Getty Image / Yasin Baturhan Ergin / Anadolu
For years, Google Chrome users thought they were browsing without being tracked while using the popular ‘Incognito Mode‘ feature and as it turns out, that wasn’t the case at all.
Google was sued back in 2020 in a lawsuit from users seeking $5 billion for being mislead into believing they were browsing anonymously while Google was still collecting information on users browsing in Incognito Mode. A settlement has now been reached in Brown v. Google LLC, and Google feels as if it ultimately won because the users who previously sought $5 billion in penalties won’t be paid a single dollar. However, the company will now have to delete an incredible amount of user data as part of the settlement.
Going forward, Google will have to make major changes to how Incognito Mode is operated and how permissions/tracking cookies are communicated to users. In addition to having to give users the ability to block cookies that track browsing activity, something most users thought was built-in to the Incognito Mode browsing experience, the company will have to destroy all Incognito browsing data from prior to December 2023.
The value of that data, according to The Verge, is estimated to be worth $5 billion. That’s a huge part of why Google won’t be paying out money directly to any individuals.
In response to the settlement, Google spokeman José Castañeda said “We are pleased to settle this lawsuit, which we always believed was meritless. The plaintiffs originally wanted $5 billion and are receiving zero. We are happy to delete old technical data that was never associated with an individual and was never used for any form of personalization.”
On the flip side, the plaintiffs in the settlement wrote “This Settlement ensures real accountability and transparency from the world’s largest data collector and marks an important step toward improving and upholding our right to privacy on the Internet.”
As a long time user of Google’s Incognito Mode I can confidently say, I’ve never worried about them tracking me in Incognito because I just assumed any tracking in Incognito was parsed from regular browsing and session specific.
Also, for any Mac users out there on Chrome, there are two shortcuts that will drastically improve your life: ‘Command + Shift + N’ to open a new Incognito Tab and then, this is the good one ‘Command + ~’ to toggle between the Incognito tab and regular browsing tab. That one is clutch for checking the user experience on a lot of websites with/without AdBlock or being logged in to the various sites. Try those out and thank me later.