On Fri, May 16, 2014 at 5:35 AM, Jonathan Kew <jfkth...@gmail.com> wrote: >> You actually don't, since Google doesn't add the tracking stuff to >> the link until you click it. But it adds it early enough in click >> handling so that it affects what happens when you click the link.
> Yes; but even if I simply click the link at step (2), I see (via the status > overlay) that it actually sends me via a Google tracking URL instead of > directly to the destination. I remember noticing (and disapproving) when > this behavior was first introduced to their search results. When you say "see via the status overlay", are you referring to the instant between the mousedown and mouseup? That's the only time I see the "real destination" in the status overlay when clicking links on google.com. I suppose if the latency to Google servers is high or your connection is slower, the hostname/destination might also appear there as the "real destination" loads. I doubt most users notice this; it's effectively invisible. If we ship <a ping> and Google starts using it, users who don't care will not perceive any differences (except perhaps faster pageload), and the minority who do care (like you) will be able to much more easily be made aware of the behavior (e.g. by installing an extension that reveals ping destinations visibly and consistently, without needing to reverse engineer Google's custom link-tracking implementation). Sounds like a win-win to me. (There's a separate question about whether we want to make it a goal to move users from the "don't care" bucket to the "do care" bucket, by improving the visibility in Firefox proper in an attempt to make them aware of link-tracking. It's a trickier one that's worth exploring, but for "user education" to be effective its benefits need to outweigh the annoyances.) Gavin _______________________________________________ dev-platform mailing list dev-platform@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform
