[HN Gopher] Google engineers joked about how incognito mode isn'...
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Google engineers joked about how incognito mode isn't incognito
Author : Brajeshwar
Score : 282 points
Date : 2022-10-15 16:14 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (futurism.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (futurism.com)
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I'm quite familiar with this whole lawsuit, and I still think
| it's total and complete bullshit (and, to be clear, I have _huge_
| concerns about Google 's tracking and surveillance).
|
| Incognito Mode basically puts you in a mode as if you had
| installed a fresh, new instance of the browser every time, e.g.
| none of your past cookies can be accessed by any websites.
| Websites, though, can still use analytics APIs, including things
| like Google Analytics, to track you _within that Incognito Mode
| session_. They may also be able to correlate you by, for example,
| matching your IP address. And, to be clear, the Incognito Mode
| new window has always made this clear.
|
| I can still be really concerned about Google's overall tracking
| and also point out this lawsuit is a bullshit money grab from
| lawyers hoping for a lotto payout.
| bspammer wrote:
| The new page tab for incognito mode literally says
| Your activity might still be visible to: * Websites
| that you visit * Your employer or school
| * Your Internet service provider
|
| I know people don't read warnings, but really I don't know what
| they could do to make it more clear.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "And, to be clear, the Incognito Mode new window has always
| made this clear."
|
| But the spy icon and the name hint something different. I mean
| we technical folks do understand the words and explanations
| with one short glance, because we know a browser cannot make us
| anonymous nor invisible just like that.
|
| But common folks who understand computers as dark magic not so
| much.
|
| So it is somewhat missleading, even though I do not see a evil
| intention here, rather misscommunication.
| ericmcer wrote:
| I always felt this was obvious, what did people think incognito
| mode was? It literally says "Now you can browse privately, and
| other people who use this device won't see your activity." when
| you open an incognito window. It doesn't claim to be a VPN or
| anything.
| just_boost_it wrote:
| I think the law would look at many questions like these by
| asking "what would the normal person think incognito mode
| was". Most people can't even write an excel formula. Not only
| do they not know this mode wasn't private, they don't even
| know enough to know understand the ways in which it wasn't
| private. Youre saying it doesn't claim to be a VPN, I'm
| saying that even if it was, mot people don't know what a VPN
| is, so they can't tell if they need it or if it's even a good
| thing.
| insanitybit wrote:
| > Now you can browse privately, and other people who use
| this device won't see your activity. However, downloads,
| bookmarks and reading list items will be saved. Learn more
|
| > Your activity might still be visible to: > Websites you
| visit > Your employer or school > Your internet service
| provider
|
| It's pretty obvious that the only thing it's promising is
| to hide information from other users on the same device,
| and it goes out of its way to state that it won't protect
| against other tracking.
| wutbrodo wrote:
| It also goes out if its way to mention ways in which you can
| still be tracked (employer, isp, etc). This salacious
| headline is nonsense: Google employees joked internally about
| facts that the product clearly provides to users.
| rco8786 wrote:
| Consider that the vast, vast majority of people have no idea
| how networks or browsers or sessions or cookies or VPNs work.
|
| I think it's just fine and I don't think Google
| misrepresented anything. But certainly there's an enormous
| amount of people out there who still don't understand the
| actual implications of what incognito mode means.
| LightG wrote:
| To the HN crowd this is entirely obvious... to others,
| perhaps not so much.
|
| I think we're on the same ballpark as calling lane-assist
| Autopilot.
|
| Those who know, know. Those who don't, don't.
|
| I mean "RTFA" arose for a reason, right?
|
| Stuff literally needs to be "what it says on the tin"... and
| even then.
| nightfly wrote:
| > I think we're on the same ballpark as calling lane-assist
| Autopilot
|
| Is aviation autopilot really any different than lane-
| assist?
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| It's also literally called incognito mode. If they want to
| rename it to "temporary profile" or something, I for one
| would be a lot happier.
| muro wrote:
| A lot more bland/boring too
| Spivak wrote:
| So this lawsuit is just concern trolling? Nobody is
| actually upset about the feature itself, some people are
| just taking the worst faith interpretation that nobody irl
| actually has and pretending to be mad about it?
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Worst case scenario, it moves the Overton Window on the
| "reasonable person" principle.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > So this lawsuit is just concern trolling? Nobody is
| actually upset about the feature itself, some people are
| just taking the worst faith interpretation that nobody
| irl actually has and pretending to be mad about it?
|
| Websites mediate a significant part of how a significant
| chunk of the people in the world live a significant part
| of their lives. You and I know what incognito mode is and
| isn't, but can you seriously claim that, among a
| significant chunk of the population of the world, no
| reasonable person overestimates the privacy incognito
| mode offers?
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| A reasonable person without substantial technical
| knowledge could have mistaken beliefs about lots of
| Internet concepts, and I don't think it's reasonable to
| expect that a browser UI needs teach all of them. Should
| the cache settings have a big banner warning you to
| disable caching entirely or accept that a clever website
| operator can extract certain information about your
| browsing history?
| Spivak wrote:
| > no reasonable person
|
| The standard is would _a reasonable person_ and the
| answer is absolutely not. Among non techies people assume
| that Incognito /Private Browsing provides _less_
| protection than is actually offered. You go into private
| browsing when you don't what sites you visit to show up
| in your browser history, that's it.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > > no reasonable person
|
| > The standard is would a _reasonable person_ and the
| answer is absolutely not. Among non techies people assume
| that Incognito /Private Browsing provides less protection
| than is actually offered. You go into private browsing
| when you don't what sites you visit to show up in your
| browser history, that's it.
|
| You quote my referring to what a reasonable person would
| do, and then seem to be offering a rebuttal by saying
| that it's about what a reasonable person would do ...?
| Anyway, I think we must just disagree on a reasonable
| person's expectations.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > You quote my referring to what a reasonable person
| would do, and then seem to be offering a rebuttal by
| saying that it's about what a reasonable person would do
| ...?
|
| Yes. What's confusing about that?
|
| They didn't say it was wrong to talk about a reasonable
| person, or anything like that.
|
| But you were applying the reasonable person test
| incorrectly. You don't make a pile of reasonable people,
| and then check if _any_ of them are confused. You look at
| what a _single_ median reasonable person would think,
| basically.
| yucky wrote:
| A reasonable person would think the word incognito was
| being used as it's defined in every dictionary. But it's
| not, hence the lawsuit.
| divbzero wrote:
| Yes, the naming of "Incognito" or "Private" browsing could be
| improved, but the messaging in Chrome is pretty clear.
|
| In addition to:
|
| _Now you can browse privately, and other people who use this
| device won't see your activity. However, downloads, bookmarks
| and reading list items will be saved._
|
| It also explains:
|
| _Your activity might still be visible to:_
|
| * _Websites you visit_
|
| * _Your employer or school_
|
| * _Your internet service provider_
| lamontcg wrote:
| The whole point is that list does not mention "* Google"
| Spivak wrote:
| The argument would have to be that Google was using
| Chrome itself to track you in Incognito because they
| controlled the browser, otherwise they are just "websites
| you visit."
| lamontcg wrote:
| Yes, that is in fact the subject of the lawsuit. From
| literally the first sentence of the article:
|
| > alleges the Silicon Valley giant misled the public
| about how much data it collects from users even when
| they're in its Chrome browser's "Incognito" private
| browsing mode.
|
| The accusation is that Google is leveraging Chrome to
| track you even in incognito mode, and it does not give
| any notice that it is doing so. It warns about the
| websites you visit, about who owns your local network,
| and about the ISP, it doesn't warn that Google is still
| actively tracking you in incognito.
