Robert_Charlton - 9:59 am on Feb 7, 2009 (gmt 0)

Came across a blog that provided an unattributed quote from "a Google rep" saying that this was intended to provide "faster" results, that it was a test, and that it is not G's intent to interfere with referral data.

The posts out there that I've seen appear to derive from statements made back in 2006 on the Google blog, about Google testing in general.

I assume that this is/was a test, and that the consequences were not well considered. I'm surprised that no one from Google has yet commented on them. It's likely that the large scale loss of referrer strings wasn't even anticipated.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 10:00 am (utc) on Feb. 7, 2009]