Google to Delete Search Data From Tens of Millions of Users Who Used ‘Incognito’ Mode in Chrome
Bobby Allyn, reporting for NPR:
Google will destroy the private browsing history of millions of
people who used “incognito” mode in its Chrome browser as a part
of a settlement filed to federal court on Monday in a
case over the company’s secret tracking of web activity. For
years, Google simply informed users of Chrome’s internet browser
that “you’ve gone Incognito” and “now you can browse privately,”
when the supposedly untraceable browsing option was turned on — without saying what bits of data the company has been harvesting.
Yet, according to a 2020 class-action lawsuit, the tech
giant continued to scrape searches by hoovering up data about
users who browsed the internet in incognito mode through
advertising tools used by websites, grabbing “potentially
embarrassing” searches of millions of people. Google then used
this data to measure web traffic and sell ads. […]
As the suit was pending, Google changed the splash screen of
incognito mode to state that websites, employers and schools and
internet service providers can view browsing activity in incognito
mode. But under the deal, Google will have to state that the
company itself can also track browsing during incognito mode.
That was quite the omission. I’m not sure there was ever a product in history more purposefully misleadingly named than Chrome’s “Incognito” mode.
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Bobby Allyn, reporting for NPR:
Google will destroy the private browsing history of millions of
people who used “incognito” mode in its Chrome browser as a part
of a settlement filed to federal court on Monday in a
case over the company’s secret tracking of web activity. For
years, Google simply informed users of Chrome’s internet browser
that “you’ve gone Incognito” and “now you can browse privately,”
when the supposedly untraceable browsing option was turned on — without saying what bits of data the company has been harvesting.
Yet, according to a 2020 class-action lawsuit, the tech
giant continued to scrape searches by hoovering up data about
users who browsed the internet in incognito mode through
advertising tools used by websites, grabbing “potentially
embarrassing” searches of millions of people. Google then used
this data to measure web traffic and sell ads. […]
As the suit was pending, Google changed the splash screen of
incognito mode to state that websites, employers and schools and
internet service providers can view browsing activity in incognito
mode. But under the deal, Google will have to state that the
company itself can also track browsing during incognito mode.
That was quite the omission. I’m not sure there was ever a product in history more purposefully misleadingly named than Chrome’s “Incognito” mode.