Opening the incognito mode of any browser gives the idea that browsing will be private and no usage data will be collected, but this is not true: Google Chrome still saves most of your usage information. And so Google had to admit it after a privacy lawsuit; a requirement which results in a great balance for the user: Google undertakes to delete everything recorded during incognito sessions.
When a browser function is called private browsing or incognito browsing, it is logical to think that nothing that circulates between the servers and our device is saved by the browser and the company that develops it, is- what not? Well no: unsurprisingly, Google had to admit that Chrome’s incognito mode is anything but private. Indeed, user tracking, recording of browsing data and other information that passes through Google’s servers remains there. For now.
Google commits to deleting all data saved in private browsing mode
Current incognito mode in Google Chrome with usage notice and cookie blocking by default
A 2020 lawsuit filed against Google in San Francisco, California, called Chrome’s incognito mode and its features invalid. false sense of privacy. As the plaintiffs pointed out, Google continued to save browsing data regardless of the mode the user used; despite the fact that he always believed his browsing was private. As the first change based on the lawsuit, Google changed the warning message in Chrome when switching from normal mode to private mode. Now agree to go further.
Last Monday, April 1, the agreement between Google and the plaintiffs was known: the company admits that the browser only maintained a certain level of confidentiality at the client level, since the only difference between using normal mode and incognito mode was that Chrome was not saving session data on the device; The entire trace is recorded on Google servers.
After the agreement was reached between the parties, as evidenced in the court filing, Google committed to making Chrome’s incognito mode feel like what it always should have been: a private way to browse. This agreement results in the following changes:
- Google Chrome will inform what it collects and what it does not collect in private browsing mode. The notice is now available in current browsers, both mobile and desktop.
- Google Chrome should block third-party cookies by default in private browsing mode. Currently, the selector appears when activating said mode and is marked as standard.
- Google won’t track user’s incognito mode. Following the lawsuit, it was discovered that Google was recording those who browsed privately. Google is committed to removing this marking so that websites do not know when you are browsing in incognito mode.
- Google must delete the billions of data stored by Chrome incognito. This affects all private sessions recorded by Google since the lawsuit was filed.
Many of the changes reflected in the trial regulations already appear in current browsers. Google now has to delete all recordings saved during private sessions and Chrome finally has an incognito mode that lives up to its name. According to José Castañeda, boss of Google (statement collected by The Verge), These recordings were always anonymous.:
“We never associate data with users when they use incognito mode. We are happy to remove old technical data that has never been associated with an individual and has never been used for any form of personalization.”
Cover image | DALL-E 3 in ChatGPT edited
Via | The register, the edge
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