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Whenever you post a link in Whatsapp, the app tries to create a card from the metadata available in the link. The procedure to make the card presumably goes through fb servers and is outside the e2e. Could they be using that?

Another hypothesis is that you are taking other steps such as searching for that topic so that you can send something to your wife those extra steps might be enabling tracking.

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I often wonder this about unsolicited media text messages (which, for me at least, are almost all political) and whether they might use the iMessage automatic “preview” function to track whether or not a message has been opened/viewed. As far as I’m aware it’s not a feature you can turn off on iOS.

I’m pretty sure the iMessage previews are generated by the sender and sent with the message itself - the recipient doesn’t parse the link.

Can easily be proven by sending someone a link that only you can access (hosted on the LAN which the recipient can’t reach) and seeing if the recipient still sees a preview.

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