| Spivak wrote:
| Every source about this lawsuit has said that what is
| meant by this is Google tracking you on Google
| properties. Unless they outline how the tracking is done
| it's pointless.
| lamontcg wrote:
| https://casetext.com/case/brown-v-google-llc
| Spivak wrote:
| > through means that include Google Analytics, Google
| 'fingerprinting' techniques, concurrent Google
| applications and processes on a consumer's device, and
| Google's Ad Manager...
|
| So not using Chrome. They're arguing that Google is
| collecting the usual web tracking and that other Google
| apps a user might have collect user data.
| sangnoir wrote:
| Can you explain how Google tracks users in incognito mode
| outside of the websites they visit? If there's no client-
| side Chrome telemetry in incognito mode, why should
| Google be special-cased when all ad networks can do the
| same thing that Chrome caveats explicitly?
| lamontcg wrote:
| > 2. Google's Alleged Collection of Plaintiffs' Data
|
| > Plaintiffs allege that Google collects data from them
| while they are in private browsing mode "through means
| that include Google Analytics, Google 'fingerprinting'
| techniques, concurrent Google applications and processes
| on a consumer's device, and Google's Ad Manager." Id. P
| 8. According to Plaintiffs, "[m]ore than 70% of all
| online publishers (websites) use one or more of these
| Google services."
|
| > Specifically, Plaintiffs allege that, whenever a user,
| including a user in private browsing mode, visits a
| website that is running Google Analytics or Google Ad
| Manager, "Google's software scripts on the website
| surreptitiously direct the user's browser to send a
| secret, separate message to Google's servers in
| California." Id. P 63. This message includes six
| elements, each of which is discussed below.
|
| [...followed by a lot of detail on what gets tracked...]
|
| https://casetext.com/case/brown-v-google-llc
|
| So there is client-side telemetry which completely de-
| anonymizes and geolocates you and Google tracks you in
| incognito mode everywhere that Google Analytics is
| deployed (~70% of the web). If you use incognito mode and
| visit porn sites that use Google Analytics, then Google
| has your complete de-anonymized porn surfing history in
| their databases. This is not what people are led to
| believe is happening by the incognito warning message.
| belltaco wrote:
| How is it client side telemetry when the exact same
| things would happen in edge, Firefox, Opera etc. with or
| without private browsing turned on. All of what you
| listed has zero to do with Chrome.
| insanitybit wrote:
| You're misreading or misunderstanding. It's not your
| fault, the plaintiff is taking great pains _not_ to say
| "Google Chrome sends this data" and make it unclear.
| ryeights wrote:
| > So there is client-side telemetry which completely de-
| anonymizes and geolocates you
|
| This is not supported by the quote you posted.
| lamontcg wrote:
| ryeights wrote:
| > whenever a user, including a user in private browsing
| mode, visits a website that is running Google Analytics
| or Google Ad Manager, "Google's software scripts on the
| website surreptitiously direct the user's browser to send
| a secret, separate message to Google's servers in
| California."
|
| Which part of this indicates that the Chrome client
| contains code giving Google special privileges to track
| users in incognito mode that other websites don't have
| access to?
|
| >Google's software scripts on the website surreptitiously
| direct the user's browser
|
| is referring to JavaScript. Any other analytics platform
| could (and does) do the exact same thing.
| Spivak wrote:
| You claimed something was there, the burden is on you.
| The allegation is Google, through a combination of data
| collected from you Incognito browsing session and non-
| incognito data collected from other Google apps that
| happen to be running on the same device could be enough
| to deanonymize you. There is nothing at all alleging they
| use Chrome. Even the most egregious X-Client-Data header
| is called out as specifically as not sent in Incognito.
| grupthink wrote:
| Summary:
|
| - Google Chrome won't track you in Incognito mode.
|
| - Google Analytics javascript (if added by the webmaster
| to their site) will track you in any mode.
|
| So the lawsuit is saying, "Google promised us that
| Incognito would let us browse privately, but Google is
| still tracking us". To me, they're really muddying the
| waters here, because clientside Chrome doesn't track you,
| but, doubleclick on a website, will still track you.
|
| According to this lawsuit, Google's biggest sin is saying
| "Now you can browse privately..." but when you open
| Chrome Incognito it clearly says "Your activity might
| still be visible to websites/employer/ISP"
|
| Kind of a weak case for the plaintiff, and a weak article
| (engineers joked about the icon? and wanted to change the
| name? It's definitely a shitty name but this article
| makes it sound like this a smoking gun.)
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Why the hell would anyone assume that the software vendor
| who made the browser had no visibility into the use of
| the browser?
| JadeNB wrote:
| > Why the hell would anyone assume that the software
| vendor who made the browser had no visibility into the
| use of the browser?
|
| Why the hell wouldn't anyone? I mean, expectations of
| privacy have eroded, but "you used this company's
| product, so you must be giving them permission to see
| everything you do with it" is an argument that, despite
| many companies' attempts to push it as just common sense,
| doesn't and shouldn't fly.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| It really is the status quo now. It's in fact surprising
| when online software _doesn 't_ collect telemetry. It's
| increasingly surprising when offline software on an
| Internet-connected device doesn't collect telemetry.
|
| VSCode collects telemetry these days.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > It really is the status quo now. It's in fact
| surprising when online software doesn't collect
| telemetry. It's increasingly surprising when offline
| software on an Internet-connected device doesn't collect
| telemetry.
|
| I completely agree that it _is_ the status quo, but it
| _shouldn 't_ be. It's unreasonably for people to be
| _surprised_ by violations of privacy, but I don 't think
| that it's unreasonable for people to _expect_ respect for
| their privacy.
| moeris wrote:
| Because they accepted terms of service that explicitly
| stated what information can be collected.
| patmcc wrote:
| I mean, I certainly wouldn't expect/want Microsoft to
| have a copy of everything I've ever typed into a Word
| document or Excel spreadsheet.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| I'm now honestly curious whether Word and Excel still do
| spell check locally or have delegated to a cloud service.
|
| Cloud Word and Cloud Excel obviously do, but "online
| services are online" had better not be surprising.
| [deleted]
| duskwuff wrote:
| It shouldn't have to. There's no implication that the
| list in the Incognito start page is comprehensive. Nor is
| there anything special about Google in this context --
| the fact that they created Chrome doesn't give them any
| more access to users' data in Incognito mode than any
| other web analytics firm.
| lamontcg wrote:
| The lawsuit alleges that they have a lot more access that
| any other web analytics firm and that they deanonymize
| and geolocate you on any web property that uses Google
| Analytics which enables them to fully track you.
|
| https://casetext.com/case/brown-v-google-llc
| jsnell wrote:
| That's a very long document. Can you point to the exact
| place where they allege that they have "a lot more access
| that any other web analytics firm"? I tried searching for
| "access", "geolocat" and "deanonym" and none of the hits
| describe anything like what you claim is alleged.
| phailhaus wrote:
| So can Facebook. Should they add that disclaimer on the
| incognito page too? If you're going to argue that they
| should call out Google analytics specifically, then
| you're saying that they should have a comprehensive list
| of every tracking company out there. But why? They've
| already made it clear that websites can still track you
| in Incognito.
| PeterisP wrote:
| "* Google" is part of "websites you visit" since the
| tracking asserted here happens only to the extent that
| you visit Google websites or when websites track you
| using Google tools.
