For anyone who wonders how http referer could ever be a good idea consider the following: I remember when my dad studied to become a teacher. As one of their a

For anyone who wonders how http referer could ever be a good idea consider the following: I remember when my dad studied to become a teacher. As one of their assignments they had to create a webside. As someone who had recently given up farming I think he wrote about farm animals and linked to some other pages about small scale poultry and similar topics. One day he got a mail from the "webmaster" of one of the sites he linked to that he would have to update his links soon. I remember being really surprised that someone knew my dad had linked to them. Being only 16 or 17 or something I only knew simple html, basic and vb but I knew that html links were one way. I don't think I realized until later what had really happened: this person had looked at their server logs to see where their customers came from, looked up the page and found the email address. Of course this also highlights why the referer is so problematic.