{"id":19037855,"date":"2026-10-06T14:19:54","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T14:19:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/support\/topic\/much-more-tracking-than-i-expected-from-a-link-redirection-plugin\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T14:19:54","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T14:19:54","slug":"much-more-tracking-than-i-expected-from-a-link-redirection-plugin","status":"publish","type":"topic","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/support\/topic\/much-more-tracking-than-i-expected-from-a-link-redirection-plugin\/","title":{"rendered":"Much more tracking than I expected from a link-redirection plugin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We used Pretty Links for affiliate redirects across our websites for years. After concerns about IP logging, we inspected the code of Pretty Links 4.0.15 more closely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What surprised us was how much (!new!) tracking functionality is built into what we primarily used as a simple <code>\/go\/<\/code> redirect system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the version we reviewed, Pretty Links can store individual click records, including IP address, referrer, user agent, requested URI, visitor identifier, country and WordPress user ID, where applicable. Its default configuration has click tracking enabled, IP anonymisation disabled and no automatic trimming of old click records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We also found that Pretty Links sets tracking-related cookies, including a <code>prli_visitor<\/code> identifier with a one-year lifetime. Even the simpler click-counting mode contains code to set cookies so they are available if the tracking mode is changed later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The plugin also contains IP-based geolocation functionality. IP addresses can be queued for resolution and an external geolocation endpoint is present in the code.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For us, this feels excessive for something we essentially need to do:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Redirect a URL and increase a click counter by one.<\/strong><br \/><br \/>Even when you set things on &#8216;simple&#8217; click count IP&#8217;s get logged. <br \/><br \/>Now with 4 FTE we have to build replacement plugins, because you are not simply allowing us to remove all that tracking. Extremely unhappy with this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","class_list":["post-19037855","topic","type-topic","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic\/19037855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/topic"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic\/19037855\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19037855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}