9 ms·

There is also a slightly different case - google passing on your search terms to the website that you click through to. You may trust google with knowing that

There is also a slightly different case - google passing on your search terms to the website that you click through to. You may trust google with knowing that you searched for "naked bieber pics", but you may not want other websites also knowing your search habits.

michaelbuckbee 16y ago
Are they passing on search terms for previous searches or just the current search? In your (frankly terrifying) example, would the site have had to have ranked for "naked bieber pics", showing up in the results and then you click it to pull the search terms? Because that would seem to be pretty innocuous.
- epi0Bauqu 16y ago
  Just the current search, but the problem is millions of pages run third-party ads, and most are run by very few networks. These ad networks can aggregate the terms and then they have previous searches as well.
  - dauphin 16y ago
    Pedophilia is illegal in most countries, I'd be happy if ad networks gather data about your interest on young boys and pass it to the feds! Beasts! Edit: judging by the downvotes, I guess a good bunch of hackers like to live in atrocity!
    - endtime 16y ago
      I think the downvotes are because you're missing the point so hard that they're assuming you must be trolling.
      - anti-pedo 16y ago
        OK thanks for the precision. I might not have the right kind of "humour" for this place. I might not like Jason Bieber's music, but I sure don't want to harm him neither... Btw, repeat after me: trolls do not exist (the Harry Potter books get it wrong). See: http://bit.ly/gaIrQQ http://bit.ly/gaIrQQ
    - xentronium 16y ago
      He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security (via Ben Franklin)
      - Travis 16y ago
        You got the oft-excluded part of the quote right -- temporary security -- but the actual quote is, "he who would trade Essential Liberty for some Temporary Security, deserves neither Liberty or Security." Many people omit the word, "temporary". The suspicious part of me says they do it so their (mis-quoted) statement appears more bold and uncompromising.
  - scrrr 16y ago
    Doesn't Incognito browsing, like present in Chrome, remedy all these worries?
    - crocowhile 16y ago
      not if you are logged in using your google account
    - mattmanser 16y ago
      People find ways around it, for example for a while Flash didn't respect incognito so ad networks just used their cookies instead (I think at one point html5 storage was being used too, but could be wrong). There's been various HN posts about how people circumvent browser privacy settings to track you across websites and even tricks such as generating an almost unique key by hashing together browser, fonts installed, IP address, etc.. I'm not sure of the current state of play in that war though. I guess if you really don't want people to track private searches with your accounts, use a whole other browser where you're not logged into Google in incognito mode.
- GrandMasterBirt 16y ago
  When you click a link, you usually send the refferrer url to the site you go to. Naturally google's search terms are a very easy to parse and a well known url. So when you click a site's link they know that you came from google and that you searched for xyz. Duck duck go actually redirects you in a way so that the referrer is not known to the site. They all think you came from duckduckgo.com. DDG also keeps no logs. Basically your own activity online cannot be used against you. Now, privacy aside, I really like DDG for other reasons, like search relevance, continuous scrolling, zero-click info, etc. So its kind of win-win for me.
Pewpewarrows 16y ago
You're free to opt out at any time: http://www.google.com/privacy/ads/ http://www.google.com/privacy/ads/
- epi0Bauqu 16y ago
  AFAIK this doesn't shut off the search leakage in the referrer header.
  - sorbus 16y ago
    Anyone who really cares can - and will - use HTTPS. EDIT: It appears that at least one person disagrees with me. So, a quick question: Which takes more effort for the end user, switching to a new search engine or switching to https?
    - epi0Bauqu 16y ago
      In the last few weeks, I've talked to a lot of people that care. And in general people do care: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/12/21/web-surfers-troubled-by-tracking-poll-says/?mod=rss_WSJBlog&mod=blogmod http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/12/21/web-surfers-troubled-... I can tell you that normal people who care also don't know about HTTPS or how to use it. I'm all for Google making it easier to do so, or otherwise stop this personal information from leaking. See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2122431 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2122431 for some ideas. Also, FWIW, HTTPS alone doesn't solve the issue completely, as HTTPS->HTTPS traffic still leaks.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
  - seabee 16y ago
    Actually, with Google Instant, the search terms aren't in the URL anymore - does it still leak?
    - epi0Bauqu 16y ago
iamjustlooking 16y ago
Even if the site owner doesn't know that the referring url contained the search term "naked beiber pics" they still know you visited their page which most likely contains "naked beiber pics".
- seanalltogether 16y ago
  Exactly, the privacy issue around http referrers is a red herring.
sorbus 16y ago
I am fairly sure that the issue is the browser passing on the referrer, not that Google is making websites aware of any additional information. I might be wrong, of course; there's a lot of FUD about this floating around.
- seabee 16y ago
  The browser does it, and did it long before Google existed.
  - epi0Bauqu 16y ago
    That doesn't mean Google couldn't or shouldn't prevent the browser from doing it. When this all started, no one envisioned ad networks and data companies aggregating all this personal information, or even that search terms would be a central part of the Internet. So now that we know what is going on, why allow this personal information to leak? As far as I can tell, the only reason is so Webmasters can do better at Google SEO. And that reason can be wholly mitigated through the use of Google's Webmaster Tools.
    - dedward 16y ago
      Maybe not "when it all started" but we envisioned massive data gathering and analyzing pretty early on.
    - dedward 16y ago
      Maybe not "when it all started" but we envisioned massive data gathering and analyzing pretty early on.
    - Matt_Cutts 16y ago
      "And that reason can be wholly mitigated through the use of Google's Webmaster Tools." No, Google's webmaster tools only provide a sampling of the data. We used to provide info for only 100 queries. Now we provide it for more queries, but it's still a sample: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/04/more-data-and-charts-in-top-search.html http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/04/more-data... Please don't make the argument that the data in our webmaster console is equivalent to the data that websites can currently find in their server logs, because that's not the case.

