more on Google enables cookies in advance...

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Patrick Wagstrom <pwagstro () andrew cmu edu>
Date: January 9, 2006 9:40:09 AM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] Google enables cookies in advance...
>

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

This behavior is a result of the pre-fetching that Google enables in
Firefox.  Basically, Firefox has the ability to preload pages so they'll
be faster when you actually get to them.  Google uses this ability to
preload the top hit on a search, assuming that it's probably the one
that you'll want to visit.  As a result of this request, you'll get all
of the cookies for the site as though you were visiting it normally.

For more information see:
http://www.google.com/help/features.html#prefetch

Specifically to disable it you need to take these steps (copied verbatim
from the above page):
1. Type "about:config" the address bar.
2. Scroll down to the setting "network.prefetch-next" and set the value
to "False".

The feature and some of the privacy implications were discussed on this
list last June.  See
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200506/ 
msg00190.html

Patrick Wagstrom
Ph.D. Candidate in Engineering and Public Policy
Carnegie Mellon University





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