| lamontcg wrote:
| I'd argue (and this is the point of the lawsuit) that
| Google being a third party spying on you on 70% of the
| websites that use Google Analytics is not being
| adequately disclosed by the warning message in Incognito
| mode. There is no "oh by the way we de-anonymize and
| geolocate you and we have your entire porn surfing
| history in our servers, cheers mate" notice there. The
| vast majority of internet users would expect that their
| IP would naturally leak to the porn site they visit, and
| that seems to be what the warning is about. It doesn't
| suggest at all to the average user that Google is
| watching all your activity across all the porn sites you
| visit--that doesn't become an obvious risk without a lot
| of specialized knowledge (which most of the readers here
| probably know, but which 99% of the rest of the world
| doesn't, which makes that interpretation highly deceptive
| to the average person).
| smoldesu wrote:
| "By using Chrome or ChromeOS, you agree to the Google
| Terms of Service located at
| https://policies.google.com/terms and these Google Chrome
| and ChromeOS Additional Terms of Service. These Google
| Chrome and ChromeOS Additional Terms of Service apply to
| the executable code version of Chrome and ChromeOS."
|
| Google's TOS (as you can see linked there) seems to apply
| to both Chrome and Google Analytics. By downloading
| Chrome and agreeing with their EULA, you already
| acknowledge that this data is being collected. I don't
| really get what people are objecting to, here.
| geofft wrote:
| Not that I disagree with you about whether the average
| person realizes it, but it's not _just_ a risk because
| Google has JavaScript trackers on your porn site. Google
| could just make a deal with the porn site to access their
| server logs and correlate data that way. The fact that
| you disclose information to the sites you visit means
| they may, in turn, disclose information to whomever else.
|
| As a totally non-web example of this, as of 2017, "
| _Google's third-party partnerships ... capture
| approximately 70% of credit and debit card transactions
| in the United States._ "
| https://adwords.googleblog.com/2017/05/powering-ads-and-
| anal...
|
| When you buy something with MasterCard, in person, with a
| magstripe or even an old-school carbon-copy imprinter,
| MasterCard can go give that data to Google.
|
| I think the incognito warning could say "Websites you
| visit, and anyone those sites share data with" to draw
| attention to this, but I'm not sure if that's quite
| enough. I'm leaning towards the argument from this
| article that "incognito" itself is simply a poor name.
| [deleted]
| potatototoo99 wrote:
| I don't think it's that clear. For instance different incognito
| windows, opened separately, share everything among them. This
| was not at all clear to me, though I suppose at least for tabs
| in the same window it makes sense.
| jereees wrote:
| Indeed. This is not the case in Safari, for example, where
| every incognito tab is isolated from the rest.
| renewiltord wrote:
| But Safari has its own problems. For instance, despite
| promising to be a safari I noticed that I am still located
| in exactly the place I started. If it doesn't rename to
| Apple Web User Agent then it is clearly misleading to the
| non-technical user.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| That's news to me, too. Makes sense though. I assume it's
| because you can drag tabs from one window to another. So if
| you open two incognito windows and drag one windows' tabs
| into the other, the browser needs to decide what can be
| shared. You could keep their states separate, but what if you
| then you open a new tab in that shared window? What
| state/profile object is the new tab associated with? Just
| sharing between all windows is easier to handle.
| shaky-carrousel wrote:
| That is not entirely correct. Incognito mode shows as
| incognito, meaning you can tell apart a guy using incognito
| from a guy with a freshly installed chrome.
| SilasX wrote:
| > Websites, though, can still use analytics APIs, including
| things like Google Analytics, to track you within that
| Incognito Mode session. They may also be able to correlate you
| by, for example, matching your IP address.
|
| Well, that's kind of what breaks intuition about it. Compare to
| a burner phone. People expect that eg calling the same place
| with the same number will tip off the recipient that you're the
| same person.
|
| But what if every business fed a voice analysis profile of
| everyone caller to a central database -- without keeping a
| voice recording, of course -- and associated each one with a
| number. And imagine it was cheap for some people to access this
| database.
|
| That would kind of break most people's expectations of a burner
| phone. But that's basically what websites can do.
|
| So even if you know the general structure of how websites and
| Incognito work, you might still fail to appreciate how
| unhelpful the anonymization is.
| CSSer wrote:
| > Google's engineering grunts
|
| Ouch. Someone envious, maybe?
| [deleted]
| pixxel wrote:
| You read it as envy, others may read as the opposite of envy.
| "Google's engineering grunts" for many are surveillance
| capitalist lackeys. And that's being polite.
| trasz wrote:
| There's also the realization they are wasting literally half
| of their lifetime doing stuff that's mostly either evil or
| useless. Bit like those Lenin busts factory workers.
| etempleton wrote:
| It is funny, marketers often get a bad reputation for being
| unethical or intentionally misleading, but I would say, more
| often than not, if you look behind the curtain at a company you
| would see similar emails from marketing asking for something to
| be changed or updated because they are uncomfortable with the way
| they are being asked to position a product.
| djbusby wrote:
| How could this theory even be demonstrated?
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| On an individual company basis, legal discovery.
| zeptonix wrote:
| Sounds like a marketer...
| IceHegel wrote:
| The writing on this case has been so bad I haven't been able to
| figure out if Google is being accused of tracking users in
| incognito mode by secretly saving searches or history to
| profiles, or just giving the false impression of total anonymity.
| [deleted]
| yazzku wrote:
| Both. Or rather, marketing the latter given the former.
| jrmg wrote:
| I think it's the latter. Like, people (perhaps justifiable for
| non-technical users) expect it to do the impossible, like hide
| your IP address from sites you visit, or DNS queries from your
| DNS provider. And not even just from them, but from everyone,
| so you're (impossibly) using the web like a ghost and leaving
| no trace.
| Ancalagon wrote:
| Love the stab at the "Google engineering grunts" hah!
| myko wrote:
| Random people joking on eng-misc doesn't really mean anything,
| and it's impossible to tell whether or not this is that vs a
| Chrome developer who knows what's going on in incognito mode. I
| am not a Chrome developer but I seriously doubt Google is doing
| anything unexpected, purposefully, with incognito mode.
|
| Obviously anything within an incognito mode session will be
| trackable within that session, but Google is not linking it to
| anything not provided within the session.
| Hippocrates wrote:
| Why people use chrome is beyond me. Interacting with the internet
| through an advertising giant is just a huge nope.
| SwiftyBug wrote:
| It's just too convenient. You login to the Gmail website and
| before you even realize all your bookmarks and saved logins are
| instantly available. Last week I formatted my wife's PC and
| reinstalled Windows on it. The first thing she asked after I
| restarted the system was "ok, where's Chrome?". I convinced her
| to just use Edge, that it wouldn't make a huge difference. No
| complaints until now. But people just learned during the last
| 14 years that Chrome is the best, fastest browser, it's just
| where they access the internet from. They don't really think
| much about it. Want to do a search or access Facebook? Use
| Chrome.
| dataflow wrote:
| Are you sure Edge is better? Doesn't Edge add a lot of its
| own unique, er, "contributions" to the browser experience, so
| to speak? Why not Firefox or Ungoogled Chromium or something
| else like those?
| [deleted]
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| I don't use incognito for privacy. I use it to get around limits
| on articles on Medium, or be signed into two different accounts
| at once.
| twodave wrote:
| This same kind of article gets played and replayed. Nothing new
| here. "Journalist" manufacturing outrage over something that's
| been obviously true for Chrome's whole lifetime.
| [deleted]
| yazzku wrote:
| No, it's not obvious to most people.
| twodave wrote:
| Then most people must not read the screen when they open an
| incognito window. It's said that for at least a decade, and
| the fact that these articles are still being written is
| simply sensationalism.
| [deleted]
| vorticalbox wrote:
| On android when you open an incognito tab it very clearly says
| that this mode will not store browsing history, cookies or form
| data.
|
| And does "nothing" to stop ISPs or websites tracking you.
|
| Not sure how anyone can misunderstanding what data is or is not
| saved when it's stated on every new incognito tab.
