Setting cache headers with meta tags: always get "private" in cache-control response

Question

I have a SharePoint master page with the following tags in the head section:

<META HTTP-EQUIV="Expires" content="-1">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Pragma" CONTENT="no-cache">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Cache-Control" CONTENT="no-cache">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Cache-Control" CONTENT="private">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Cache-Control" CONTENT="no-store">

Despite the fact that I have all these, the response for my page that uses that master page always shows "cache-control: private" in Fiddler. I have also tried

<META HTTP-EQUIV="Cache-Control" CONTENT="no-store, no-cache, private">

With the same effect. What am I doing wrong?

Edit: I also tried setting these in the web application settings in IIS and it did not help.

Answer 1

<meta http-equiv="..." content="..."> tags aren't parsed by the server before they are sent to the client via HTTP. Fiddler looks strictly at HTTP traffic, and those <meta> tags are parsed by your web browser after being transferred via HTTP.