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When I enter a search term in the firefox address bar, I noticed that "t=canonical" is always inserted in the URL where the search results are displayed. What exactly does this do? Does it have any implications for my privacy?

Note: In debian 9, I get 't=ffab' in the search url instead.

hunter2
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  • I get https://www.google.de/search?**client=ubuntu**… which I don't like either. – PerlDuck Jan 11 '18 at 16:37
  • Note the above description was for queries in duckduckgo, but it seems this issue persists for other search engines as well. – hunter2 Jan 11 '18 at 16:39
  • @dobey, not quite. Contains reference to ubuntu having a custom google search, but doesn't elaborate on how its used, how it relates to duckduckgo (which is supposed to mitigate tracking), and how "t=canonical" might affect privacy. – hunter2 Jan 11 '18 at 17:35
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    So the answer needs some elaboration, but this is in fact one of the ways for "How does Ubuntu make money." Search referrals are part of that, and different search engines will implement it differently. – dobey Jan 11 '18 at 17:38

1 Answers1

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Taken from here:

The t=mageia is intentionally added in the search configuration, as Mageia gets a tiny amount of money donated to it from duckduckgo for making it the default search engine in most of the browsers.

In your case canonical. I guess they receive some money for making google default search engine. More here

George Udosen
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  • It's pretty clear that canonical is doing this for money, but it's still unclear how this search data is being used and whether its use is adversely affecting my privacy. I would switch to debian, but there's still "t=ffab" in its duckduckgo url. Not sure what that means either, and can't seem to find anything online. – hunter2 Jan 11 '18 at 17:30
  • It's the same as what I put here for Debian. These entities have to make money to sustain their operations and make these OSes available for free to people like us. I personally have nothing to hide so I don't mind and I also need the publicity so I can reach more customers myself. – George Udosen Jan 11 '18 at 17:39