8 ms·

Yes, but Chrome is still google. If the left hand suggests using this Google product means privacy and trust, but the right hand still exploits you, I do think

• deleted 6y ago
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• martamorena943 6y ago
  No there really is not. You can't always "twist" the words how you need it, otherwise you behave just like Google. Chrome is a separate product. It's a browser. If it says that Chrome won't remember history in private mode, but then you go and visit a Google website, then this website can still track you the same as any other website in private mode. You can't really say "Oh Google should be broken up and be treated as separate entities (at least when it suits me)" and then start complaining "Oh Chrome and GMail are acting like separate entities but they should be really acting as if they were the same thing (at least when it suits me)" ... lol Private mode never was meant to be a privacy feature against websites. Private mode is to prevent your LOCAL history from containing anything you searched/visited and the legit use case is sharing of the computer with other members of family, for instance. For websites, nothing really changes. They can still track you all the way they want.
  • malux85 6y ago
    I love these pro-google accounts on hacker news "Signed up 6 minutes ago" <MASSIVE PRO GOOGLE RANT> So funny
    • Tenoke 6y ago
      Throwaways are important for being able to discuss opinions you might not want to on your main. Treating them as unacceptable worsens the quality of discussion here. I somewhat agree with the point they made and this is not a throwaway if that helps.
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    • crazygringo 6y ago
      Please read the HN guidelines on commenting. You're attacking the commenter's account, assuming bad faith, and name-calling their argument a "rant" instead of responding to the actual argument they're making. My account has been around for a long time and I agree with them. It's a well-reasoned explanation. It is correct on the purpose of incognito mode (to protect privacy locally only, e.g. from family) as well as the obvious point that if you're using Google.com while in incognito mode (very common), it's tracking you as it would anywhere. Websites aren't even supposed to know you're in incognito mode. Incognito means and has always meant "fresh browser tab with no history". It has never meant no tracking.
      • malux85 6y ago
        No I'm not, I said "I love these accounts", I find them enormously entertaining
        • eagsalazar2 6y ago
          Just apologize for baselessly attacking the gp and admit your condescending "high ground" is indefensible. I've done it on HN before, it feels pretty good vs continuing to defend a rash comment.
        • dang 6y ago
          Please don't post unsubstantive comments or flamebait to HN. Please do follow the site guidelines. You've broken them badly in this thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    • eagsalazar2 6y ago
      @malux85, except their point is pretty solid. At the very least martamorena943 made a coherent argument to support a point of view they are sharing politely. None of which you have bothered to do at all, in spite of (or I guess because of) the condescending high ground you feel entitled to.
  • ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    "Google. Chrome is a separate product" So basically: "Your honour, I can prove I didn't rob John, I had my brother do it for me!"
    • kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
      The US government does the exact same to circumvent the 4A.
      • ruined 6y ago
        which is likewise reprehensible. is google going to wait until there's regular street fighting in cities across the nation before they change their surveillance behavior?
  • wtetzner 6y ago
    I mean, Firefox sends Do Not Track when in private browsing. So clearly it's trying to do more than just hide local history. It obviously can't guarantee it, but it's trying. Chrome is not, and it seems pretty clear that it's not because that would hurt Google's bottom line. There's no conflict here between "Google shouldn't track you" and "Google should be split up".
    • vntok 6y ago
      > I mean, Firefox sends Do Not Track when in private browsing. So clearly it's trying to do more than just hide local history. It obviously can't guarantee it, but it's trying. You got scammed by Mozilla if you think that. Please have a deep look at the various documentation on how the Internet works and realize that sending that header does absolutely nothing for users. It is, as it has always been, up to the receiving server to decide whether to even consider that data point or not. This means that Firefox is not "trying" to do anything there, and it's actually doing an incredibly hypocritical thing as a browser vendor, making non-technical users believe that Firefox sending that header is somehow proof that Mozilla cares.
