:3

River Monster

Yeah! I took one of my transmasc friends out to a bar for his 21st birthday and had a great time. We went to a party afterwards and just had a great time overall. Turns out we have pretty similar experiences as trans people despite crossing the road in different directions. I don't know him that closely but yeah just a really cool dude. Likes robots a lot.

My other friend is kinda nonbinary and kinda transmasc maybe or something. She/they/he is honestly one of my best friends and is fucking amazing just really one of the coolest people I've ever met

So, companies are tracking you no matter what you do, but this specifically is something I care about deeply.

Essentially, when you share a link, sometimes it has extra data that tracks where it comes from and goes.

Opening Spotify, clicking the first item, and using the share button, I get something like open.spotify.com/track/4P0f1HTaA2UwtLJGryNgJZ?si=DBvbfihOSweU1KHj9Mib8w

That ?si=...........…. is the tracker. It tells Spotify who clicks on the link and ties it to you, meaning Spotify knows who your friends are even if you never follow them.

Similarly, if on Amazon or EBay in the browser, I get something like www.ebay.com/itm/146493392451?_skw=lenovo&itmmeta=............&hash=item................&itmprp=enc..............

And, similarly, everything after the question mark is tracking you. I had to blank it out because it was so long!

There is an exception for a few things (I.E. the v=..... on YouTube, but not the si=..... on YouTube)

The general rule is delete everything after the ? and if it breaks, add something back.

Suspect: *suspicious* I think some of the words here are getting lost in translation. Let’s just speak in French! *says something in French*

Shaggy: *responds in perfect French*

Suspect: *frantically* I’m sorry, doctor. Of course. Let me find her file! *leaves the room*

Velma: How do you know French?