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dspillettyesterday at 10:47 PM0 repliesview on HN

Maybe an alternative would be to inconvenience people following such links still, but somewhat less.

Instead of responding with an error, give a page that states “The link you followed to get here appears to have had some tracking gubbins added, in case you are a bot following arbitrary links, and/or using random URL additions to look like a more organic visit, please wait while we run a little PoW automaton deterrent before passing you on to the page you are looking for.” then do a little busy work (perhaps a real PoW thingy) before redirecting. Or maybe don't redirect directly, just output the unadorned URL for the user to click (and pass on to others). This won't stop the extra gubbins being added of course, but neither will the error and this inconveniences potential readers less.