      • wtetzner 6y ago
        > Please have a deep look at the various documentation on how the Internet works Wow. I understand how the internet works, but thanks for the personal attack. > ... and realize that sending that header does absolutely nothing for users. It is, as it has always been, up to the receiving server to decide whether to even consider that data point or not. Of course, and Google controls the receiving server in this case. If they honored the Do-Not-Track header, and if Chrome sent it, users would be better off. Of course browsers can't control what all servers will do. But by sending it, servers that do honor it will. > This means that Firefox is not "trying" to do anything there, and it's actually doing an incredibly hypocritical thing as a browser vendor, making non-technical users believe that Firefox sending that header is somehow proof that Mozilla cares. You seem to be saying that because not all services honor the header, it should never be sent. I would say that sending it is better than not sending it, because some services do honor it. And the fact that Google doesn't honor it is telling itself. Firefox obviously does try, and DNT is not the only proof. They have put in a ton of work to make fingerprinting harder.
  • feoren 6y ago
    Two separate issues: 1) Chrome should enable the Do Not Track header when in private browsing, as any reasonable person would expect they would. 2) Google websites and analytics should respect Do Not Track. I'm repeating what others have said but I think it's important to separate these out as different issues, because it completely nullifies everything you just said -- both are strong arguments on their own, and Chrome being a Google product is completely irrelevant to both.
    • crazygringo 6y ago
      Except Do Not Track basically died in 2018. [1] The W3C abandoned trying to standardize it, and virtually no websites pay attention to it, because the legislative efforts behind it fell apart. It's merely a "feel good" HTTP header that does virtually nothing whatsoever in practice. I also disagree that "any reasonable person" would expect the header to be used in private browsing. Safari invented private browsing in 2005, and Chrome Incognito mode launched in 2008. Do Not Track didn't even exist as a concept back then. Incognito mode was never intended to be anti-tracking. It's only ever been intended to hide your browsing history locally, e.g. from family members. Tracking protection has an entirely different purpose. And if you want protection from tracking, you'd presumably want it in all windows, not just incognito windows, right? These are the important issues to be kept separate. Anti-tracking is something that should be consistent across all browser windows. It has nothing to do with Incognito. Incognito is about not saving browser history locally. Totally separate. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Track https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Track
      • wtetzner 6y ago
        > Incognito is about not saving browser history locally. Totally separate. They're totally separate now, but it's not clear that they should be, and it seems pretty clear that they're not separate in the minds of users. I'm having a hard time imagining a scenario where a user would want to hide their local history, but are totally cool with people who don't have physical access getting access to their activities.
        • 6y ago
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• fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
  Making incognito mode detectable is much worse for privacy, no? It adds another identifying bit that can be collected and it gives sites the ability to block people attempting to avoid tracking.
  • matheusmoreira 6y ago
    Yes, just like the do-not-track bit. That could change if courts start treating these bits as a "no, I do not consent to any tracking" statement. What if it was illegal to track users with this bit set?
    • fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
      Of course, that only helps with agents subject to the relevant laws.
      • kibwen 6y ago
        Which, one would hope, Google is.
        • reaperducer 6y ago
          There's a reason big tech companies have entire PR departments with "We can do better™" statements ready to go.
          • danudey 6y ago
            Sometimes I wonder if there are cynical teams in Google or Facebook who implement features and also write public apologies for those features ahead of time. Maybe the really advanced ones have PR statements that say "Oh, this feature sounds bad but it only really does this thing which is mostly okay" and then another one for "okay yeah you caught us it doesn't just do that okay thing but all the other not okay stuff you worried it did ahead of time". I'm sure there are entire machine learning teams working out the best way to word these non-apologies and the best schedule for releasing them to best soften the impact of getting caught with their hands in the (literal or figurative) cookie jar.
• deelowe 6y ago
  I think the issue here is a little more nuanced than right hand vs left hand, etc... Incognito was developed as a feature to hide your browsing history back when all users having individual accounts on a computer was much more rare. It wasn't developed in a world where "privacy" meant what it typically means today. Things have changed and perhaps Google should have changed as well, but to paint this as some sort of nefarious plot is a bit disingenuous.