| rtlfe wrote:
| Most people don't know what those words mean, and they
| shouldn't have to as a prerequisite for using a browser.
| screamingninja wrote:
| > Most people don't know what those words mean, and they
| shouldn't have to as a prerequisite for using a browser.
|
| How is "not understanding plain English" a valid counter
| argument? Here are the specific words to which I believe you
| are referring-
|
| > Your activity isn't hidden from websites you visit, your
| employer or school, or your internet service provider.
| leke wrote:
| giantg2 wrote:
| Is there an article with more substance? Like what data is
| collected, stored, etc in Incognito?
| tootie wrote:
| I've seen a few articles off this site and they seem to be
| clickbait and very lacking in substance. I think there's some
| general misunderstanding about what private browsing can and
| can't do. It works as expected in that it's a sandbox for
| cookies and browser history. It's incognito from the POV of a
| desktop app. It's not a cloak of invisibility.
| gernb wrote:
| None.
|
| The issue is websites still collect data. Like the website
| knows your ip address, your time zone, and the website can
| fingerprint to some extent. That includes Google.com, not via
| Chrome when in incognito mode, but via the fact that you access
| Google's websites.
|
| They don't know it's you directly.
| zeven7 wrote:
| If that's all it is, then in my opinion the article is
| misleading. That's exactly how I always assumed incognito
| mode worked. And although I recognize it might not be how an
| average consumer understands it, it is what I think most
| people familiar with web tech would understand. The article
| makes it sound like they're doing more than that.
| Maursault wrote:
| > That's exactly how I always assumed incognito mode
| worked.
|
| All that incognito mode does is delete those session
| cookies when you close that tab or window.[1] If you want
| to avoid being tracked, turn off cookies altogether (or use
| a plugin that blocks trackers), turn off JavaScript (or use
| a noscript plugin), and use a VPN.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_browsing
| insanitybit wrote:
| Incognito supports blocking 3rd party cookies, you just
| toggle a switch on the new tab page.
| aeternum wrote:
| The problem is that the API layer of the browser is now so
| complex that even without cookies, just your config yields a
| completely unique signature whether or not you're in
| incognito.
|
| This site gives you the details: https://amiunique.org/fp
|
| Basically unless you use a completely different computer for
| incognito browsing, any site you visit can link your logged-
| in identity to your browser fingerprint and then track you
| regardless of mode/cookies.
| ryandrake wrote:
| The fact that a web site can query all those things in that
| site is utterly ridiculous. Web technology is out of
| control.
| Spivak wrote:
| And this isn't theoretical, your fingerprint is stable
| between normal and private browsing mode on the same
| browser.
| tomComb wrote:
| Good question in a way, but I think the answer is that the
| article misrepresents the issue in order to pander better.
|
| The issue is that incognito mode is only for the browser itself
| - they can't force the sites/services you use while in
| incognito mode to change what they do.
| vmoore wrote:
| They really need to change the wording. It's more like a 'Guest
| Mode' than anything else. I have a Chrome shortcut on my desktop
| with the `--incognito` flag added so it launches in incognito
| mode and it's for when other people are using my computer. I
| don't want their searches and browsing history contaminating my
| browsing history. This can be annoying when YouTube starts
| suggesting videos that are tied to other people's interests.
| summerlight wrote:
| Actually, it's weaker than the guest mode because a guest
| doesn't get any local identity to represent a user at the first
| moment. The incognito mode may take some insensitive
| configurations in their user profile mostly for convenience but
| in an isolated manner. I think it still could be named better
| like "private mode" used in some other localization, though.
| [deleted]
| Taywee wrote:
| Why not just use a guest user for that, and have full
| isolation?
| KaoruAoiShiho wrote:
| It's too much work for the guests remember to log out
| gernb wrote:
| Chrome has a guest user. Like incognito, the moment you
| close it deletes everything.
|
| https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/6130773
|
| Some OSes, MacOS for instance, also have a guest mode for
| the entire OS. By default it only allows Safari but you can
| add other apps. Also by default it deletes everything when
| you log out of guest mode.
|
| https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/set-up-other-
| users-...
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| In my experience Google engineers often know best what BS the
| company is selling. A few people drink the koolaid. But it's your
| job so you think about the BS a lot and can reach an informed
| decision.
|
| To be clear I don't think this lawsuit has much merit. But the
| marketer's concerns are valid.
| amelius wrote:
| We should solve this mess once and for all by banning ads, and as
| a nice side-effect we'd save the planet by reducing over-
| consumption.
| bagels wrote:
| Communicating with anyone about anything electronically
| (especially what you're working on) at work seems like a legal
| risk at these large companies. So many lawsuits and discovery
| processes floating around.
|
| I'm wondering how much more discovery material there will be due
| to the widespread transition to work from home.
| arunc wrote:
| Makes me worried if the common internet user has lost it all to
| these corporations. Are there true privacy centric browsers out
| there? No, not Tor.
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| - Librewolf
|
| - Brave
|
| https://privacytests.org
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| This is told to you on the home page when you open a new tab.
| [deleted]
| jeffbee wrote:
| Some guy with no idea what he's talking about, sending messages
| randomly inside a company of over 100k employees, is exactly why
| they have that training about not drawing conclusions of law in
| written communications. Even if you have no idea how Chrome works
| and how ads logs work, which is quite likely, and even if you
| have no idea what the standard of "misleading" might be, which is
| extremely likely, your ignorant utterances will be discovered and
| used to say that stuff like this in court.
| causi wrote:
| Well, duh. "Incognito mode" was never any more than a comfy label
| to make ignorant users think they had any choice about Google
| knowing everything about them.
| irrational wrote:
| If you haven't already, move to Firefox.
| [deleted]
| arnaudsm wrote:
| What's the difference between chrome's and Firefox's incognito?
| Vinnl wrote:
| Firefox's Private Browsing mode also tracks more trackers and
| third-party cookies by default. Still won't catch everything,
| but it's definitely more private.
| yetanotherjosh wrote:
| Even outside private browsing, Firefox has a feature called
| "total cookie protection"(1) which in a nutshell creates a
| separate cookie jar for every domain, so that third party
| cookies "work" but are not actually the same cookies if you
| change to a different site that uses the same third party.
| This would be entirely self-defeating for Chrome to do that,
| as it would substantially hinder the ad system's ability to
| build a comprehensive behavior profile and to know that while
| you're on site A that you also shop and buy on site B. Again
| this is now the default behavior in Firefox, not even a
| special mode. Mozilla as an org really is a good guy doing
| good things in the fight for online privacy, safety,
| transparency, etc. Not that I think Google is evil, it's just
| a different business with different customers with different
| concerns.
|
| 1) https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/firefox-
| rolls-o...
| metadat wrote:
| The thing is, FF/Moz have a lot of telemetry which is on by
| default, and most of the toggles are hidden away and can only
| be disabled by digging through about:config.
|
| I encourage you to see for yourself how much there is, visit
| about:config and filter for "telemetry" and then "beacon". It's
| a lot.
|
| They track things like every time you close and open the
| browser, check for an update, and lots more. I took an hour to
| through and disable it all on each of my machines.
| b3nji wrote:
| Should anybody worth their salt in tech be using Chrome at this
| point?
|
| Firefox, although having a questionable owner, is pretty great
| for privacy.
|
| Brave, is coming along in leaps and bounds for good out of the
| box privacy.
|
| Even Microsoft Edge seems to better at privacy than Chrome at
| this point..
|
| Has Chrome become the new Internet Explorer?
