Do No Evil My Foot!

2005-08-12 10:25 - Web

So, it's rather famous that google's policy involves doing no evil. But there are plenty cases where exactly that has happened, and is happening. Take this case.

I was trying to post a link, which I found with google. Instead of the address shown in my status bar when hovering the link, I got some google tracking redirect nonsense. What the?! So, let's dig into the HTML source. I had done a google search for vertical center css and I could tell the first result was what I wanted. I pointed my mouse at the link and saw it was what I wanted. I right clicked and said copy link, and then went to my other tab to paste it and this came out (minus the spaces so it will wrap lines):
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1& url=http%3A//www.jakpsatweb.cz/css/css-vertical-center-solution.html& ei=NK_8Qte6EMKwaqiU4EM
What the ?!

So here's the actual source (abridged and formatted a bit):

<script>
<!--
function rwt(el,ct,cd,sg){
  el.href="/url?sa=t&amp;ct=" + escape(ct) + 
    "&amp;cd=" + escape(cd) + "&amp;url=" +
    escape(el.href).replace(/\+/g,"%2B") +
    "&amp;ei=CLD8QuKDMcfqaNHm8Rg" + sg;
  el.onmousedown="";
  return true;
}
//-->
</script>
....
<p class=g>
<a href="http://www.jakpsatweb.cz/css/css-vertical-center-solution.html"
  onmousedown="return rwt(this,'res','1','')">
    <b>Vertical</b> Centering in <b>CSS</b>
....

Yes, so, they have javascript code running that will blatanty decieve the user into thinking they are clicking a regular link, but just as the mouse gets clicked, bait-and-switch out the url to something that will somewhat secretly track your activity. Not good google, not good!

So, I have modified my Straight Click script to counter these actions. Not only does it remove redirections from normal links, it cuts out this particular bait-and-switch method. The straight click script has been replaced by PrivaSuite. Bad google!!!

Comments:

Straight click is missing
2005-10-10 02:42 - wimdelange
The straight click code is missing. If you click on the link, you see the directory where the file should be?

Two other problems, my previous registration with wdelange was not working? and That verify is a little bit annoying. Sometimes the code is hard to read or guess.....

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