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I agree that referrer information is useful to site owners. What you need to understand is that just because something is good for site owners, doesn't mean it'

I agree that referrer information is useful to site owners. What you need to understand is that just because something is good for site owners, doesn't mean it's good for site visitors, or the web in general. If you wanted to see who was linking to your site, and referrer headers didn't exist, you'd use a search engine. Hell, people would build dedicated search engines which alert you when somebody links to your site. Referrers are good for identifying where a user came from, or what they were searching for when they land on your site. Well, sometimes they don't want you to have that information, and most of the time people are completely unaware that you're getting it.

rmc 15y ago
The interests of web site owners align a lot with the web itself. And referrer headers are much easier than having to build a search engine and being at their whims.
- mike-cardwell 15y ago
  "The interests of web site owners align a lot with the web itself." Not in this particular case. "And referrer headers are much easier than having to build a search engine and being at their whims." Absolutely. And if your browser sent a HTTP header containing your name, address, sexual preferences and date of birth, that would also make things even better for website owners. Just imagine how much better they could target their adverts!