Looks like Google is held up in another lawsuit considering the user’s privacy. This time it concerns all the incognito users who use the service in their browsers on a regular basis. Well, it’s not totally incognito according to the lawsuit against Google.
When it comes to user’s data, Google ranks in the first position for collecting all the user information from where you’re traveling to where you eat your food. Everything is being tracked by Google and some of them, you just give access to when you’re not even aware of it.
This time people’s so-called safety net incognito mode of Google chrome has failed and the company is collecting all your data without you even knowing about it. According to the report by Reuters, Google was sued on Tuesday for collecting millions of user data from the browser’s ‘incognito’ mode.
Apparently the incognito mode is supposed to protect your data and according to the homepage of incognito mode, the browser doesn’t have any part in collecting user data. But new evidence proves it wrong. Google has been tracking the users in the ‘private’ mode of the chrome browser since June 1, 2016. This is done through the Google Ad Manager, Google Analytics, and other websites and plug-ins regardless of the fact you don’t click on the ads.
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This helps Google in knowing about user’s shopping trends, favorite foods, and even the ‘most embarrassing’ websites people visit online. Well, collecting browser data on normal browsing is different, but not in incognito. People browning incognito in order to stay secure and have assurance their history is not being tracked.
The lawsuit filed was for millions of users who surfed on incognito and was for a penalty of $5000 per user. For millions of users, it came total to a sum of $5 billion.
While some users believe that incognito makes them anonymous online, it’s not true. The incognito mode in Google Chrome just gives you a private browser that can still be tracked by your ISP as it says on the homepage. Still, there’s no justification for the fact that the browser is collecting the data opposite to what it says on the homepage.