[IP] Google enables cookies in advance...
Begin forwarded message:
From: Rodney Joffe <rjoffe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: January 8, 2006 11:44:20 PM EST
To: Dave Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
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)
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