>They did append their affiliate id to type-ins for a single crypto exchange once
They didn't do this either. There was an omnibox site suggestion that included an affiliate id. Nothing got appended and people were able to see the affiliate id before hitting enter to visit the site. These site suggestions could also be disabled in the settings.
Thats nearly exactly what I said? - If you typed the domain into the address bar, and pressed enter (obviously) the affiliate id got appended. I'm not clear what distinction you're making here.
It's like saying that if I type news into the omnibar and hit enter the browser appends .ycombinator.com
That isn't really what is happening. It shows a preview for news.ycombinator.com and hitting enter confirms that option. The distinction is one is clear to the user and the other is a modification that happens behind the scenes.
That’s bad, but not nearly as bad as what the parent commenter described.
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