603
$5 billion Google lawsuit over ‘incognito mode’ tracking moves a step closer to trial
(www.theverge.com)
this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2023
603 points (98.7% liked)
Privacy
31991 readers
692 users here now
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don't promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
Related communities
Chat rooms
-
[Matrix/Element]Dead
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The name is blatantly misleading. The very definition of the term "incognito" means having one's true identity concealed, so I can't blame anyone with comprehension of the English language for being misled at a glance. However, like anyone else here, I do not expect this to lead to any actual progress toward more privacy.
I strongly agree, the name should be something that better reflects what it does. Evidently, many people are being misled by it.
Maybe that could be grounds for a lawsuit. After all, deliberate manipulation of users to leech as much data as possible is certainly not something Google is afraid to do, so it stands to reason that this is what they're doing with incognito mode, too.
The names of the similar features in other browsers aren't much better but most browsers are pretty clear about what it protects against and what it does not protect against.
Chrome mentions that it doesn't hide you from the websites you go to on the incognito window new tab page and their documention:
https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95464
They've also had mentions that it doesn't protect against everything since at least 2013:
Edge mentions it on their InPrivate window new tab page and their documentation:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/browse-inprivate-in-microsoft-edge-cd2c9a48-0bc4-b98e-5e46-ac40c84e27e2
Firefox mentions it on their private browsing window new tab page and their documentation (and highlights it actually):
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/private-browsing-use-firefox-without-history
Safari doesn't mention it in either place from what I can tell:
https://support.apple.com/guide/safari/browse-privately-ibrw1069/mac
True, but it also explicitly states on the incognito new tab page that it doesn't prevent tracking. Personally, I don't see Google losing this case.