more on Google sends search terms to some web sites...

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Matt Grommes <matt () mattorama net>
Date: January 10, 2006 4:59:05 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Cc: ip () v2 listbox com
Subject: Re: [IP] Google sends search terms to some web sites...

To be fair to Google, this is a News.com feature. They use the  
referer line to see that and display the message to keep you on their  
site in case the found article wasn't to your liking. Pretty clever  
actually. I've seen various sites highlight the words on their site  
that you searched for based on the referer line as well.

But I agree that Google does need some kind of Privacy board.

Matt Grommes
www.mattorama.net


David Farber wrote:
> As I have often said, Google needs an external privacy Advisory  
> Board  like other big boys. djf
> Begin forwarded message:
> From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb () cs columbia edu>
> Date: January 10, 2006 4:12:10 PM EST
> To: dave () farber net
> Subject: Google sends search terms to some web sites...
> I just did a search on Google, and clicked on a link to news.com.com.
> Not surprisingly, the article I found was reasonable, appropriate,  
> etc.
> And yes, I know that Google tracks my history.  What I wasn't prepared
> for was this box on the web site:
>     Welcome, Google user!
>     If this story isn't what you're searching for, try these other
>     News.com search results for ...:
> followed by a list of other possibly-relevant articles on that site.
> It took a few minutes of poking and cogitating before I realized what
> was going on: the Referer line generated by Google includes the query
> terms.  Here, for example, is part of a tcpdump trace of a query on my
> last name:
>         0x01d0:  0a52 6566 6572 6572 3a20 6874 7470   
> 3a2f  .Referer:.http:/
>         0x01e0:  2f77 7777 2e67 6f6f 676c 652e 636f 6d2f  /  
> www.google.com/
>         0x01f0:  7365 6172 6368 3f68 6c3d 656e 2671 3d62  search?  
> hl=en&q=b
>         0x0200:  656c 6c6f 7669 6e26 6274 6e47 3d47 6f6f    
> ellovin&btnG=Goo
>         0x0210:  676c 652b 5365 6172 6368 0d0a 436f 6f6b  gle  
> +Search..Cook
>         0x0220:  6965 3a20 5048 5053 4553 5349 443d 3531    
> ie:.PHPSESSID=51
> Google did not invent Referer lines, and they can't be faulted for
> using them.  They should, however, disclose this in their privacy
> policy.
>         --Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
> -------------------------------------
> You are subscribed as matt () mattorama net
> To manage your subscription, go to
>  http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip
> Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting- 
> people/


-------------------------------------
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/