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This is a pretty vague warning. What part of your "personal configuration and history" becomes available to websites in Incognito mode? Where did you learn this

This is a pretty vague warning. What part of your "personal configuration and history" becomes available to websites in Incognito mode? Where did you learn this?

jeffbee 3y ago
Which part strikes you as vague? """Others who use this device won’t see your activity.""" Seems like plain language to me. Anyone who thought this feature was hiding them from the websites they were visiting simply imagined that.
- skybrian 3y ago
  I can't tell what they're warning that websites are doing. Let's say I'm running a website. What information do I get from a browser that's running in incognito mode? "Personal configuration and activity": where in the HTTP request or JavaScript API is that? What data are we talking about? IP address, obviously, but that's not news. Or is this about browser fingerprinting?
  - kccqzy 3y ago
    You get nothing. No cookies no previous local storage. The whole point of Incognito is just that. Personal configuration: for example a website can query whether a user prefers dark mode or light mode. Incognito browsing doesn't attempt to hide that. Or consider that you have a fairly unique browser window size accessible using window.{inner,outer}{Width,Height}. Incognito also doesn't hide it from websites. None of this is inherently newsworthy. It's only newsworthy because people misunderstood Incognito and filed a lawsuit. I'd say that people seemed to have mixed up the privacy offered by the Tor browser and the privacy offered by Incognito at some point.
    - salawat 3y ago
      They didn't mix anything up, rather they asserted the definition of reasonable being employed by Google was wrong. You say you offer an incognito mode. Google says it's clear to everyone that they and everyone else it's okay to and normal to track you through it. Everyone else goes "that's not reasonable at all". This is basically Google saying "Well, it was a good run while it lasted."
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - Legend2440 3y ago
        No, what’s not reasonable is expecting websites to change their behavior in any way because you’re in incognito mode. They will do all the same tracking they always do, because they neither know or care what mode your browser’s in.
        salawat 3y ago
        It's in fact perfectly reasonable to expect it when combined with an asserted DNT bit. Also, given the years of technical discourse on this very forum on how to tell "is someone incognito'd" by fingerprinting and trying to track them regardless. Maybe you have a pony in this rodeo you don't want to change. That's fair. However, I held the entire rodeo in the first place was illegitimate. User tracking/cross-site data harvesting/tracking pixels should all have been legally strangled before an absurd number of people were unjustifiabpy enriched by selling something they had no business collecting in the first place. There are a non-trivial number of like-minded individuals who feel the same in both our cases, and by settling,.Google handily mooted the question for now.
        kccqzy 3y ago
        Now that you say "combined with an asserted DNT bit" I can see where your confusion comes from. Incognito mode doesn't imply DNT. But I can see many non-technical users (as well as technical users who purposefully muddy the waters) equating Incognito mode with the DNT bit, and equating the DNT bit to be a legally binding request to the website not to track them.
      - kccqzy 3y ago
        Of course it's okay and normal for a website to track a user even when they put their browser in Incognito mode. Anyone not understanding that is either not being reasonable in the first place, or so ignorant about the basics of the web that their opinion is not worth listening to.
- new_user_final 3y ago
  It might seem so simple to many people but not everyone has the same mental capacity.
  - TrevorJ 3y ago
    To build on this, personal cybersecurity is complex in general, and only seems 'simple' if you've been blessed to grow up around computers, the internet AND have more than a simply utilitarian interest in technology. Increasingly, the world assumes that all three of the above are true for everyone, and anyone else gets marginalized.
- firecall 3y ago
  Cookie Banners have made the general public believe that local cookies are all that are used for tracking :-/ Smart people I’ve spoken to have no idea about browser finger printing!

This is a pretty vague warning. What part of your "personal configuration and history" becomes available to websites in Incognito mode? Where did you learn this?

jeffbee 3y ago

Which part strikes you as vague? """Others who use this device won’t see your activity.""" Seems like plain language to me. Anyone who thought this feature was hiding them from the websites they were visiting simply imagined that.

skybrian 3y ago
I can't tell what they're warning that websites are doing. Let's say I'm running a website. What information do I get from a browser that's running in incognito mode? "Personal configuration and activity": where in the HTTP request or JavaScript API is that? What data are we talking about? IP address, obviously, but that's not news. Or is this about browser fingerprinting?
- kccqzy 3y ago
  You get nothing. No cookies no previous local storage. The whole point of Incognito is just that. Personal configuration: for example a website can query whether a user prefers dark mode or light mode. Incognito browsing doesn't attempt to hide that. Or consider that you have a fairly unique browser window size accessible using window.{inner,outer}{Width,Height}. Incognito also doesn't hide it from websites. None of this is inherently newsworthy. It's only newsworthy because people misunderstood Incognito and filed a lawsuit. I'd say that people seemed to have mixed up the privacy offered by the Tor browser and the privacy offered by Incognito at some point.
  - salawat 3y ago
    They didn't mix anything up, rather they asserted the definition of reasonable being employed by Google was wrong. You say you offer an incognito mode. Google says it's clear to everyone that they and everyone else it's okay to and normal to track you through it. Everyone else goes "that's not reasonable at all". This is basically Google saying "Well, it was a good run while it lasted."
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - Legend2440 3y ago
      No, what’s not reasonable is expecting websites to change their behavior in any way because you’re in incognito mode. They will do all the same tracking they always do, because they neither know or care what mode your browser’s in.
      - salawat 3y ago
        It's in fact perfectly reasonable to expect it when combined with an asserted DNT bit. Also, given the years of technical discourse on this very forum on how to tell "is someone incognito'd" by fingerprinting and trying to track them regardless. Maybe you have a pony in this rodeo you don't want to change. That's fair. However, I held the entire rodeo in the first place was illegitimate. User tracking/cross-site data harvesting/tracking pixels should all have been legally strangled before an absurd number of people were unjustifiabpy enriched by selling something they had no business collecting in the first place. There are a non-trivial number of like-minded individuals who feel the same in both our cases, and by settling,.Google handily mooted the question for now.
        kccqzy 3y ago
        Now that you say "combined with an asserted DNT bit" I can see where your confusion comes from. Incognito mode doesn't imply DNT. But I can see many non-technical users (as well as technical users who purposefully muddy the waters) equating Incognito mode with the DNT bit, and equating the DNT bit to be a legally binding request to the website not to track them.
    - kccqzy 3y ago
      Of course it's okay and normal for a website to track a user even when they put their browser in Incognito mode. Anyone not understanding that is either not being reasonable in the first place, or so ignorant about the basics of the web that their opinion is not worth listening to.
new_user_final 3y ago
It might seem so simple to many people but not everyone has the same mental capacity.
- TrevorJ 3y ago
  To build on this, personal cybersecurity is complex in general, and only seems 'simple' if you've been blessed to grow up around computers, the internet AND have more than a simply utilitarian interest in technology. Increasingly, the world assumes that all three of the above are true for everyone, and anyone else gets marginalized.
firecall 3y ago
Cookie Banners have made the general public believe that local cookies are all that are used for tracking :-/ Smart people I’ve spoken to have no idea about browser finger printing!