Over at SoCoder I started noticing some odd Referral stats.

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Luckily (depending on your view) SoCoder's a relatively quiet place, so whenever I check through the referral stats, I can often see when weird stuff is happening that definitely shouldn't be happening.

Take this morning, for example, when a user's Package Tracking ID was front and centre of my referral stats.
Link to SoCoder thread

Obviously this person hasn't gone to their Package Tracking site, then clicked a URL from there to get to SoCoder. .. Something else is going on, and .. so far, we think we've tracked it down to being Chrome on iOS that's doing this odd functionality.

Today I'll have to install Chrome and sift through the various settings to see if I can find out how to clamp down on this behaviour.
It definitely isn't normal, that's for sure, and .. as much as that particular incident doesn't give away TOO much of the user's data, it's certainly creepy enough that I imagine.. under the right circumstances.. such a method could reek havoc on a person's personal secure data.

I mean, in this example alone, I can track this user's package's status. Luckily DHL's page is moderately secure, but on a lot of other tracking pages, a little map would come up, pinpointing the package, and the user's exact locations.

And this is just tracking IDs. Goodness knows what other data the browser is happily giving out to websites that, in all honesty, should NOT be able to access that sort of thing.

Rather troubling, IMO.

Always be aware of what software you're using.
And always be aware of what that software is doing behind the scenes.

FYI : None of my websites use any Google integration, ad tracking, or anything like that. I don't even use Google Analytics. All I have is the browser's HTTP_Referer value, which is "supposed" to be sent if a user clicks on an actual link from another site, but in this case is also happening in other circumstances.