"bounce tracking method disregards users' privacy preferences such as the 'Do Not Track' setting and the blocking of third-party cookies.
advertisers and their partners are using a new trick to bypass user preferences while still operating within a legal context by redirecting users through a tracker site that redirects to the intended destination.
Thanks to this bounce, when a user attempts to visit a site, the tracker will be in a position to capture both the origin site and the destination URL.
This only happens for a brief moment, almost imperceptibly in most cases, and is called 'bounce tracking'."
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/brave-web-browser-will-add-bounce-tracking-privacy-protection/
The thing is, I don't mind affiliate links in most cases. If someone creates an informative review site (Wire Cutter, Consumer Reports) and has affiliate links (which both do) and they disclose them (which both do), I'm fine with letting Amazon or Home Depot pay them for their effort. I do read the reviews with a grain of salt and I do consider it an erosion of CR's neutrality.
I don't find it an onerous invasion of my privacy if I follow a link from Wire Cutter to Amazon, buy something, and Wire Cutter gets credit for the sale.
It's the targeting and tracking across from site to site and building a personal profile and so forth that starts to bother me.
The alarm that goes off for me is when a review site only lists products available on Amazon usually as 10 Best Widgets 2021. If you restrict your coverage or testing to only stuff available on Amazon you are missing many worthy products. It also is an indicator to me that the review site is more about affiliate income than real recommendations.
Agreed. I'm just saying that level of tracking - anonymous person goes from site A to site B and buys something for which site A gets credit - is not what has most people up in arms.
I think it should be disclosed and I think that taints the reviews. But it doesn't in itself put my privacy hackles up. But when I look at a Honda HR-V article on Car and Driver and then I go to a recipe site for my dinner and see nothing but Honda HR-V ads, I start to get pissed off.