this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2026
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Pretty good!
One small suggestion though. Remember to remove everything after the “?” when sharing links to YouTube or other platforms. The “is” (sometimes “si”, sometimes something else) is a server side tracker. When you generated that link on YT, it saved the random letters behind ‘is=‘ to a table in a database associated with your account. Now anyone you share that link with, who clicks on it will be linked to your profile behind the scenes in the data machine of Google.
Additionally, when Google is scraping Lemmy or FB or anywhere else you drop that link it can be loosely related to your YT account. So in theory if no one else shared your link with the sharing code, it’s a strong signal to Google that werecat@lemmy.world is the same as the account that generated the tracking code.
Hopefully that makes sense, it’s something I try and spread far and wide because it’s not well known.
For others looking for a link without the tracker, it’s here for your convenience https://youtu.be/DlTNN0gvkLM
It’s fine, I’m sure google already knows my lemmy account
That’s fair, everyone has different objectives with their OpSec. But it’s a good reminder for those who might click the link that if they consider trackers bad they can opt out. The first thing in deciding if you care is understanding what’s in your risk profile. If you’ve saved your password for Lemmy to Chrome then yes, Google likely knows.
Even without direct trackers linking accounts there’s browser fingerprinting and other such nonsense to get a good idea who’s who. Just food for thought, not just for you, but for anyone else who stumbles upon this post.