| gerash wrote:
| I wish there was a browser extension where I could mark
| publications that resort to click-bait titles so next time I read
| an article from them I can be reminded of their journalistic
| standard
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| stevewatson301 wrote:
| Futurism is well known for suck clickbaity articles. See [1] as
| an example.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32844740
| d4mi3n wrote:
| Not quite the sam, but I've been using Kagi and they allow
| paying users to tweak search results by preferring, avoiding,
| or outright excluding whatever domains you like.
|
| See: https://blog.kagi.com/kagi-features
|
| Been really happy with those capabilities as they really help
| cut down on my exposure to low quality news/reporting.
| bmacho wrote:
| https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/page-notes/omjdhei...
|
| https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/websites-note...
|
| edit: but it's probably better if you keep your notes in a
| folder for a single file for each website
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| No surprises. Google's whole privacy theater schtick is such
| gross bullshit
| gregjw wrote:
| Seeing as you can request the data Google has on you for legal
| reasons, wouldn't this technically infringe on that? (If they're
| withholding information they actually know about you when you're
| using Incognito Mode.)
| metadat wrote:
| What exactly does Google still track from incognito tabs?
|
| I searched around, but Google's explanation isn't transparent and
| the stackexchange post didn't reveal anything of consequence.
| gernb wrote:
| nothing.
|
| But if you go to a website, like nytimes.com, it knows your ip
| address, etc... that's also true of google.com, and ads served
| by google on nytimes.com
| em-bee wrote:
| they track everything that they track from normal browser tabs.
| it's just that they can't access any cookies that they may have
| set in your browser elsewhere, and any cookies they set after
| the tab is opened will be lost when the tab is closed again (or
| maybe only when all incognito tabs are closed) and anything you
| did will not be added to your own browser history.
|
| it may make sense to compare incognito browsing to someone with
| memory loss. you will forget that you talked to me, but i'll
| still remember (your ip address and your browser fingerprint,
| and that fingerprint may be enough to link your incognito tab
| to your other tabs and to your actual identity).
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| Chrome itself doesn't track anything.
|
| Google websites don't know whether they're being visited from
| an incognito tab or not, and Chromium works hard to ensure they
| can't know (because knowing a user is in incognito mode is
| itself a privacy leak), so they track anything they could
| otherwise track without the logins and cookies which are
| excluded from the incognito sandbox.
| jcadam wrote:
| I really only use icognito mode for development/testing - when I
| need a clean session.
|
| I definitely don't use it just to keep a site from appearing in
| my browser history.
| LightG wrote:
| Actually, would be cool if incognito mode jumped into a VPN'd
| window... but it being inside a big tech browser, who'd trust it.
|
| Anyway.
| p1mrx wrote:
| I recently published a Chrome extension that lets you configure
| different proxy settings for regular/incognito tabs, after seeing
| that this was deemed "not a supported feature", thread locked:
|
| https://support.google.com/chrome/a/thread/143076679/proxy-s...
|
| The extension makes it possible to use a SOCKS5 proxy (ideally
| tunneled over WireGuard) for incognito tabs, without affecting
| normal tabs: https://github.com/pmarks-net/incognito-proxy
| metadat wrote:
| What is this useful for beyond a convenient aid to evade IP-
| based abuse detection, "safely" trolling in general, and
| superficial comfort to a paranoid mind whilst browsing
| something like an xchan site?
|
| (I'm curious because these are the only practical possibilities
| which come to mind, feels like I must be missing something)
|
| Edit: To hopefully clarify a bit, I think this sounds cool and
| all, and it's dumb Google classified and shutdown this need as
| #wontfix.
|
| I fully accept the shortcoming in understanding the legitimate
| use cases is completely on my end :). Genuine curiosity, not
| trying to rain on you in any way, @p1mrx.
| CyanBird wrote:
| > What is this useful for beyond
|
| Privacy and peace of mind are goals on themselves
| cj wrote:
| It could help evade IP-based user profiling (if you research
| sensitive topics incognito)
| metadat wrote:
| Good one, thank you kindly!
| jen20 wrote:
| Preventing your ISP from spying on you.
| p1mrx wrote:
| Yeah, that's one reason. At least with a VPN/VPS, you can
| _choose_ who 's spying on you, instead of the local
| monopoly.
| bordercases wrote:
| eastbound wrote:
| When you say "trolling", do you mean "saying an inconvenient
| truth"? What does constant identification serve, apart from
| keeping people in ignorance?
| metadat wrote:
| I mean trolling of the sort my younger, immature self would
| have used this tool for: an optimal workflow for wreaking
| unblockable havoc against some poor website without even
| disrupting my main browsing session.
| ifqwz wrote:
| If that's what your younger immature self wanted to do, I
| don't see why the browser should get in the way.
| int_19h wrote:
| Consider that it's pretty common for websites to block
| _entire countries_ by IP these days, yet people from these
| countries still have a need for that content.
| sbf501 wrote:
| FYI: After reading your post I installed it and found this AWS
| how-to:
|
| https://github.com/jameswmccarty/aws-socks5-proxy
|
| ...since I'm already using an EC2 instance for my own personal
| stuff.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| _All told, yikes. That's a pretty damning -- and funny -- insight
| into how much Google 's own employees believed in the browsing
| mode's privacy, which is to say not a lot._
|
| As a former Googler, I'll say this: You will have a hard time
| finding people more critical of many of the actions of Google
| (the company) than Googlers (the employees of said company.) Even
| after all these years, and into the Sundar times, there's a
| rather healthy internal culture of critique there. Usually with
| the best interests of the broader mission statement of the
| company at heart.
|
| Naturally much of this is necessarily muted in external
| communications, and in some forms of writing... for legal
| reasons. Sounds like some people slipped up here and didn't pay
| attention in their mandatory communications training.
|
| TLDR it's not "damning" -- geeks inside Google are much the same
| as geeks outside. They're just taking a paycheck.
| Gravityloss wrote:
| This. Is there a company where everybody's so bright eyed they
| don't find anything to improve? That would sound almost like a
| cult to me...
| mkl95 wrote:
| It sounds like Oracle
| saghm wrote:
| Can they not find anything to improve, or do they just know
| that speaking out internally will not work out well?
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| It's just not part of the culture to look for things to
| improve in the first place. The overwhelming attitude
| towards product speak was that it's not an engineering
| question, so if it makes marketing happy to go around
| babbling about how the database is "autonomous" because
| it uses "machine learning" there's no sense thinking
| about whether those claims are true.
| mkl95 wrote:
| This is sadly common in the industry. I recently found
| out a C-level guy was selling our next thing as a fully
| automated solution despite the fact it's not even close.
| It was the rare occasion where he was caught early enough
| that something could be done about it, but AFAIK he's
| done similar stuff in the past, and by the time someone
| found out it was too late.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| > geeks inside Google are much the same as geeks outside.
| They're just taking a paycheck
|
| That's a huge difference. Between people willing to take blood
| money and those not.
| Spivak wrote:
| Good lord people, it's a search engine and an ad network.
| Even if you assume the absolute worst of Google in all
| aspects it's still at best mild hard to even quantify harm.
| sooyoo wrote:
| I wouldn't express it in such drastic words, but it should be
| obvious that there is a selection bias which leaves out
| people to even start a job at Google for pure ethical
| reasons, even though they would rock the interview. To make
| the statement true ("geeks inside Google are much the same as
| geeks outside.") the average Google geek would need to be
| _significantly_ more critical (internally) than the average
| outsider among the population that does not rule out a Google
| job for ethical reasons. That 's hard to believe.
| yibberish wrote:
| lamontcg wrote:
| > You will have a hard time finding people more critical of
| many of the actions of Google (the company) than Googlers
|
| > Sounds like some people slipped up here and didn't pay
| attention in their mandatory communications training.
