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google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

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Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#531

Post by Dylan16807 »

josephcsible wrote: post #517
Dylan16807 wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said that in my first comment. You do a google search. The extension resolves every link on the page immediately via the goto urls. This doesn't leak any information to google because they obviously know which links they sent you. Now the links are resolved and you can copy and click them and get clean URLs, without sending any information about which ones you're copying or clicking.

Isn't that the same mechanism as the one you were saying it didn't need to use, though?

> Isn't that the same mechanism as the one you were saying it didn't need to use, though?

In my second comment?

I was replying to a detailed explanation of the old mechanism that ended with "that is no longer possible", so I said "it doesn't need to use that exact mechanism" referring to the old mechanism.

It needs to update to the new way things work. But that's fine. An extension that performs the same task is still fully possible.

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#532

Post by MiroslavPokorny »

demibabs wrote: post #77
MiroslavPokorny wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be obvious, they are doing this for a reason to benefit themselves. As others have elaborated, the reasons are so they can track who you are and sell your profile advertising.

> the reasons are so they can track who you are and sell your profile advertising. What? Like they weren’t doing this before? Obviously Google’s telemetry is tracking every link you click regardless; there’s no extra tracking benefit to this. The reason they’re doing this seems to be to stop competitors from scraping their search results.

The fact they can track which link you clicked on is extremely valuable. For example by examining search queries and knowing which link you tried last, google can get a better idea of what is of interest and value to a user.

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#533

Post by Cider9986 »

dwedge wrote: post #350
Cider9986 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try Brave.

Do they still mitm sites to put their brave crypto donation buttons on, so you think a content creator is getting the money?

I've never seen anything crypto related once I set up the browser. What happened wasn't a MITM but they fixed it, right?

It's the only recommended Chromium browser by Privacy Guides. https://www.privacyguides.org/en/desktop-browsers/#brave

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#534

Post by CobrastanJorji »

rileymat2 wrote: post #53
rmunn wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means they're capable of burying news stories that would contradict your worldview and pushing news stories that support your pre-existing biases, leading to more engagement from you (a win from their point of view) but also burying you in an echo chamber. And unless you were in the habit of doing the occasional search in Incognito Mode, you wouldn't know. (And even then, they probably would be able to put togethe…

I subscribe to The New York Times, if I am searching for a news event, I’d appreciate a site that’s not paywalled and I trust be the first result if it is reasonable.

The NYT watches an event like Trump making a crowd of supporters swear to "cheat like hell" and to vote even if they're not registered, and they turn it into headlines like "Trump leads supporters in a pledge to vote." They are no longer a reliable source of accurate information.

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#535

Post by efilife »

codedokode wrote: post #473
somenameforme wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meduza gonna Meduza. Go do the search yourself. I get nothing like what Meduza claims.

Yandex censors the results, it is required by law, so I do not understand what are you arguing against. To be specific, any URLs, which are blacklisted and banned in Russia, must be omitted from search results. Which includes BBC and other Western media and explains the difference in images because in the Google's results the images come from BBC and Voice of America. Also, if you try to search for "download Chrome"…

> I do not understand what are you arguing against.

Re-read the comment you replied to, and the one above

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#536

Post by smart_asslop »

brainwad wrote: post #117
JohnFen wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I wouldn't want Google to know what links I click on. When I used to use Google, and they added such redirects that included the destination URL as a parameter, I'd edit the link to make it just that URL before resolving it. This new scheme would make that impossible.

They own the JS on the page, they don't need the redirects to know where you clicked...

Hello! It appears that you are disseminating misinformation.

A uBlock Origin developer now confirms, regarding Google results click tracking:

    It existed in a way or another, but it could be blocked. Now it can't.
Which corroborates the mysteriously flagged sibling comment.

https://old.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/1we7491/how_t...

Next time, please consider listening to people who know how the web works and avoid overconfidently parroting what Big Tech gatekeepers want you to think.

Thanks!

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#537

Post by goosejuice »

mitxela wrote: post #439
goosejuice wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's why tools like uBlock and YouTube morphe are the only answer, negotiating with terrorists never works. This is silly. The economy doesn't work if no one is willing to pay for goods. The content you're consuming won't be made if theres no market value to create it in the first place. Pirating is not a solution to our data privacy problem.

The capitalist economy is based on the explicit idea that everyone will do everything they can to extract value from everyone else, and it'll come to some kind of equilibrium. If you do not do this but you allow everyone else to do this, you receive worse quality products for ridiculous prices and do nothing about it. In other words, you owe me $1000 as a condition of reading this comment. Your options are to unread…

Free riders send a market signal of failure or they cause friction. In the former, the service or creator just shuts down and moves on to something else. In the latter the service must make a choice with very little knowledge.. what should they do? Bake ads into the content? Ad block wall? Subscription? Pay per view?

Basically it doesn't make any meaningful progress towards a better outcome. It just temporarily makes the content more enjoyable to you at the expense of the person who created it and maybe to you if you enjoyed it and wanted more.

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#538

Post by smart_asslop »

1e1a wrote: post #51
demibabs wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what’s stopping Google from doing this already?

JavaScript being disabled - Google was already sending analytics pings when search result links were clicked on, using JS.

Even with JS enabled, those ping requests (and other tracking) could be blocked; this new measure can not be.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49680338

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#539

Post by smart_asslop »

what wrote: post #97
JohnFen wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I wouldn't want Google to know what links I click on. When I used to use Google, and they added such redirects that included the destination URL as a parameter, I'd edit the link to make it just that URL before resolving it. This new scheme would make that impossible.

They already knew which links you clicked on though…

Even with JS enabled, they did not.

Linked below is an explanation which includes confirmation of that fact by a member of the uBlock Origin team.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49680338

Re: google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update

#540

Post by brainwad »

smart_asslop wrote: post #536
brainwad wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They own the JS on the page, they don't need the redirects to know where you clicked...

Hello! It appears that you are disseminating misinformation. A uBlock Origin developer now confirms, regarding Google results click tracking: It existed in a way or another, but it could be blocked. Now it can't. Which corroborates the mysteriously flagged sibling comment. https://old.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/1we7491/how_t... Next time, please consider listening to people who know how the web works and avoi…

It's not misinformation. By default Google has been able to click track with JS. If you disable JS, they don't serve you search (https://serpapi.com/blog/google-now-requires-javascript/). Yes, if you are tricky, you can block just the part of the JS that does click tracking, probably. But most users can't do that. They therefore were already getting 99% complete click tracking before this change. This change is not about click tracking, it's about blocking scrapers.

And btw about the result filtering the uBlock dev wants to do: of course this can still be done, if you preload all the goto links on the page and then inline the real URLs returned by the preload requests. Perhaps not easy to do as an extension but at a browser level (Brave?) totally possible. Though Google might then think your users are scrapers...

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