A lawsuit against Google has forced the Internet giant to better explain what the incognito mode of its Chrome web browser consists of.
Chrome was one of the first browsers to include a private mode, in which the things we do or the pages we visit are not recorded; it is possible to activate it by opening the menu and clicking on “new incognito window”. At least, that is the image that most people have of incognito mode, a secret mode in which we are protected; the reality is somewhat more complicated, and it can be easy to misinterpret the function in this way.
A class action lawsuit, imposed last year and accepted by the Californian courts last March, seeks to demonstrate this and force Google to pay no less than 5,000 million dollars for violating California privacy laws.
The lawsuit alleges that when we turn on incognito mode, Google and other companies can continue to track us and record our activity, despite the browser’s claim that the mode allows “browsing privately.” Therefore, the plaintiffs consider that Google is deceiving users, to continue recording data that they believe to be private.
The problem is that incognito mode doesn’t really protect us from Internet sniffers. The original function, when it was launched so many years ago, was to prevent other people from opening our browser and seeing our history; The classic example that Google has given is that our girlfriend does not see that we have been looking for engagement rings, for example. When we turn on incognito mode, Chrome doesn’t record history or cookies; When we close the incognito window, the pages we have visited will not appear as suggestions in a normal Chrome window, nor will they show up as already visited pages.
But that’s it. In incognito mode, Chrome does not protect us from external tracking attempts, such as web pages that log our IP address, or Google’s tracking systems that use our data to display personalized advertising.
In response to the lawsuit and this confusion, Google is going to switch to incognito mode, . In future versions, when we open that mode there will be a detailed explanation of what incognito mode does, and what it doesn’t do; For example, it will explain that incognito mode does not make us invisible online, that pages will know if we have visited them, and which service providers will be able to monitor our traffic. However, it does not specify that Google will continue to track us regardless of whether we use incognito mode.
It remains to be seen if this change will be enough to clear up doubts, or more importantly for Google, if it will allow judges to be convinced of the true purpose of incognito mode. Be that as it may, if you need absolute privacy, Chrome and incognito mode is not the best choice, and Google itself has confirmed this.