[HN Gopher] Google to delete records from Incognito tracking
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Google to delete records from Incognito tracking
Author : pseudolus
Score : 44 points
Date : 2024-04-01 20:12 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| Syonyk wrote:
| > _" We are pleased to settle this lawsuit, which we always
| believed was meritless," Google spokesman Jorge Castaneda said in
| a statement, noting that the company would not be paying any
| damages._
|
| > _" We are happy to delete old technical data that was never
| associated with an individual and was never used for any form of
| personalization."_
|
| In other words, "We've already processed the raw data into the
| useful forms we want, so, sure, we'll delete the raw stuff to
| make you happy now!"
| htrp wrote:
| AI model has already been trained
| summerlight wrote:
| For those who believe that "incognito" is actually something
| private and secret, no it is not and was never meant to be! It
| still can access the major part of your personal configuration
| and history, mostly for a convenience purpose. Its main purpose
| is to stop appending more data there, not to hide you. If you
| really want to keep your browsing private, you should be using
| guest mode.
| dspillett wrote:
| _> guest mode_
|
| Or a completely separate browser. Or at least a separate
| profile.
| skybrian wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| jtriangle wrote:
| >If you really want to keep your browsing private
|
| Guest mode is wildly insufficient for actual privacy. Something
| like brave is about as good as a layman can do, and brave + vpn
| is reasonably private.
|
| Most of privacy, however, is going to come down to hygiene. It
| doesn't matter how private your operations are after you sign
| in to google.com to check your email or facebook.com to dish
| out some uplikes.
| quatrefoil wrote:
| Guest mode does not honor your settings. It mostly defaults to
| install-time configuration.
|
| Incognito mode is fine. It doesn't persist data, it doesn't
| give websites access to existing main-profile data (cookies,
| etc), and it actually honors the settings of the profile it was
| spawned from.
|
| None of this robustly prevents fingerprinting, but neither does
| switching to another browser or wiping your profile clean.
| There's just a bunch of system and network characteristics that
| leak info because of how the web is designed. Google didn't
| make it so and I don't think they're using it to serve you ads.
|
| I think two things can simultaneously be true. Google's privacy
| practices aren't great, and they weren't actually doing
| anything that a reasonable person wouldn't expect to be
| happening in incognito. This was a lawsuit filed to shake them
| down, not to benefit the consumer. And apparently, it was
| flimsy enough that it started with a $5B demand, and is ending
| with no payout at all.
| ByQuyzzy wrote:
| I just use Tor Browser. It's kind of a pain with Cloudflare
| always trying to de-anonymize me but I figure, it's better than
| using the clearweb.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| > was never meant to be
|
| Since "incognito" literally means "with one's identity
| concealed" [1], the fact that this was allegedly never intended
| to be a browsing mode that concealed one's identity is absurdly
| dishonest.
|
| You developers who work on this sort of crap should be ashamed
| of yourselves.
|
| [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/incognito
| orthecreedence wrote:
| > If you really want to keep your browsing private
|
| ...then don't use a browser built by an ad company!
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