brejc8's Journal: Google spying

I noticed today that Google seems to link to redirection pages rather than directly to the sites. This is a strategy used by many search engines to get more information about the search hits. Although I don't mind google using information of my browsing habits, I heavily rely on the recently seen links appearing in a different colour. This behaviour appears to be cookie based and only one of the four accounts I use seems to be affected. The redirection address is in the form of "http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=&q=&e=7415" I'm not sure as to what the e=??? is about nor do I know how to turn it off (without clearing cookies). I do hope this is not the end of google as it tries to squeeze every last penny out of the site.

probably just for stats

[js7a]

That form of URL is probably just for statistics, as their "sponsored links" form is:

http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.translator. biz/&sa=l&ai=AxDZRRTBu_wMvvELusUItEC4AtLqlCEY0wagl UyrC0EAkOhdeQb4ABEQAYaBA&num=1

That "ai" parameter has about 366 bits in it, not enough to refer the actual search information to the sponsor. (I.e., the search gets obscured to the advertiser, which would not happen without the redirecting link.)