Embetty: heise tool for data protection-compliant integration of social media

There is also from “heise online” embetty an open source project that aims to help webmasters to integrate third-party content from social media sites in a manner that protects data. Because posts, videos, tweets as well as like and share buttons pass on data from site visitors to the source service even without direct interaction.

Embetty is an open source project by heise online. The tool helps to operate data protection, even if social media content is integrated.

The problem: Social media content passes on user data

Content from social media sites such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and the like, as well as their like and share buttons, are integrated quickly and easily on your own site, in the online shop or blog, but are unfavorable for data protection. Because even if the readers and customers do not actively click on the integrated content or use the buttons to like and share, they can access their data and pass it on to the source page. Apple prevents this from macOS 10.14 Mojave with a new Safari version. As a site operator, you can protect yourself against data theft from your users before autumn 2018 - with Embetty.

Embetty - heise project for more data protection

Embetty you can according to the official presentation, think of it as a combination of some kind of proxy server and a client component. The appropriate redirection and anonymization ensures that visitors to websites, blogs and shops do not inadvertently pass on their data to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Co. The service currently works for the integration of Vimeo and YouTube videos, Twitter tweets and Facebook videos. In the case of videos, the content comes directly from the provider, but it is only accessed and shown to the user after he has clicked on the Embetty preview image.

This is how Embetty works, this is how you can use it

In the post linked above you already get a good insight as well as a tweet integrated with Embetty as an example application. The corresponding c't contribution goes a little deeper "Well embedded". The code and its use for your own projects are also discussed there. If you want to download the data and files for using Embetty, you can do so via GitHub: Click here. There you will find brief tips and instructions on how to use it, but in English.

Johannes Domke

After graduating from high school, Johannes completed an apprenticeship as a business assistant specializing in foreign languages. But then he decided to research and write, which resulted in his independence. For several years he has been working for Sir Apfelot, among others. His articles include product introductions, news, manuals, video games, consoles, and more. He follows Apple keynotes live via stream.