Google Espionage via a Picture ?

Zaniax · 09-20-08, 02:25 AM

Every day I use the Explorer on my X50v for many hours.
And every day I empty the IE-cache to release valuable memory.

Today the cache was unusually full so I did an inspection with TotalCommander.

Among others I found hundreds of identical java script files ga[].js
The file contains a lot of java script code, which I don't understand
but I got suspicious when saw this secure ssl-codified picture link

https://ssl.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif

I'm not able to read Java Script so can someone tell me what ga[].js does ?

I do hope that I'm far off

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Jogga · 09-20-08, 02:39 AM

They appear to be tracking cookies for Googles' Analytics. Companies buy key words for Googles' search engine and this arrangement is supposed to help them ascertain the efficacy of their pay-per-click arrangement.

Google Analytics is, in any language, spyware

Zaniax · 09-20-08, 02:57 AM

Oh - the script is perhaps used for analysis of my cookies ?

But look somewhere down the code text and you'll find function calls like
c("mamma","query"),
c("gigablast","q"),
c("voila","rdata"),
c("virgilio","qs"),
c("live","q"),
c("baidu","wd"),
c("alice","qs"),
c("yandex","text"),
c("najdi","q")

Strange

And what does that SSL-link do ?

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Jogga · 09-20-08, 03:28 AM

LOL, sorry Zaniax, I don't know much more than I've told you

Corwin · 09-20-08, 04:54 AM

that is just piece of code to configure GA
specificaly its used by GA to identify visits by search engine, and to determine what was search query