Popular chat apps sometimes use link previews as a convenient shortcut. Link previews are pop-up boxes you might see on a chat app or other social media platform when you share a URL. Link previews summarize the contents of the URL and display the name of the linked website, an image and a description of the website’s content. An app pulls this information from either the website’s standard HTML programming language tags or ad hoc meta tags.
However, when implemented improperly, this feature can put users’ digital security and privacy at risk.