|
| "You can say whatever you like inside the company, but never
| talk about it outside"
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Somewhat fair, except that Google has historically been more
| tolerant of the "outside" leaks than many others. Just stop
| to imagine what would happen to the people involved if
| something like this were to leak from Apple. It's
| inconceivable to imagine them keeping their jobs. From what I
| have heard and seen from Apple, there is a veil of heavy
| _internal_ secrecy that falls even between departments and
| projects. Zero tolerance for external leaks. That kind of
| thing was _starting_ to creep into Google before I left, but
| on the whole that wasn 't the culture there.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| I mean, you're comparing them to Apple. I'm pretty sure the
| Illuminati are less secretive than Apple.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Well yeah, because if I told my coworker to "kill all the
| Apaches" they will wisely figure out that it means web server
| processes while you guys will post shit like "There is some
| evidence that Google is trying to kill Sacheen Littlefeather
| and commit literal genocide while suppressing
| whistleblowers".
|
| So logically there's a dude who sits in between the raging
| unwashed and my pure genius whose job it is to transform my
| pearls of Platonic percipience into something consumable by
| the gut flora of the lay people.
|
| This is necessary because the lay people are ever so eager to
| find witches and burn them - this act mostly out of sheer
| pleasure than self-defence.
| aeturnum wrote:
| > _TLDR it 's not "damning" -- geeks inside Google are much the
| same as geeks outside. They're just taking a paycheck. _
|
| Without pretending to know enough about the circumstances of
| any individual person, I hope you can come to see how this
| description encompasses both "bad" and "good" (or at least
| "excusable") conduct.
|
| There is some line, which is difficult to see and
| controversial, where one can no longer justify their work by
| saying they are just a cog in a machine. We can talk about that
| line and that line is clearly different for different people
| (do they need the money, do they support others, how easily
| could they leave, etc).
|
| Asking people to account for the machine they are working for
| is a fair and normal social act and we should all be reflecting
| on it.
| sooyoo wrote:
| > You will have a hard time finding people more critical of
| many of the actions of Google (the company) than Googlers (the
| employees of said company.)
|
| More critical than people who wouldn't even take a job at
| Google for ethical reasons? C'mon..
| rtlfe wrote:
| When you have 100k+ employees, there's obviously going to be
| somebody complaining about every decision.
| trasz wrote:
| >geeks inside Google are much the same as geeks outside.
| They're just taking a paycheck.
|
| Nothing wrong in making world a worse place if you're being
| paid for it, right?
| bmacho wrote:
| I mean if not me, then someone else will do the some,
| probably even worse than me.
| salawat wrote:
| >didn't pay attention in their mandatory communications
| training.
|
| Arguably, if you _did_ pay attention to said training, and
| deliverately sought to _not call a spade a spade_ you are part
| of the problem.
|
| If legal tells you to call something something else, that's
| when you need to start getting suspicious.
| kotlin2 wrote:
| It's pretty damning for Google, the company, which clearly had
| knowledge they were misrepresenting "incognito mode". Whether
| or not it's damning for the individual engineers is a matter of
| debate, likely depending on whether or not they worked on the
| feature or if they had the ability to do anything about it.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| As others have pointed out, that's pretty nonsense. When you
| open an "incognito" tab it says right there:
| "Your activity might still be visible to: Websites that
| you visit Your employer or school Your Internet
| service provider"
|
| Not exactly ambiguous or misrepresentative. It's for browsing
| porn without your spouse knowing. That's about it.
| dunham wrote:
| I occasionally use it for sites that uMatrix is a bit too
| aggressive with.
|
| On Mobile Safari I use private browsing for my kid's
| youtube, so my recommendations aren't full of minecraft
| videos. But now that I think of it, it might be fun to
| teach youtube that people who watch minecraft videos are
| also interested in type theory and Edward Kmett videos.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Don't expect much. My YouTube feed is full of Terraria
| and Minecraft and Skyrim thanks to my son... mixed with
| CMU Database CS lectures, telemark skiing, gardening, and
| LoTR mythology videos, but let me tell you that YouTube
| has failed to syncretize anything interesting from this
| fusion :-)
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| It still surprises me that 100% of HN people aren't using
| ublock...
| lamontcg wrote:
| > alleges the Silicon Valley giant misled the public about
| how much data it collects from users even when they're in
| its Chrome browser's "Incognito" private browsing mode.
|
| That warning doesn't include Google tracking you as well.
| wrs wrote:
| The internal controversy seems to be that it doesn't warn
| that your activity is still visible to _Google_ (for ad
| targeting and conversion tracking). Which is arguably much
| less obvious.
| ikiris wrote:
| Reread what they said. The only thing incognito ever
| offered was not saving local history.
| gruez wrote:
| That seems to be covered by "Your activity might still be
| visible to: Websites that you visit"?
| sooyoo wrote:
| It's tracked by Google even if you never visit a page
| operated by Google. Non-Google websites that include
| Google tracking are contributing here (which is most of
| the web).
|
| The sentence you cite suggests that it's "just" such
| sites that see your activity, while it's a third party
| (Google) that does as well and _that_ is the issue here.
|
| Sure, technically you could argue that the tracking is
| "part" of the website that you visit, so it's technically
| still "only" the site that's tracking you. But let's be
| honest here, no reasonable non-hair-splitting non-geek
| would read it that way.
| thewebcount wrote:
| Thank you for pointing this out. It's strange the
| contortions other posters here are going through to
| pretend that a normal person wouldn't understand that
| when Google tells you're in incognito mode, Google still
| tracks you. If I put Firefox in private mode, I'm pretty
| sure the Mozilla Foundation doesn't get to see a bunch of
| my activity. It's pretty simple.
| sahila wrote:
| But Google only tracks you if the website you visit
| belongs to Google or the website uses something Google
| Analytics. In either case, it's explicit in how Google
| gets your information.
|
| Is there other ways Google is tracking you in incognito
| mode? Additionally, there's other websites like Meta or
| things like Fullstory, segment, or really any third party
| tracking that gathers data in the same way GA does.
| kotlin2 wrote:
| But you're also using a Google product that markets
| itself as allowing you to browse "incognito" and its own
| engineers admit it's a terrible name because it's super
| misleading. Basically, Google is trying to have its cake
| and eat it too.
| [deleted]
| weare138 wrote:
| That's true regardless and not the issue. The issue is
| calling it 'Incognito Mode' and implying it offers the
| same privacy protection as other browsers' private modes,
| like Firefox's private mode for example, when in fact it
| doesn't. It's a standard feature on modern browsers and
| Google intentionally misled it's users that Chrome
| offered a comparable feature. Users had understandably
| assumed Chrome's privacy feature did in fact provide the
| same level of privacy they would expect from other modern
| browsers. It would be like me selling you new brakes for
| your car and telling you there is always a possibility
| brakes can fail when in fact they didn't work to begin
| with and would have never stopped your car. One is common
| sense advice, the other is fraud.
| orangecat wrote:
| What does Firefox's private mode do that Chrome's
| doesn't?
| jsnell wrote:
| Doesn't incognito mode predate Private Browsing in
| Firefox? Also, what's the distinction? The Firefox
| documentation doesn't make their feature seem
| particularly different:
|
| https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/common-myths-about-
| priv...
|
| > Myth 1: Private Browsing makes you anonymous on the
| Internet
|
| > Reality: Private Browsing does not mask your identity
| or activity online.
| [deleted]
| sshine wrote:
| > It's for browsing porn without your spouse knowing.
| That's about it.
|
| #notallspouses!
|
| It's for being able to open a tab while screen-sharing with
| strangers (colleagues, friends) without the browser
| suggesting porn sites with matching keywords.
| sneak wrote:
| They're so critical of Google they go to work there every day
| to further the company's interests.
