Am I reading this right? As far as I can see, the complaint seems to be that Google would be “tracking” people even if they browse in any browser’s incognito mode.
Of course they do. If I open a private window in Firefox, and then login to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, or any other website, these websites can try to track me. How would any browser control what happens or doesn’t happen on the server side of things?
These plaintiffs would be better off sueing the companies of these websites for ignoring privacy laws and continuing to add tracking scripts to their sites.
Yes, there are browsers that try to send as little personal information as possible, like the Tor Browser, but even that one can’t disable a Facebook server’s internal logging data - how could it? All modern browsers make it quite clear what their respective incognito mode does - and what it doesn’t do.
You’re missing the fact that Google is both the company behind the most popular browser used to access content on the internet and the most popular website on the internet. Their browser says incognito mode offers protections that their website then runs roughshod over. They’re the perfect company to sue over this because the website can’t shift blame to the browser and the browser can’t shift blame to the website.
Their browser doesn’t say that it protects you from websites (including their own) tracking you.
Also, they consider it a problem if a website can detect if you’re using incognito mode: https://www.blog.google/outreach-initiatives/google-news-initiative/protecting-private-browsing-chrome/
Chrome will likewise work to remedy any other current or future means of Incognito Mode detection.
Having a signal sent to websites to tell them that you’re in Incognito mode would make things worse for users and would probably work about as well to reduce tracking as the Do Not Track header.
Their browser says incognito mode offers protections that their website then runs roughshod over.
That’s the point of my comment. I won’t say “don’t sue Google”, I’ll say “sue Google, but actually read what it says when you open an incognito window”. Offers protections against other people who use this device. And that’s it.
These plaintiffs would be better off sueing the companies of these websites for ignoring privacy laws and continuing to add tracking scripts to their sites.
That’s precisely what these people are doing. They’re not suing Google because Chrome doesn’t prevent these sites from building profiles and tracking users even while in Incognito Mode, but because Google themselves are engaging in such privacy invasive tactics.
I think we might agree on the last part, but that’s exactly the point of my comment. If these people are suing Google for privacy invasion tactics, all the more power to them.
But the headline infers the opposite: “lawsuit over ‘incognito mode’ tracking”. This reads like the plaintiffs don’t understand what this “incognito mode” actually does.
Fuck Google
I don’t like any of the big brand name companies TBH… Maybe Costco n that’s it
Probably because it’s not newsworthy as it’s systematic, for instance Facebook and Googke have had to pay ever ibcreasing fines for GDPR violation, now exceeding a billion dollar, and get in line with the regulation, or get forbidden to opperate in the EU.
They have been getting those fines for years with a delay of a couple of months to pay them. They would have been barred from the EU long ago if they had not paid them.
It’s like the governments benefits over these big tech companies breaking the laws set by the government.
Lol you make it look like the government is keeping the money. The population is benefitting from fines imposed on companies violating the law, what’s odd about this?
It’s a closed browser from a data mining company, of course it kept on mining the user. The “The user didn’t want this tracked” is probably juicy information to mark what they were looking at with.
This will be an interesting case.
