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Which there is a warning of every time you open an incognito window. It's not fine print either, it's one of about six bullet points. "Your activity might still

Which there is a warning of every time you open an incognito window. It's not fine print either, it's one of about six bullet points. "Your activity might still be visible to ... Websites you visit." This one is going nowhere I suspect. Just because a lawsuit asks for big damages does not mean the plaintiffs are likely to prevail on their claims.

dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
Yes, it's quite interesting, and it borders on semantics. I.e. someone misunderstood privacy in this context as understood in general, that you keep things for yourself. But private/incognito browsing on Chrome means privacy from other people using your computer, not from the biggest user-tracking company. Maybe instead calling it "incognito mode", which is totally inadequate, they should call it "temporarily disable browsing history" instead.
coronadisaster 6y ago
while they do warn you, it is about time that they implement a real incognito mode, maybe using Tor by default... The current incognito only protects your privacy from other people that are using the same computer which is not really that helpful since you could just create another user to achieve basically the same (if your disk is encrypted)
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  Why should they? Tor is already there.
  - coronadisaster 6y ago
    They should because it would be the right thing to do... and Firefox is more popular then the Tor browser, so it would help spread Tor adoption... a lot of people don't understand the benefits of hiding your IP... so they aren't going to download the Tor browser
    - three_seagrass 6y ago
      I thought Firefox is already the defacto Tor browser?
      - coronadisaster 6y ago
        It is based on Firefox but it is not Firefox... but anyways, unlike the Tor browser, maybe Firefox should not use Tor in regular mode (only in incognito).
      - junon 6y ago
        It is for me. Tor runs as a daemon, then I have my Firefox proxy settings to always hit Tor. Onion addresses work, and Firefox refuses to connect if the Tor daemon isn't running. Paired with Firefox actually honoring my requests to purge all information upon exit (instead of chrome only "kind of" doing it), it certainly works out quite well for me.
        shadowgovt 6y ago
        How is the performance difference for accessing websites via Tor vs. accessing them directly?
  - bryan_w 6y ago
    Heck Tor even has a browser bundle to make it easy. At some point people have to be responsible for their own computing decisions
tsimionescu 6y ago
While I share your skepticism of the suit, I think that that line may be seen as misleading. Google Analytics is NOT a website I visit, in general. Still, despite the Incognito mode, GA may well track me across the internet. Personally, I always took Incognito/In-Private browsing to be just a "delete cookies and history on exit" mode. But the way it is presented may suggest to many people that it is significantly more than that, even with the disclaimers in Chrome. I would not hold my breath for a successful suit based on that, though.
- up2you 6y ago
  Saying that "Google Analytics is NOT the website I visit" is the same as saying "React is NOT the UI I'm using" or "Stripe is NOT the store I'm buying from". Modern day websites use readily available modules to build out functionality. Just because those modules were originally built by someone else doesn't mean that it's not part of the website you visit. Full disclosure: I work at Google.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    I am aware of this as a developer. But as a regular user, when I am told that visiting HackerNews in incognito mode won't prevent HackerNews from tracking me doesn't tell me that it won't prevent Google and Facebook and who knows how many others too. Basically, this is one of the key ideas behind the GDPR: that I should have a legally-enforced expectation that when I'm agreeing to share my data with X, I'm not implicitly agreeing to also share it with Y and Z; and that it is X's responsibility to see to this. So sure, X is free to use GA, but as a User I shouldn't have the expectation that Google knows I've visited X's sight. And comparing GA to React is really disingenuous, especially in this context. One is an active monitoring solution that hoovers up data and sends it to a 3rd party, the other is a static library that is entirely run in my own browser, or sometimes on the origin server as well.
    - up2you 6y ago
      Incognito Mode states plainly that it DOES NOT prevent the website you are visiting from tracking you. Another commenter said that this wording implies that it DOES prevent Google Analytics, since it is not part of the site. My argument was that drawing a distinction between a "site" and modules that are part of that "site" but are from other parties is dubious.
wegs 6y ago
That's not quite how the law works. If I tell you to get off of my property, and you stand on my lawn, you're trespassing, even if I didn't put up a military-grade wall. Or if I have a basic chain link fence, and you climb over it, you're clearly trespassing in situations where without the fence, if you were to incidentally walk across my lawn, you'd be okay. The point of digital trespass laws is very similar. Just because your technological measures are imperfect (as the bullets say) doesn't authorize you to circumvent them. What's damaging in this case is that Google created the signalling mechanism, gave it to users, and then intentionally chose to circumvent it. Courts are also not machines. A lot of this comes down to intent and reasonableness. If you're fingerprinting my browser when I'm in incognito, that feels like an intentional digital trespass which courts would probably recognize. If you're incidentally collecting my IP in your server logs, that feels okay. Programmers get caught up in this all the time -- they read laws and contracts like code (strict literal meaning). Lawyers read them looking at things like impact, intent, whether things are substantially similar, and so on.
- crazygringo 6y ago
  > What's damaging in this case is that Google created the signalling mechanism, gave it to users, and then intentionally chose to circumvent it. Absolutely not. Incognito mode, as in every browser, means you're history isn't recorded on your machine. And as GP said, Chrome even explicitly explains your ISP or websites may still track you. And Chrome isn't doing anything to circumvent it. Intent and reasonableness here is perfectly fine on Google's part. Incognito mode successfully prevents storing history on your machine. Analytics successfully track you. And nobody's being misled. Incognito mode has never been advertised or marketed as anti-tracking, because it's not supposed to be. It's just a convenience to clear cookies and history, nothing more.
  - pacamara619 6y ago
    Pretty sure he meant DNT and not Incognito Mode.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
  If there is a law against Google collecting analytics data, then it's going to be illegal whether in incognito mode or not. That would be the situation with trespassing. There's a law against it. But there is no such law against collecting browsing data. So there has to be some other legal theory under which Google would be liable. One example would be deceptive practices or fraud, where Google says one thing then does another. Unfortunately, we don't have the full text of the complaint yet as far as I can tell. But your "that's not how the law works" dismissal is actually going to be totally irrelevant to the complaint, because there's no legal comparison between trespassing and collecting browsing data.

dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago

Yes, it's quite interesting, and it borders on semantics. I.e. someone misunderstood privacy in this context as understood in general, that you keep things for yourself. But private/incognito browsing on Chrome means privacy from other people using your computer, not from the biggest user-tracking company. Maybe instead calling it "incognito mode", which is totally inadequate, they should call it "temporarily disable browsing history" instead.

coronadisaster 6y ago

while they do warn you, it is about time that they implement a real incognito mode, maybe using Tor by default... The current incognito only protects your privacy from other people that are using the same computer which is not really that helpful since you could just create another user to achieve basically the same (if your disk is encrypted)

shadowgovt 6y ago
Why should they? Tor is already there.
- coronadisaster 6y ago
  They should because it would be the right thing to do... and Firefox is more popular then the Tor browser, so it would help spread Tor adoption... a lot of people don't understand the benefits of hiding your IP... so they aren't going to download the Tor browser
  - three_seagrass 6y ago
    I thought Firefox is already the defacto Tor browser?
    - coronadisaster 6y ago
      It is based on Firefox but it is not Firefox... but anyways, unlike the Tor browser, maybe Firefox should not use Tor in regular mode (only in incognito).
    - junon 6y ago
      It is for me. Tor runs as a daemon, then I have my Firefox proxy settings to always hit Tor. Onion addresses work, and Firefox refuses to connect if the Tor daemon isn't running. Paired with Firefox actually honoring my requests to purge all information upon exit (instead of chrome only "kind of" doing it), it certainly works out quite well for me.
      - shadowgovt 6y ago
        How is the performance difference for accessing websites via Tor vs. accessing them directly?
- bryan_w 6y ago
  Heck Tor even has a browser bundle to make it easy. At some point people have to be responsible for their own computing decisions

tsimionescu 6y ago

While I share your skepticism of the suit, I think that that line may be seen as misleading. Google Analytics is NOT a website I visit, in general. Still, despite the Incognito mode, GA may well track me across the internet. Personally, I always took Incognito/In-Private browsing to be just a "delete cookies and history on exit" mode. But the way it is presented may suggest to many people that it is significantly more than that, even with the disclaimers in Chrome. I would not hold my breath for a successful suit based on that, though.

