more on last on Google enables cookies in advance...

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Thomas Leavitt <thomas () thomasleavitt org>
Date: January 9, 2006 6:47:18 PM EST
To: rjoffe () centergate com
Cc: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: Google enables cookies in advance...

Rodney,

 Google's precipitation of a pre-fetched download for the first item in
a list of search results is a well known issue, and in fact has been
discussed on this list previously:

http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200506/ 
msg00212.html

 Her posting is discussed in more detail here:

http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/06/unintended_cons.html

 and here's what Google says:

http://webaccelerator.google.com/webmasterhelp.html

Regards,
Thomas Leavitt

From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Google enables cookies in advance...
Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 09:17:04 -0500



Begin forwarded message:

From: Rodney Joffe <rjoffe () centergate com>
Date: January 8, 2006 11:44:20 PM EST
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Google enables cookies in advance...

For IP if you wish:

Hi Dave,

I'm not sure if this is something already well-known - or perhaps it
is not worthy of note. Or perhaps I have something misconfigured?


I use Firefox 1.0.7 on my Mac G4. Over the last while I have noticed
a large number of cookies from websites I know I've never been to. So
I cleared all of my cookies, and spent a couple of days doing my
normal browsing, but this time being very cognizant of where I am
going and not doing any spurious surfing. Lo and behold, a number of
cookies from reasonably well-known and "trustworthy" sites that I did
*not* visit. I then cleared cookies again,  and reset preferences to
ask for permission for every cookie request.

The culprit seems to be Google. When entering search terms, as soon
as the results page from Google appears, it is followed by a request
to accept a cookie from one of the websites near or at the top of the
list of results. Even though I have not yet even had the option of
going to that website, and irrespective of whether I actually end up
in going there.

Is this well-known behavior? Is it acceptable? I can only imagine the
damage that could be done should forensic examination of a system
uncover cookies set from a "sensitive" website, which seem like
pretty compelling evidence that the user knowingly visited that site.
I have just Googled for the single word "sandstorm". What benefit is
it provifing Google?

The Firefox popup over the Google results page is asking for a cookie
to be set for www.djsandstorm.com, which is also the top of the
search result. I've attached a tiff file.

Do others see this behavior?
----------------------------------------------
Rodney Joffe
CenterGate Research Group, LLC.
http://www.centergate.com
"Technology so advanced, even we don't understand it!"(R)



-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org
To manage your subscription, go to
 http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/