michaelbuckbee 16y ago

Are they passing on search terms for previous searches or just the current search? In your (frankly terrifying) example, would the site have had to have ranked for "naked bieber pics", showing up in the results and then you click it to pull the search terms? Because that would seem to be pretty innocuous.

epi0Bauqu 16y ago
Just the current search, but the problem is millions of pages run third-party ads, and most are run by very few networks. These ad networks can aggregate the terms and then they have previous searches as well.
- dauphin 16y ago
  Pedophilia is illegal in most countries, I'd be happy if ad networks gather data about your interest on young boys and pass it to the feds! Beasts! Edit: judging by the downvotes, I guess a good bunch of hackers like to live in atrocity!
  - endtime 16y ago
    I think the downvotes are because you're missing the point so hard that they're assuming you must be trolling.
    - anti-pedo 16y ago
      OK thanks for the precision. I might not have the right kind of "humour" for this place. I might not like Jason Bieber's music, but I sure don't want to harm him neither... Btw, repeat after me: trolls do not exist (the Harry Potter books get it wrong). See: http://bit.ly/gaIrQQ http://bit.ly/gaIrQQ
  - xentronium 16y ago
    He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security (via Ben Franklin)
    - Travis 16y ago
      You got the oft-excluded part of the quote right -- temporary security -- but the actual quote is, "he who would trade Essential Liberty for some Temporary Security, deserves neither Liberty or Security." Many people omit the word, "temporary". The suspicious part of me says they do it so their (mis-quoted) statement appears more bold and uncompromising.
- scrrr 16y ago
  Doesn't Incognito browsing, like present in Chrome, remedy all these worries?
  - crocowhile 16y ago
    not if you are logged in using your google account
  - mattmanser 16y ago
    People find ways around it, for example for a while Flash didn't respect incognito so ad networks just used their cookies instead (I think at one point html5 storage was being used too, but could be wrong). There's been various HN posts about how people circumvent browser privacy settings to track you across websites and even tricks such as generating an almost unique key by hashing together browser, fonts installed, IP address, etc.. I'm not sure of the current state of play in that war though. I guess if you really don't want people to track private searches with your accounts, use a whole other browser where you're not logged into Google in incognito mode.
GrandMasterBirt 16y ago
When you click a link, you usually send the refferrer url to the site you go to. Naturally google's search terms are a very easy to parse and a well known url. So when you click a site's link they know that you came from google and that you searched for xyz. Duck duck go actually redirects you in a way so that the referrer is not known to the site. They all think you came from duckduckgo.com. DDG also keeps no logs. Basically your own activity online cannot be used against you. Now, privacy aside, I really like DDG for other reasons, like search relevance, continuous scrolling, zero-click info, etc. So its kind of win-win for me.

Pewpewarrows 16y ago

You're free to opt out at any time: http://www.google.com/privacy/ads/ http://www.google.com/privacy/ads/

epi0Bauqu 16y ago
AFAIK this doesn't shut off the search leakage in the referrer header.
- sorbus 16y ago
  Anyone who really cares can - and will - use HTTPS. EDIT: It appears that at least one person disagrees with me. So, a quick question: Which takes more effort for the end user, switching to a new search engine or switching to https?
  - epi0Bauqu 16y ago
    In the last few weeks, I've talked to a lot of people that care. And in general people do care: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/12/21/web-surfers-troubled-by-tracking-poll-says/?mod=rss_WSJBlog&mod=blogmod http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/12/21/web-surfers-troubled-... I can tell you that normal people who care also don't know about HTTPS or how to use it. I'm all for Google making it easier to do so, or otherwise stop this personal information from leaking. See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2122431 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2122431 for some ideas. Also, FWIW, HTTPS alone doesn't solve the issue completely, as HTTPS->HTTPS traffic still leaks.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- seabee 16y ago
  Actually, with Google Instant, the search terms aren't in the URL anymore - does it still leak?
  - epi0Bauqu 16y ago

iamjustlooking 16y ago

Even if the site owner doesn't know that the referring url contained the search term "naked beiber pics" they still know you visited their page which most likely contains "naked beiber pics".

seanalltogether 16y ago
Exactly, the privacy issue around http referrers is a red herring.

sorbus 16y ago

I am fairly sure that the issue is the browser passing on the referrer, not that Google is making websites aware of any additional information. I might be wrong, of course; there's a lot of FUD about this floating around.

seabee 16y ago
The browser does it, and did it long before Google existed.
- epi0Bauqu 16y ago
  That doesn't mean Google couldn't or shouldn't prevent the browser from doing it. When this all started, no one envisioned ad networks and data companies aggregating all this personal information, or even that search terms would be a central part of the Internet. So now that we know what is going on, why allow this personal information to leak? As far as I can tell, the only reason is so Webmasters can do better at Google SEO. And that reason can be wholly mitigated through the use of Google's Webmaster Tools.
  - dedward 16y ago
    Maybe not "when it all started" but we envisioned massive data gathering and analyzing pretty early on.
  - dedward 16y ago
    Maybe not "when it all started" but we envisioned massive data gathering and analyzing pretty early on.
  - Matt_Cutts 16y ago
    "And that reason can be wholly mitigated through the use of Google's Webmaster Tools." No, Google's webmaster tools only provide a sampling of the data. We used to provide info for only 100 queries. Now we provide it for more queries, but it's still a sample: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/04/more-data-and-charts-in-top-search.html http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/04/more-data... Please don't make the argument that the data in our webmaster console is equivalent to the data that websites can currently find in their server logs, because that's not the case.