SafeShare Help Center
These actions can happen together, but they have different purposes: remove information, replace an address, manage links or attribute campaigns.
Removes supported, visible tracking additions from a copy of a URL. Functional parameters are treated differently; the original link remains unchanged.
Replaces a long destination link with a short forwarding address. Services such as Bitly or Rebrandly can hide the target and existing parameters.
Associates links with a short domain, destination or campaign. Management can be combined with shortening and measurement, but it is not link cleaning.
UTM parameters and click IDs can associate visits with a campaign, ad or publication location. They do not have to change how the destination works.
Campaign measurement can be useful for certain business models. It is neither economically indispensable for every business nor a legal requirement.
With a short link, the final destination is not visible at first. A custom or trustworthy-looking short domain does not automatically make it a direct or cleaned link. The short-link service can record the forwarding request itself, while tracking parameters may remain in the hidden destination.
Resolving a redirect requires a network connection and may be registered by the redirect service. SafeShare therefore never resolves short links silently. For known redirect URLs that already contain a visible destination parameter, SafeShare can recognize that target locally; this is not a network resolution of a short link.
| Type | Examples | How to read them |
|---|---|---|
| Campaign details | utm_source, utm_campaign | Describe a source or campaign; SafeShare recognizes utm_* as typical removable additions. |
| Click IDs | gclid, fbclid, msclkid | Can associate an ad click and are recognized as supported tracking additions. |
| Affiliate markers | tag, ref, referral | Can associate a referral or commission. Depending on the SafeShare mode, they are removed or deliberately kept. |
| Functional parameters | lang, page, search, product options | May be necessary for the intended destination and are not removed indiscriminately. |
| Unknown parameters | Not safely classified | Are not presented as universally removable without an explanation. |
A business does not need to track, measure and control everything in order to succeed. Success can come from a clear and useful offer, actual sales and enquiries, trust, recommendations, voluntary feedback, understandable business figures and limited, aggregated measures. SafeShare does not begin with the assumption that comprehensive tracking is essential for business success. Measurement can be a useful aid; it is neither an end in itself nor an automatic condition for success.
Measurement can answer specific, understandable questions: Is an offer being found? Does a page work technically? Is a service actually used? Are there enquiries or sales? Are there errors or unnecessary drop-offs? None of this requires continuous observation of individual people.
SafeShare supports responsible, proportionate measurement: transparent, limited, purpose-specific and designed without covertly steering people.
A simple question often reveals what a business model actually depends on:
If the answer is no, the problem goes beyond an incomplete privacy notice or inadequate consent. The model then relies, at least in part, on people not fully recognising the process or its consequences, not having an equivalent choice, or being guided in one direction by design, pressure or habit. This is more than a technical privacy issue: SafeShare describes it as a structural misuse of knowledge, technology and power. A sustainable offer should also stand when people understand what is happening and can decide freely.
Tracking does not necessarily remain limited to its original purpose. What begins with the question of whether a campaign works can gradually grow:
Technology amplifies the goals and decisions of the people and organisations using it. Whether tracking remains limited or expands depends on their attitude, clear technical, ethical and organisational boundaries, and effective oversight of any expansion. People who can collect more and more data often find more and more reasons to use it. Responsible measurement therefore needs firm boundaries: a pre-defined purpose, as little data as possible, short retention periods, no new or hidden purposes, no unnecessary linking, genuine choices and accountable responsibility.
Not every form of measurement, optimisation, recommendation or persuasive design is manipulation. Technology becomes problematic when data no longer provides orientation, but is used to steer people in a preferred direction without their awareness, on one side of the relationship, or by exploiting psychological mechanisms.
The boundary is crossed when people are captured as completely as possible in order to influence their decisions deliberately and without their awareness. That is especially the case when influence is hidden, vulnerabilities, fears, dependencies or habits are deliberately exploited, refusal or objection is made artificially difficult, alternatives are concealed or presented as worse, or pressure, artificial scarcity or misleading design is used. Then technology is no longer just supporting insight or reasonable optimisation; it is being used against people.
SafeShare stands with people and their autonomy. People should understand what is happening; decisions should remain voluntary, and refusal and objection must be respected. Trust matters more than forced conversion. A good offer may persuade people. It should not need to monitor, pressure or trick them. Entrepreneurs remain self-determined people when they use, receive or buy through links; a business role does not create a duty to redistribute someone else's tracking markers.
SafeShare is not against measurement. SafeShare is against invisible, unnecessary and uncontrolled sharing of information.
SafeShare checks visible URL parameters and makes a cleaned copy. The choice remains with the person using it: the publisher decides which link to publish; the recipient decides which link to pass on afterwards.
Removing tracking information from a URL does not prevent all analysis on the destination website. Cookies, signed-in accounts, server logs and other methods can still be used. Terms such as “server-side”, “first party”, “cookieless” or “anonymized” do not by themselves say which data is collected, connected or passed on.
example.com/offer?utm_source=newsletter&gclid=abc&lang=en
Supported campaign and click parameters can be removed, while lang=en remains as a functional parameter.
bit.ly/abc123
The visible link is short, but the target and any parameters are only known after a deliberately triggered redirect check.
What stays in place and why not everything after the question mark is removed.
Tell functional and measuring URL additions apart.
Put Google click IDs in links into context.
Why links forward and where local checking has limits.