Outbound Link Warnings

Often to meet certification requirements or comply with regulations such as SOX or PCI-DSS, we need to warn users before they follow any link that leads away from our domain.

Implementing this quickly across multiple sites with limited resources can be seem daunting, but the script below can be used to meet baseline requirements quickly. It’s not pretty, but it does he job!

Simply include the script below somewhere on your site:

/**
 * This listener detects when a visitor is about to navigate to a
 *   different domain and warns them, with an option to cancel
 *
 * This is required for regulatory compliance
 */
window.addEventListener('click', function (e) {
  function findAnchor(node) {
    if (!node) return node
    if (node.tagName === 'A') return node
    return findAnchor(node.parentNode)
  }

  const anchor = findAnchor(e.target)
  if (!anchor) return
  if (anchor.hostname === window.location.hostname) return
  const leave = window.confirm('You are now leaving ' + window.location.hostname)
  if (!leave) e.preventDefault()
})