[whatwg] Feedback on Meta referrer

Sun Jan 1 22:55:53 PST 2012

On Sat, 31 Dec 2011 19:11:53 +0100, Adam Barth <w3c at adambarth.com> wrote:

>> Another concern is what should happen if a request is sent before
>> finding a meta referrer. For instance:
>> <head>
>>    <link rel="stylesheet" href="a.css">
>>    <meta name="referrer" content="never">
>> </head>
>> In what conditions should the request for the css file be done? Ignore
>> the meta tag? Wait until the end of <head> in case there would be a meta
>> element?
>
> The policy for a given network fetch is determined when the fetch is
> made.  In this case, the request for a.css will include the Referer
> header.  If you move the <meta> tag above the <link> tag, then the
> request will not include the Referer header.

What about:

  <head>
     <script src="foo.js"></script>
     <meta name="referrer" content="never">
     <link rel="stylesheet" href="a.css">
  </head>

...and the browser speculatively fetches the stylesheet before the <meta>  
element is in the DOM? Should the speculative parser have knowledge of  
<meta name=referrer>?

>> "TODO: This algorithm causes the most recently added meta element to
>> control the referrer-policy. Should we support changing the policy by
>> setting the content attribute? "
>> => I think that allowing to change the policy by setting the content
>> attribute would be a good idea, but a question can arise regarding what
>> happens if there are several such <meta> elements in the document.
>
> Yeah.  Is there some precedent we should look to here?  Perhaps the
> <base> element?

Perhaps this should even be an attribute on <base> -- <base referrer="...">

-- 
Simon Pieters
Opera Software