Krishty’s Sim Forums

phpbb has this odd behavior where inserting emojis triggers a connection to an external site that belongs to Twitter, Inc.

This is incompatible with European data protection law, and also it just fucking sucks. I guess the intention is that not all computers/browsers support all the emojis in the world, so this board automatically replaces them with tiny images from a 3rd party.

I can trigger it even by typing an IPv6 address like 6f2a::2345:1234, for whatever reason.

Even for the basics like ?

You are sooo millenium! Those are smileys, not emojis 😉

Found a hint in a German forum: https://www.phpbb.de/community/viewtopi ... 3#p1418973

I commented these lines out; purged the board cache … now we’re back to regular characters.

They say it must be re-done with each forum update. What a mess.

:thumbsup:

Somewhat related is this article in which apparently all financial information is sent to Facebook if you use certain online tax forms in the USA.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/202 ... with-meta/

While the tax filing system in the USA is a law unto itself, it does highlight how bad things can get.

I'm not sure what 'I' can do. While I have various ad blockers and tracker blocking, I have no idea how effective they are.
If I do the 'noscript' type stuff, then nothing works.

mikew wrote: ↑2022-Nov-23, 09:23I'm not sure what 'I' can do. While I have various ad blockers and tracker blocking, I have no idea how effective they are.

Regarding that tax thing, you can do as little as anyone else who’s not satisfied with their country’s laws.

As a consumer, just vote with your wallet. Support the sites that don’t track you, and boycot/block the ones that do. You already do that.

As a website/forum admin, I see it as my personal responsibility to destroy this tracking shit wherever I find it. And write openly about it so that others can do the same …

But come on, we’re just a *very* small forum here We won’t save the world, but I assure you we’ll have it nice & comfy here.

Yes, this is the last site I should be moaning about this sort of thing.