Alexey's blog

Posterous silently changes all external links on users' posts

Some time ago I noticed that Posterous breaks middle click for links in my posts. Middle click behaves as if you've pressed left click (at least in Google Chrome). Strangely, Ctrl+left click works as intended. At that time I didn't pay much attention to it.
 
But yesterday I tried to copy a link from some Posterous blog. The link was mangled! Try it youself - copy this Google link. Instead of
http://www.google.com
you'll get
http://api.viglink.com/api/click?key=8eb8c964d427e97a1567cec6532655f0&v=1&libId=1272660521808&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fshamrin.posterous.com%2Fposterous-silently-changes-all-external-links&out=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&txt=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&title=%0A%09%09Posterous%20silently%20changes%20all%20external%20links%20on%20users'%20posts%20-%20Alexey%20Shamrin%0A%09&format=go
(JavaScript must be enabled. I've tested it on Google Chrome and Internet Explorer, all on Windows 7. It's important to wait for the page to finish loading.)
 
Aha! Posterous is using third-party service here - VigLink. I haven't heard of it before (even Hacker News is was silent about it).
 
From TechCrunch coverage on VigLink:
 
To start using VigLink, publishers simply drop a snippet of JavaScript into their pages. Then, whenever the publisher links to a valid product (say, some shoes on Amazon), VigLink will automatically convert that standard link into an affiliate link. The publisher still determines which stores and products they’re linking to — VigLink simply modifies that link to include the proper affiliate program URL.

I am torn on this issue. On one hand, it's perfectly understandable that Posterous tries to monetize on its users. On the other hand, I want my links on my blog to stay intact! Or at least I want to be informed about this mangling. And I want a way to turn this "feature" off. (Tried to edit my Posterous theme, but VigLink magic doesn't show up there.)

Update: see Hacker News thread for great discussion

Update 2: "copy link" trick doesn't seem to work for everybody (e.g. Safari). The best way to test it is to use some tool to monitor HTTP requests.

Update 3: After several hours after posting this I couldn't repeat "copy link" trick. Neither in Chrome, nor in Internet Explorer. And middle click now works as intended in Chrome. It seems Posterous and/or VigLink changed some of their algorithms. They didn't get rid of affiliate magic (VigLink javascript is still there). But thanks for fixing bugs - the most annoying for me was non-working middle-click in Chrome.