|
| This is plain apologism.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Ridiculous personal blame-ism. Do some travel around the
| world and see the damage that the American military or
| western capitalism has done in some places. Or what the oil
| industry has done to the planet. If I judged everybody by
| their hypocritical involvement in injustice, I'd have no
| friends, and I'd hate myself to boot. (Ok, those two might
| already be true, but...)
|
| Solutions to systematic problems require a systematic
| approach. Personal blame solves nothing. I chose to leave
| Google, and I took a huge financial hit for it... but I
| wouldn't reproach anybody for staying there, especially
| around here where the other employment options aren't so
| great.
| chrismarlow9 wrote:
| It's entirely unrelated to the topic, but I hope you were
| joking about having no friends and hating yourself. You're
| a valuable person and I'd be more than happy to be your
| friend.
| trasz wrote:
| In this case the systemic problem is precisely the belief
| that it's somehow not your, nor your friends, fault. Being
| Americans you are directly profiting from it; destroying
| other regions of the world is a fundamental branch of
| American economy.
| Pigalowda wrote:
| [deleted]
| Pigalowda wrote:
| You're truly in Cambridge and you make such arguments
| about Americans? There's this collection of stories and
| myths I've heard about that talks about casting stones,
| planks in eyes, etc that comes to mind. We might as well
| just play the Anglo-Saxon bad and Anglo-Saxon fault cards
| together.
| Pigalowda wrote:
| It definitely is and you've expended some points to bring
| that up. The internal discussions they have are an outlet
| valve they can use to purge their negative and self critical
| thoughts they have due to their work. If they didn't have
| this outlet they may not feel so inclined to create and
| optimize ad tech and corporate surveillance.
| yibberish wrote:
| what I find impressive is how the employees are critical and
| the company stays on course. the criticism from its employees
| somehow neutered/ignored.
|
| I suppose a corporation is not a democracy but a private
| entity, so then, what are the employees? free citizens? who has
| more power the government -- which was supposed to guarantee
| that the citizen's voices would be heard, or the company?
|
| how different is google from the usa government really?
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Yeah I can't honestly say that internal criticism altered
| much. Maybe just slowed it down at times. Or forced
| management into a deeper level of secrecy. Like, I'm sure
| some arm of Google is still doing all sorts of work in
| defense, just without most of its staff knowing. Despite the
| big uproar some years ago.
| roland35 wrote:
| Not surprising at all. These tech journalists find some out of
| context quotes from internal Meta communications and write
| click bate articles all the time, and it can be pretty
| frustrating.
|
| I think it's good to have a critical culture of our own
| products - otherwise we would have blind spots!
| siliconc0w wrote:
| What's interesting here is the Google is both a browser vendor
| and an ad network, if you select incognito you are talking to the
| browser but I think it's at least plausible that the company
| ought to honor that request on ad network side of the house.
|
| This would at least create an interesting incentive to split
| apart businesses and keep them competitive rather than
| consolidating.
| tonytuttle wrote:
| I feel like if you're technically savvy enough to have a good
| reason to be anonymous on the internet, you're hopefully
| technically savvy enough to not use incognito mode to do so.
| advisedwang wrote:
| There's plenty of reasons non-technically savvy may want to be
| anonymous:
|
| * Don't want companies building a profile on them
|
| * Writing under a pen name and don't want to accidentally link
| it to real name
|
| * Researching a topic that might result in peers/society
| judging them badly
|
| * Want to price shop without companies raising prices because
| of their browsing (I don't think this happens, but it's a
| common fear/accusation)
|
| * Activists worried about being spied on
|
| * Person with some suspicious looking connections who doesn't
| want that to reflect onto them (perhaps you have a cousin that
| joins a enemy of your country - you didn't do anything but just
| want to email your family about news without getting on a watch
| list)
|
| * Doing illegal things and don't want to get caught
|
| In fact I'm kind of struggling to think what reason for
| anonymity is unique to the technically savvy... pirating?
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| It is unique because most websites rely on JS and no
| extensions really exist to try to hide or randomize all the
| information JS leaks.
| onphonenow wrote:
| Uhh - every tab I open in incognito warns me my activity is still
| visible to my isp my workplace and the sites I interact with.
|
| Journalism really is pretty dead these days - tell us something
| we don't know
| azinman2 wrote:
| They make it sound like it's even less private than that, but
| don't go into details.
| Mordisquitos wrote:
| That is not the reason for the lawsuit. What the lawsuit claims
| is that _Google_ is collecting information from users when they
| are using Chrome incognito mode.
|
| I don't think a new incognito tab warns you about that.
| summerlight wrote:
| How can Google stop collecting user information on the
| incognito mode if it doesn't know if the user is using it? Do
| you want Chrome to explicitly advertise user's usage of the
| incognito mode? Even beside of the incognito mode issue is it
| even technically possible to serve users without collecting
| their information? There are bunch of regulations based on
| user's geographic information and at least you need to
| collect their IP address. Or are you suggesting that IP
| address is not a user information?
|
| An incognito mode explicitly informs that "Your activity
| might be visible to website you visit". Unless you are
| intentionally trying to conflate Google and Chrome as a
| single entity, it's pretty clear that Google is going to
| collect some degree of user information. Let's stop being
| ridiculous here.
| Vinnl wrote:
| The only thing that's unclear to me, is whether Google is
| doing this through Chrome (despite Incognito mode), or
| whether they're doing it via the websites users visit (e.g.
| via Google Analytics embedded there). The former would be a
| lot more damning, but it kinda of sounds like it's the latter
| that they're being sued for? (See also https://www.bloomberg.
| com/news/articles/2022-10-11/google-s-....)
| yazzku wrote:
| readams wrote:
| Google does not collect any information through Chrome though
| in incognito mode. Google can see your activity if you visit
| Google in an incognito window, but any web site can.
| [deleted]
| noasaservice wrote:
| Well, yeah?
|
| It's obvious that "incognito" only disables cookies and other
| persistent storage content.
|
| To think this anaoymizes your connection is laughable. But for
| normies I guess that's the problem
| [deleted]
| jeffbee wrote:
| Incognito new tab page says exactly that when you open it. It
| specifically says "other people who use _this device_ won't see
| your activity. " That's the top line! Then it goes on to
| specifically point out "Your activity might still be visible to
| websites you visit".
| tpxl wrote:
| The first thing it says is "you can browse privately". Then
| it goes on to explain you're actually not browsing privately
| at all.
| jeffbee wrote:
| When you go in your office and close the door to make a
| phone call, you are speaking privately, with respect to the
| other people outside the door. You are not speaking
| privately with respect to the person you called, and any
| expectation of that is just silly.
| love2read wrote:
| https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://futurism.com/the-byte/google...
| [deleted]
| insanitybit wrote:
| > "users of the Internet enable 'private browsing mode' for the
| purpose of preventing others ... from finding out what the users
| are viewing on the Internet."
|
| OK but Chrome explicitly states that it only protects against
| other users _on the device_ seeing your history. It also clearly
| states that other entities _may_ be able to see the history. So
| if you thought the purpose was "preventing _others_ " in a
| general sense, that's on you.
|
| They state that Google attempts to collect information on you
| even when in Private Browsing. Yes, no shit, all websites will
| work exactly the same way via Private Browsing. All tracking
| techniques will work exactly the same way. To not do this would
| mean that a browser would have to tell websites "I'm in private
| browsing mode", which would be a terrible idea _and_ is just a
| shittier version of Do Not Track.
|
| OK, so then they talk about "Duplicate GET Requests".
|
| > Plaintiffs allege that Google collects duplicate GET requests.
