Doesn't this just push people to more tracking cookies? How are sites supposed to know what sources are driving their traffic? Whether visitors are coming via email campaigns, google, etc?
Besides it's up to a user whether they want to tell you where they came from, you aren't supposed to know anything, you are allowed to.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/clearurls/ in case anyone else has also not seen it.
If I walk into a shop, the shopkeeper doesn't know if something in the window caught my eye, if my friend recommended the helpful staff, if I saw the advert they placed on a billboard, or if I just came in because it's raining.
A lot of places will attach unique discount codes to advertisements to get an idea on where you came from.
For example, on a TV commercial it might say use promo code COOL123 to save 10% or if you saw that billboard it might say to use NICE123 instead. Then there's radio, newspapers and so on each with their own unique code that offer the same 10% discount.
And since a discount is applied chances are you'll use it because not too many folks would purposely avoid the discount to hide where you discovered the shopkeeper from.
You often see this being done online too, but there's also things like UTM tags or unique URLs that let you do the same thing without discount codes. It's not to make more money as a shopkeeper (avoiding the discount), it's just easier to set up. Using a UTM tag is a matter of creating a link with a few query parameters. Creating a specific discount code or a unique URL for a specific promotion takes a bit of extra leg work.
I'm not sure where I stand on the movement to remove all forms of referral tracking. Both referral headers and UTM tags can be spoofed or removed through extensions so using them as any type of source of truth was a bad idea anyways.
However, as someone who sells digital products I like knowing which specific video or blog post helped someone discover some of my paid content. But at the same time, the end game is really "is the needle moving forward?" so the specifics kind of don't matter. But in the short term while you're figuring things out, the extra info does help you focus on where to spend your time. Not just for more profit, but to provide better and more free content because it's what folks want.
Bur given the unique personal searches/browsing I could have just been doing, I sure the heck don't want my recent activity advertised to the next site I go to. Happy as a clam to shut down all the Referrer uses, even whatever login flows that might have to re-engineer themselves.
People are usually happy to tell us; but then we only use that information to run our business better, we don't sell it.
Another technique is referral bonus, "recommend a friend" type offers.
Except that's already here, or in the making, i.e. with those advertising eye-tracking stories that make the rounds every 6 months or so.
But the shopkeeper knows if you came in through the street entrance (maybe saw the window display), through the mall entrance (maybe saw the sandwich board), or through the communicating door to the next shop (maybe saw the merchandise).
Otherwise you need video cameras and AI... or perhaps spray every incoming customer with a source-identifying powder or smell - hmm, maybe that explains Abercrombie & Fitch!
Google has had a dereferral process in place for many years anyway, which prevents you from seeing the specific search engine results page the user is coming from. So this really doesn't change anything for those websites such as Google that already had these security features in place.
Is this really a security feature though? Or is it Google keeping the important information for themselves?
If you want keyword information from Google search results, the best way to get it is actually buying ads for those keywords. And in fact some marketers allocate ad budget to keywords they already rank for, specifically for that purpose.
Kindly, and non-intrusively, ask them? You know, just like in other aspects of life?
Now the website has to do something explicit to share information (beyond the hostname) to outbound cross-origin outbound links. It is much more likely that the website will pay attention to what information they are sharing in this case.