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this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024
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Yeah but they can't data track you through a paper menu, and a company choosing to lose revenue?? impossible
most of them only link to a PDF containing the menu anyways, they can't track you there either
Pretty much any webhosted service out there essentially needs to track ip's (unless they want to be ddos'd), so even the server thats serving the pdf can and will track you
They could even go the easy route and use something like bit.my to do it for them too
If you're on their WiFi, then they're just getting the restaurant's IP. If you're on mobile data, then they're getting your carrier IP, which is often inside layers of carrier-grade NAT. Either way, they don't get much besides knowing you're attached to a specific carrier.
Even then it usually goes through the device's browser and fingerprints as hard as some JavaScript virtually can, but I figured that was a bit long for the original post
(I mean shit your device probably tells google itself where its going, much less the connections on the other end)
edit: and of course this isn't just the restaurant collecting it cause why would they care, usually its a shady 3rd party that already has a massive profile on you they can cross-reference
Yeah, but want I want to say with this: the restaurant gets nothing out of providing the menu only as a PDF. It's stupid, just give me the OPTION to use a paper card, even though I prefer the PDF
Most services that convert a link to a QR code absolutely track their users. bit.ly (the URL shortening company) has a paid service to track where, when, and device IDs of who accessed the link whether it was through their shortened URL or the conveniently generated QR code that they can also make you.