Is Browsing in Google’s Incognito Mode Private?

Proton

If you think incognito mode is private, then this video is for you. Learn how Google mislabeled its  “private” mode, leading to a $5 billion data privacy violation lawsuit and a shocking settlement.

Transcript

00:00All right, two truths and a lie.

00:01Google's incognito mode effectively makes you invisible to advertisers.

00:05Incognito mode stops websites from seeing your IP address.

00:08Google did not get itself into a $5 billion lawsuit

00:11for privacy-washing its description of incognito.

00:16Tough one, huh?

00:17Well, that's because they are all lies.

00:19Lots of people think that their incognito mode browsing is entirely private.

00:23Not only is that not true,

00:24but the amount of data that would be collected from Chrome

00:26using this privacy setting is worth somewhere between $4.7 and $7.8 billion

00:32on a five-year timeline.

00:34Billions with a B.

00:36In 2020, five plaintiffs sued Google,

00:39alleging violations of federal wiretapping laws,

00:41California privacy laws, and breach of contract

00:44for at least $5 billion in damages,

00:47claiming that Google collected their data despite promises not to

00:50while in incognito mode.

00:51It turns out they collected and stored hundreds of billions

00:54of browsing records of at least 136 million people

00:57who assumed their online activity was private.

01:00And you're probably one of them.

01:01When you open up incognito mode,

01:03you see this splash screen saying they won't see

01:05your browsing history, cookies, site data,

01:07or information entered in forms.

01:09This just means that Chrome won't save any of this data locally on your device.

01:13But other websites will still be able to see

01:15that you visited their page, plus your IP address,

01:18and other potentially personally identifying data.

01:20What's the point of that?

01:21Google Analytics and Google's ad network will still see you.

01:26So if you log into your Google account to check Gmail,

01:29Google learns of your visit.

01:30If you remain logged in and search on Google,

01:32the company is aware of your queries.

01:34Google agreed to settle one day before trial,

01:36and the terms of the agreement were made public in April of 2024.

01:39The settlement agreement also confirmed Google's executives

01:41knew their incognito mode splash page was problematic,

01:45but continued to use it anyway.

01:47If you want privacy, your best move is to ditch Google altogether

01:49and start using ProtonVPN, which will shield your activity from your ISP

01:53and your network admin and block ads and trackers.

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