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vtoubiana / TrackMeNot

An artware browser add-on to protect privacy in web-search. By issuing randomized queries to common search-engines, TrackMeNot obfuscates your search profile(s) and registers your discontent with surreptitious tracking.
http://cs.nyu.edu/trackmenot/
GNU General Public License v2.0
364 stars 54 forks source link

Why don't TMN's queries appear in website search history? Can TMN queries be associated with a user's account on a website? #131

Open e-t-l opened 3 years ago

e-t-l commented 3 years ago

I can see TrackMeNot's requests being sent in the Browser Console, but I'm curious, if TMN sends a request to search "laser cats" on Amazon for example, why do I not see "laser cats" in my search history next time I visit Amazon? I'm assuming that since the extension just sends GET requests, it may obfuscate the requests coming from IP address, but it's not actually doing anything to obfuscate the searches performed from a given account or user ID for something like Amazon, Youtube, etc.

Personally, I think this latter functionality would be a lot more effective at protecting user privacy. Obviously, having a bunch of nonsense search terms in your search history for Amazon, Youtube, Google, etc. would totally throw off the website's recommended products/results, but I assume that would be a desired result for TrackMeNot users.

Is this feasible?

vtoubiana commented 3 years ago

Hi,

This is actually done if you active the "tab mode", the request should be sent from your account. Unfortunately, it's not possible to set/modify cookies of xmlhttprequest (at least not on chrome).

Best,

Vincent