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Google urls not completely cleaned

Open Neustradamus opened this issue 1 year ago • 4 comments

Dear @ClearURLs team, @KevinRoebert,

It is new, do a test search and you will have:

  • https://www.google.com/search?q=test&sca_esv=XXXXXXXXX

You can see:

  • sca_esv

Can you remove it?

Thanks in advance.

Linked to:

  • https://gitlab.com/ClearURLs/ClearUrls/-/issues/1276

Neustradamus avatar Aug 15 '23 17:08 Neustradamus

In more, with Firefox, there is "oe=utf-8" in more:

  • https://www.google.com/search?q=test&oe=utf-8

Neustradamus avatar Aug 15 '23 17:08 Neustradamus

https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/172215/google-videos-search-sca-esv-query-parameter-possible-tracking

n0099 avatar Oct 24 '23 13:10 n0099

I can see such parameters at the end of URL (not cleaned by ClearURLs plugin as of today): &sca_upv (i dont know why for you it was _esv instead of _upv, maybe local or Google alghoritm dependent)

But there are some catches to it.. it will happen if you:

  1. search directly from the Google.com search field (cleanly)
  2. search once directly in URL bar (with Chrome/browser set to Google as default search engine), and then change your search term from there on in Google's search field that contains your initial search term

^ On first try from URL bar, the URL will be properly cleaned by ClearURL. But when you modify the search term, it will fail to properly clean it, and the "sca" parameters will be added, to track you.

So this means the new tracking parameter has to do with Google site's search field. At present, ClearURLs plugin is only still successful to clean tracking elements out of Chrome/Browser Search Engine omnibox typed searches. Unless the user changes their search term using the Google.com website once afterwards.

FuccDucc avatar Mar 07 '24 11:03 FuccDucc

hey @KevinRoebert

Any comments on this problem? Why no interest to fix a big problem like this? Google can spy on us again. Did Google pay you off to be tolerant of this as alternative?

FuccDucc avatar May 11 '24 23:05 FuccDucc