an improvement.

Also, these forums are hardly the only parties tracking your browsing activity. Frequently your browser will report clicked links (under the guise of protecting the user from unsafe links), your ISP likely records your web activity, and it seems the NSA also has wide-spread interests in tracking internet/voice activity of as many people around the world as they can.


Posted FYI, since the site operators won't.

UPDATE 04-26-2014: It appears the Viglink tracking software has been disabled.