|
| > ccordingly, when Google obtains a duplicate GET request, the
| duplicate GET request "enables Google to learn exactly what
| content the user's browsing software was asking the website to
| display."
|
| I have no idea what they're referring to. The closest thing I can
| think of is Safe Browsing, _maybe_ that new off-by-default
| advanced safebrowsing thing?
|
| Oh, ok, reading on they're... just talking about tracking that
| websites do. So if Google's JS is loaded into a webpage it
| apparently will send dupes of GET requests. I'd like a source but
| they only talk about how Facebook does this...
|
| > Second, Plaintiffs allege that Google collects the IP address
| of the user's connection to the Internet, which is unique to the
| user's device.
|
| Yes, websites can see your IP address... also websites have been
| explicitly called out in the private browsing page as _still
| being able to track you_.
|
| > In addition, Plaintiffs allege that, for users using Chrome
| without Incognito Mode, Chrome constantly transmits "a unique
| digital string of characters called Google's 'X-Client-Data
| Header,' such that Google uniquely identifies the device and user
| thereafter." Id. P 95. However, Plaintiffs allege that the
| X-Client Data Header is not present when a Chrome user has
| enabled Incognito Mode. Id. P 96. Accordingly, Plaintiffs allege
| that Google is able to tell when a Chrome user has enabled
| Incognito Mode. Id.
|
| Yes, this is an example of Google not sending data to Google
| during private browsing.
|
| I dislike this header, personally. I believe that Google _should_
| remove `doubleclick` from one of the sites that it will be sent
| to, but I don 't think it's relevant to this case. It is so far
| the most relevant thing though.
|
| I also believe Google should not send the tracker to
| "youtubekids.com" and that may actually be illegal in the EU,
| possibly even the US.
|
| And that's it. So, most of this is absolute nonsense, and there
| is one issue that I think Google should address but it's not
| related to the misrepresentation of Private Browsing at all.
| nightski wrote:
| Cross domain tracking should be straight up illegal (or at a
| minimum completely opt-in only) along with sharing of consumer
| information between companies. Yes it might make things from a
| consumer stand point less convenient in some odd cases, but we
| deserve more control over our information that companies collect.
|
| In the event of an acquisition a consumer should have complete
| legal authority to decide whether there information transfers to
| the new company, and it is opt-in only by default.
| patmcc wrote:
| >>In the event of an acquisition a consumer should have
| complete legal authority to decide whether there information
| transfers to the new company, and it is opt-in only by default.
|
| How would you sensibly have this work with a publicly traded
| company? Or any corporation, really. Every time any stock
| changes have all the data they have is unusable?
| zerotolerance wrote:
| It isn't a new company. Ownership changed in the case of an
| acquisition.
| jp57 wrote:
| A lot of folks are commenting on the fact that "incognito mode"
| never promised that it would conceal your identity.
|
| I find it odd that everyone seems to be just ignoring that the
| word "incognito" literally means "with one's true identity
| concealed". It is, in fact, reasonable for naive users to expect
| that their identity would be concealed while using "incognito
| mode", Google's disclaimers to the contrary notwithstanding.
|
| "What? Everyone should have known that we didn't literally mean
| 'incognito'!"
|
| Luckily, every company's engineers can be counted on to point out
| the irony of the company's marketing bullshit.
| patmcc wrote:
| If I put on a big trench coat, hat, sunglasses, and mask, such
| that no one can recognize me, I'm certainly "incognito".
|
| If I then go into a store and say "hey I'm Pat, account number
| 314b" that's on me. I'm no longer incognito to them. If someone
| watches incognito me coming out of my front door and getting
| into my car, they may (reasonably) assume that it's me. This
| doesn't mean my identity isn't concealed.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| If I give you a trench coat specifically to conceal yourself,
| but on the back I write your name in a way that you don't
| notice, am I being honest?
| insanitybit wrote:
| That isn't what's happening. Chrome, "the trenchcoat", is
| in no way "naming" you while in incognito mode.
| tedunangst wrote:
| Incognito doesn't mean invisible. If I put on a fake mustache
| and walk around the grocery store, they can still see me. The
| store manager can still say "hey, the mustache guy is spending
| a lot of time looking at the lettuce." And yet, I'm incognito.
| They don't know who I am.
| [deleted]
| bpodgursky wrote:
| What would you call it?
| wil421 wrote:
| No history browsing. Or have a disclaimer that the ad company
| can still see what you're doing.
| screamingninja wrote:
| > Your activity isn't hidden from websites you visit, your
| employer or school, or your internet service provider.
|
| I see this disclaimer every time I launch incognito mode.
| Does it not count?
| wil421 wrote:
| There's a huge difference in your internet provider being
| able to see your browsing history versus software labeled
| incognito or private browsing.
| nabakin wrote:
| Be more explicit and call it something like "Reduced tracking
| mode" (could shorten to "RT mode"), "Guest mode", "Privacy-
| focused mode", etc. There are a bunch of names which could
| provide better understanding although they're probably not
| the best for marketing
| luckylion wrote:
| But it doesn't reduce the tracking at all, it only doesn't
| persist cache, cookies + history beyond the browser
| session.
| int_19h wrote:
| Pretty much all other browser vendors use some term derived
| from "private".
| svnpenn wrote:
| why do you act like Google Chrome is the only browser? All
| you have to do is look at what other browsers do. For
| example, Firefox calls it "New Private Window"
| tlogan wrote:
| No profile mode? Browsing as guests user?
| nabakin wrote:
| Guest mode?
| insanitybit wrote:
| Guest users are their own thing already in Chrome. And you
| do have a profile, you can even bring extensions into your
| incognito mode.
| type-r wrote:
| It's interesting how differing the opinions are for Tesla's
| autopilot naming. In that case, people seem to really care that
| it's not accurate.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| If you make an autopilot that is not truly auto, as in
| automatic, and not truly a pilot, that's a pretty stupid name
| for a feature on a 2000kg vehicle that drives 100kph within a
| meter of pedestrians.
| spijdar wrote:
| I don't keep up with the specifics of Tesla's (or any other
| company, for that matter) "self-driving"/driving-assist
| features, and I do think the name is a pretty poor choice
| for the general public, but by analogy to aviation
| autopilots, it sounds pretty similar.
|
| Bear in mind, lane-assist and even cruise control could
| _also_ be called "autopilots" by this same reasoning.
| Autopilots in aviation vary wildly in capabilities, and the
| term is used pretty broadly to refer to any automated
| system that controls some aspect of the flight, since even
| flying straight and level at a fixed altitude is a pretty
| demanding job over hours.
|
| As you alluded to, though, autopilots (in planes) don't
| generally have to worry about _traffic_ or running into
| obstacles. The first line of defense is ATC scheduling
| planes so they won 't collide, and in large commercial
| planes, TCAS transponders that signal the pilot (with a
| loud aural warning) of traffic that _might_ be a threat,
| and providing guidance to avoid collisions. For alert
| pilots, there is usually a lot more time to react to these
| threats than in cars with only 10s of meters of separation.
| Some autopilots integrate with TCAS to perform automated
| avoidance maneuvers, though it 's not clear to me how
| common these are.
|
| At any rate, most people know nothing about aviation, and
| it's either ignorant or deceptive to call it "autopilot"
| when the average person thinks that implies _fully
| automated_ as opposed to _partially automated_ piloting.
| Driving-assist in this case _is_ automatic and a pilot, but
| not _fully_ automatic. And when you need response times in
| seconds to subseconds, you can 't afford to "zone out" to
| the extent an aviation pilot might.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| Driver assist, or something similar, would be a much more
| sensible name.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Should we ignore private mode on Firefox is the same thing and
| not really private. I think incognito in this context is
| actually more accurate.
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