up2you 6y ago
Saying that "Google Analytics is NOT the website I visit" is the same as saying "React is NOT the UI I'm using" or "Stripe is NOT the store I'm buying from". Modern day websites use readily available modules to build out functionality. Just because those modules were originally built by someone else doesn't mean that it's not part of the website you visit. Full disclosure: I work at Google.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  I am aware of this as a developer. But as a regular user, when I am told that visiting HackerNews in incognito mode won't prevent HackerNews from tracking me doesn't tell me that it won't prevent Google and Facebook and who knows how many others too. Basically, this is one of the key ideas behind the GDPR: that I should have a legally-enforced expectation that when I'm agreeing to share my data with X, I'm not implicitly agreeing to also share it with Y and Z; and that it is X's responsibility to see to this. So sure, X is free to use GA, but as a User I shouldn't have the expectation that Google knows I've visited X's sight. And comparing GA to React is really disingenuous, especially in this context. One is an active monitoring solution that hoovers up data and sends it to a 3rd party, the other is a static library that is entirely run in my own browser, or sometimes on the origin server as well.
  - up2you 6y ago
    Incognito Mode states plainly that it DOES NOT prevent the website you are visiting from tracking you. Another commenter said that this wording implies that it DOES prevent Google Analytics, since it is not part of the site. My argument was that drawing a distinction between a "site" and modules that are part of that "site" but are from other parties is dubious.

wegs 6y ago

That's not quite how the law works. If I tell you to get off of my property, and you stand on my lawn, you're trespassing, even if I didn't put up a military-grade wall. Or if I have a basic chain link fence, and you climb over it, you're clearly trespassing in situations where without the fence, if you were to incidentally walk across my lawn, you'd be okay. The point of digital trespass laws is very similar. Just because your technological measures are imperfect (as the bullets say) doesn't authorize you to circumvent them. What's damaging in this case is that Google created the signalling mechanism, gave it to users, and then intentionally chose to circumvent it. Courts are also not machines. A lot of this comes down to intent and reasonableness. If you're fingerprinting my browser when I'm in incognito, that feels like an intentional digital trespass which courts would probably recognize. If you're incidentally collecting my IP in your server logs, that feels okay. Programmers get caught up in this all the time -- they read laws and contracts like code (strict literal meaning). Lawyers read them looking at things like impact, intent, whether things are substantially similar, and so on.

crazygringo 6y ago
> What's damaging in this case is that Google created the signalling mechanism, gave it to users, and then intentionally chose to circumvent it. Absolutely not. Incognito mode, as in every browser, means you're history isn't recorded on your machine. And as GP said, Chrome even explicitly explains your ISP or websites may still track you. And Chrome isn't doing anything to circumvent it. Intent and reasonableness here is perfectly fine on Google's part. Incognito mode successfully prevents storing history on your machine. Analytics successfully track you. And nobody's being misled. Incognito mode has never been advertised or marketed as anti-tracking, because it's not supposed to be. It's just a convenience to clear cookies and history, nothing more.
- pacamara619 6y ago
  Pretty sure he meant DNT and not Incognito Mode.
asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
If there is a law against Google collecting analytics data, then it's going to be illegal whether in incognito mode or not. That would be the situation with trespassing. There's a law against it. But there is no such law against collecting browsing data. So there has to be some other legal theory under which Google would be liable. One example would be deceptive practices or fraud, where Google says one thing then does another. Unfortunately, we don't have the full text of the complaint yet as far as I can tell. But your "that's not how the law works" dismissal is actually going to be totally irrelevant to the complaint, because there's no legal comparison between trespassing and collecting browsing data.