Referrer hiding is important to Google itself: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/making-search-more-secure.html https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/ma

Referrer hiding is important to Google itself: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/making-search-more-secure.html https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/making-search-more-s... Previously, some (generally scammy) websites used these keywords forwarded from Google to actually change the content. By concealing the keywords people were searching for to land on your website, they force content hosters and ad networks to depend on the Google analytics + ads ecosystem. With these keywords, you could gather information about your Google rank for queries. Whether it's net beneficial for you as a browser owner to pass referrer information - probably it is if you like the people hosting the content you read, as it helps them understand their traffic and improve their service. If you don't like them (probably because they are spam) then this just helps them be more effective spammers.