newhouse/url-tracking-stripper

go.trafficrouter.io, a popular affiliate redirect used by Skimlinks for Target.com, Lenovo.com, etc. broken by this extension

Opened this issue ยท 5 comments

This is what happens with the extension if you click on, say, a Target.com url https://www.androidpolice.com/2019/11/28/target-unveils-black-friday-discounts-best-deals-start-november-27th/:

The link you clicked on requires cookies to be enabled in your browser. We apologize for any inconvenience.

image

Without the extension, the redirect works fine, and future redirects work fine too (so test in Incognito after you click through without the extension).

Example of where you end up with this dead end: http://go.trafficrouter.io/?res=nc&original=http%3A%2F%2Fgoto.target.com%2Fc%2F10078%2F81938%2F2092%3FsubId1%3D85009X1537243X7fb27be2aa63f0ce7ba48456a8d440d2%26sharedId%3Dandroidpolice.com%26u%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.target.com%252Fp%252Famazon-echo-dot-3rd-generation%252F-%252FA-54148143%26level%3D4&dst=&brid=&dstsig=

What is it about the extension that breaks such links and can it be fixed?

Thanks.

Side question, how did you discover this domain was owned by Skimlinks? This is useful for my current project!

If you use uBlock Origin, the scripts that generate these links are blocked.

@rosstex

I think the domain might actually be owned by Impact Radius, if you look at these results https://twitter.com/search?q=TrafficRouter.io and do whois lookups on the domains, they are registered to Impact.

https://www.whois.com/whois/7tiv.net
https://www.whois.com/whois/pbj2.net
https://www.whois.com/whois/ncw6.net
https://www.whois.com/whois/oxmy.net
https://www.whois.com/whois/tm7559.net
https://www.whois.com/whois/sjv.io
https://www.whois.com/whois/xhuc.net

I never said they were owned by Skimlinks, only used by them.