  • josefx 6y ago
    Incognito seems to be a bad name for what it does. Maybe Alzheimers mode would be better suited to describe the local forgetfulness without implying an attempt to hide the users identity.
    • TeMPOraL 6y ago
      The common name for it is "porn mode". It communicates the design goal very well: the point is to hide the fact you're visiting some pages from other people who may be using the same computer.
      • slowmovintarget 6y ago
        Everyone was too embarrassed to admit this was the origin of the feature. Fast-forward a few decades, and people are shocked that what was a euphemism doesn't honestly describe how the feature works.
• trollybaz 6y ago
  How would you explain this that wouldn't be considered "twisting"? If you're in incognito mode, and you buy something on Amazon, post something on Facebook, purchase a NYTimes subscription, do you expect none of those entities to have information about what you did?
  • zelphirkalt 6y ago
    No need to explain any different. The solution is to simply not track the user on websites, which they own, when the user uses incognito mode. That would be the honest way, but it will never happen, because then other browsers could try to pretend, that they are incognito Chrome. So that leaves us with "do not trust privacy protection of an ad company".
  • jakelazaroff 6y ago
    No, because I directly interacted with those entities. That's different from Google Analytics, where an entity with which I directly interact informs a third party unbeknownst to me.
    • deleted 6y ago
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  • danudey 6y ago
    If you're in incognito mode and you visit a website with an embedded Facebook Like button, and Facebook's Javascript uses browser fingerprinting[1] to track you and build a further profile of you, do you expect that entity to not know who you are just because they don't have access to their usual cookies? [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/internetcitizen/2018/07/26/this-is-your-digital-fingerprint/ https://blog.mozilla.org/internetcitizen/2018/07/26/this-is-...
    • ehsankia 6y ago
      Wouldn't the same be true with any other browser's incognito? What does this have to do with Chrome? The irony is that to do what these people ask for (Analytics somehow not tracking you in incognito), they would have to actually add in a way for Analytics to detect you are in incognito.
• bee_rider 6y ago
  It would be a really interesting result if Google couldn't offer an "incognito mode" because of their position as a data harvester. Rare for vertical integration to be a disadvantage.
  • ggggtez 6y ago
    Others pointed out here in the comments, and elsewhere everytime this subject comes up, that Incognito window has a very carefully worded disclosure when you open it that websites can still track you. I think any judgement saying that Incognito/Private Browsing/etc are lying unless they somehow prevent websites from knowing that you accessed the website would be downright technologically impossible, short of perhaps Tor browser, and even Tor Browser doesn't make this kind of guarantee.
    • creato 6y ago
      Why do you say it is carefully worded? It seems like a basic description of how the internet and how browsers work.
      • ggggtez 6y ago
        Exactly. Many people (like the judge in this case, clearly) have a dream about how they think it works. But if they just read what the text said, it's very clear. They've changed the wording a few times, but as far back as I can find screenshots, it's always said that websites can still track you.
    • TheCoelacanth 6y ago
      I think their disclosure is very misleading. The disclosure sounds more like "we can't prevent other people from tracking you, but we're doing our best to stop it". What they should say is "Google will still track you. Other websites may still track you."
      • judge2020 6y ago
        Saying specifically that Google will track you isn't true either - it doesn't track you and associate the incognito session with your existing ad profiles, it tracks a new identity with its own interests. Google shouldn't have to specifically list itself when it behaves the same as other third-party analytics services or ad networks.
• crispyambulance 6y ago
  > They can twist the words to be technically accurate, but not everyone is going to understand this. I think there will have to be some kind of large-scale privacy crisis with real and visible consequences for the public to ever become alert to what surveillance capitalism REALLY means for them. Some folks are aware that these practices are bringing us down as free people (rather than as individuals), but these voices just sound like nitpicking to most people. I am just concerned about what kind of tragic consequences we'll have to see before people get wise to this.