Besides the IT boyfriend would have been key logging on the network =P

To me the truth is this:

If it’s private information (which it’s not), then block it in all platforms… Don’t just make me pay for it. Really seems “dirty” when you say it like that.

Secondly, using a computer, the Internet, software etc comes with a certain responsibility on behalf of the user. If the girlfriend cannot manage to clear her search history… well lesson learned I guess.

It is wrong for Google to play mom and dad to the world and babysit our stupid selves to protect us. No one can learn from a lesson that never happened.

Google is a business it happens to send large amount of traffic if it changes it’s URL structure to not present you with any query string that’s not causing the end of the internet as we know it. It certainly fully entitled to do so and it’s certainly not effecting a already deeply flawed and broken protocol. If Google was to rewrite a browser to secretly strip a required non optional header then that’s another story.

I disagree completely. Anyone who operates a website will be affected. The referer system is part of the http specifications – http://www.w3.org/Protocols/HTTP/HTRQ_Headers.html#z14

This may become the thin end of the wedge – A protocol only remains an effective protocol while it is being used. Purposely breaking a protocol can not be good for anyone who operates online

To be clear the current encrypted.google.com is NOT the same service that is being pushed out.

I am quoting Danny Sullivan who quotes Matt Cutts at http://searchengineland.com/google-to-begin-encrypting-searches-outbound-clicks-by-default-97435

But Google Encrypted Search, as Google told me today, doesn’t block referrer data in the way that the new service does,

and then goes onto say,

For example, if you used Google Encrypted Search and clicked on a result to come here to Search Engine Land, because we don’t run encryption, the referrer isn’t passed along. But Cutts said that if we did run encryption — or if any site did — they they would get the referrer data passed along.

Over the next few weeks, many of you will find yourselves redirected to https://www.google.com (note the extra “s”) when you’re signed in to your Google Account

That says that it isn’t fully rolled out yet but is starting to be pushed out there.

What does this mean for sites that receive clicks from Google search results? When you search from https://www.google.com, websites you visit from our organic search listings will still know that you came from Google, but won’t receive information about each individual query.

That infers to me they are sending a referer but making a conscious decision (in effect writing more code to make sure it is the case) and ensuring the referer doesn’t deliver search query information

If you choose to click on an ad appearing on our search results page, your browser will continue to send the relevant query over the network to enable advertisers to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns and to improve the ads and offers they present to you

That says to me they are sending the full referer information, including the search query to advertisers. IE, choosing to break only organic referers and not ads.

I really don’t believe they are intentionally dropping SSL->SSL keywords and do not see that in our analytics but if they do introduce this then it’s a bad thing.

This is the real test and we will only know for sure once it is started to be rolled out. As I understand matters the roll out of their announcement yesterday hasn’t occurred yet which explains why you won’t see it in your Analytics but it is my understanding of what they intend to do and purely for Organic rather than Paid results