Concerns Over Google Modifying SSL Behavior

Lauren Weinstein writes "Google is handling SSL search queries on https://www.google.com/ in a manner significantly different than the standard, expected SSL end-to-end behavior — specifically relating to referer query data. These changes give the potential appearance of favoring sites that buy ads from Google. Regardless of the actual intentions, I do not believe that this appearance is in the best interests of Google in the long run."

Comments

Re:Its in the best interest of users

[Jonner]

Please read TFA. The question is not over use of SSL, which the author of TFA "applauded."

Yawn

[TheEyes]

You know, I'd be a lot more concerned about this kind of thing if we weren't hearing Slashdot stories crying wolf practically every day. I'm just not impressed with people trying to call Google evil anymore; none of these so-called revelations have panned out so far, so how likely is this one to go any differently?

Re:Its in the best interest of users

[DarkFencer]

Yes, it is better for Google's users because they get to see referer data, probably even when they shouldn't.

Oh...you thought *you* were one of Google's users? Chances are you are product, not a customer or a user.

I know exactly who the 'product' and who the 'consumer' of Google is.

Its irrelevant to this. When traffic is HTTP or HTTPS for Google searches, Google gets that traffic either way. When the traffic is HTTPS though, that means LESS people are getting it (wireless sniffing, routers along the way, etc.) in an unencrypted format. I really could care less what information the sites I go to are missing from the search I entered that brought me to them.

Re:Its in the best interest of users

[CAPSLOCK2000]

That's not the point at all. Frankly, this has only little to do with SSL.

The point is that if you pay for Google-ads, you will receive the referer-information, regardless of whether your site uses HTTPS or not, even when its breaks security for the user. If you don't pay you won't get the info.

The site should get this data

[dracocat]

If I am paying per click for certain search terms, then this data SHOULD be passed along. The other alternative is to just get a bill from google and trust that it is accurate?

As an advertiser I need this information. First to make sure I get the clicks google is charging for me, and more importantly to determine which words don't have a conversion rate worth paying for.

I hate Referer

[andymadigan]

I hate referer information when I come from google, mostly because of sites that either:

1) Highlight my search terms in the page. You don't need to highlight every instance of 'of' in the page, and even highlighting the keywords is distracting.

2) Put a big fat "Welcome Google User!" (often with horribly colored letters for Google) that beg you to subscribe to the RSS feed.

I wish there was a chrome extension to hide referrer data just so that I could avoid that.

BTW: If you want an example of useless highlighting, google for VirtualBox and click on the VirtualBox website. I can't believe someone thought that people who can comprehend what VirtualBox is don't know how Ctrl+F works.