Turn off tracking URLs in notification E-mails, please!

[BJReplay]

I've noticed that forum reply notification emails (for forum threads that you've subscribed to) now are tracking URLs - for example...

https://click.pstmrk.it/3s/www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au%2Fcommunity%2Fthreads%2Fnew-trs-rules-goods-no-longer-included-in-cap.103413

The Postmark – Leave the mail delivery to us is a tracking link, and that gets blocked at the router for me.

In fact all links in emails are tracking links.

I delete most of these emails once clicked, so I can't tell when this occurred, but the last email I have in my mailbox where the link wasn't a tracking link was 17th October.

 

[Danger]

What's the impact of this in layman's terms, BJReplay? Is it just that some emails are not being delivered to you?

 

[BJReplay]

What's the impact of this in layman's terms, BJReplay? Is it just that some emails are not being delivered to you?

No, the emails are being delivered, but the links do not work because the tracker is being blocked.

I knew about your reply because of the email notification, but to find the reply, if I click on the link, I get a message from the browser saying site not found - that's the pstmrk.it site.

I think that the reason is that the pstmrk.it service is considered as dodgy by a number of groups, and my router is configured by my ISP to block unsafe websites.

If I go to the Australian Frequent Flyer website I can log in, and from the notification bell, usually find the notification of a reply to a thread that I am following, but it is multiple steps.

My guess (it is only a guess) is that pstmrk.it is used for redirects to unsafe websites often enough that it ends up on block lists.

With elderly parents in the house who have been scammed in the past, that's something that is going to stay turned on .

 

[NM]

Thanks @BJReplay for raising this. It is being investigated by the tech folks to see how best to address the issue. It does appear to be as you have described. The process for sending the automated notification emails has changed recently and this appears to be a consequence of that change. @admin and team are looking into it.

As you have suggested, the immediate work-around is to use the email as a prompt to log into the web site and use the bell (notification) icon to display all you current notifications and link from there.

 

[BJReplay]

It is being investigated by the tech folks to see how best to address the issue.

The process for sending the automated notification emails has changed recently and this appears to be a consequence of that change.

Thanks for looking into this - appreciate that you're all going to the effort of looking into this.

The old man lost $45k to scams many years ago, and was caught up in yet another recent breach where his medicare number, D.O.B., name, mobile and address got out, so there's just too much risk for me to let him browse an unfiltered internet. As far as I'm concerned, every sites a phishing site when you've got an elderly, congnitive-decline parent in the house, where their ID information is out there as a result of multiple breaches, so a robust filter is a necessity.

Thanks again.

 

[admin]

Thank you @BJReplay for brining this to our attention.
We have turned off the automatic URL tracking that came with the new setup when we migrate away from AWS last month.
Hopefully the links in the notifications work again.

Thank you for your patience.

 

[BJReplay]

Thank you @BJReplay for brining this to our attention.
We have turned off the automatic URL tracking that came with the new setup when we migrate away from AWS last month.
Hopefully the links in the notifications work again.

Thank you for your patience.

Indeed - I was able to click through from the notification from this thread.

Thanks!