To settle a years-long lawsuit, Google has agreed to delete “billions of data records” collected from users of “Incognito mode,” illuminating the pitfalls of relying on Chrome to protect your privacy.
  • bus_factor@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    8 months ago

    Pretty sure it’s always been upfront with that it still tracks you? I always thought of it as a “don’t store history and cookies locally” thing and nothing more. Maybe I read that disclaimer with more cynicism than most?

    • magic_lobster_party@kbin.run
      11·
      8 months ago

      Yeah, it has always been the “don’t log my porn activity” mode. I don’t understand how so many people misinterpret it as some kind of privacy protection mode.

      • TheRealKuni@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        8 months ago

        Yeah, it has always been the “don’t log my porn activity” mode. I don’t understand how so many people misinterpret it as some kind of privacy protection mode.

        Well, also the “log into your accounts on someone else’s machine without storing the account in the browser” mode. Or the “shop for your partner’s gifts without leaving a trail” mode. But yeah, primarily for porn.

  • capital@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    8 months ago

    Am I the only one who knew Incognito mode simply didn’t keep history or cookies on the local machine?

    I always assumed nothing changed on Google’s end.

  • Kissaki@feddit.deEnglish
    0·
    8 months ago

    Google should have to clearly communicate to users what they did. Only few will even read and know about this. Rarely anybody will care.

    Misbehavior on such a scale should at least be communicated so users can make an informed decision on their continued trust.

          • dannoffs@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
            0·
            8 months ago

            Nowhere on that page does it say that the browser is still tracking them. The whole point of the lawsuit, which Google just settled, is that that verbage is not clear enough to nontechnical users that Google still knows what sites they’re visiting. People don’t know shit about computers, if they advertise a “privacy feature” that says their searches and history aren’t being saved, they assume they’re not being tracked. People absolutely should have a basic understanding of data privacy but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to take advantage of those who don’t.

            • magic_lobster_party@kbin.run
              01·
              8 months ago

              It tells you that you can still be tracked. Maybe not explicitly by Google themselves, but it says it won’t stop tracking.

  • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.worldEnglish
    01·
    8 months ago

    I’m just using it to prevent my depraved, shameful porn searches from entering my browser’s autocomplete corpus. Learned that one fairly early on.