Google’s Chrome web browser will soon include a warning that ‘private’ browsing does not prevent users from being tracked, a move that comes months after Google settled a related privacy lawsuit.
Key points:
- A pre-release version of the browser includes an updated privacy warning
- The change is likely be rolled out to users in the next couple of months
- The lawsuit claimed that Google collected and sold browsing data from private browsing sessions
A pre-release version of the browser has been found to include an updated privacy warning that addresses a key piece of evidence in the settled lawsuit — that users “overestimate” the privacy protection features in Chrome.
When the change is rolled out, users will be warned that private browsing “won’t change how data is collected by websites you visit and the services they use, including Google”.
The updated warning is visible in a pre-release version of the browser, and will likely be rolled out to users in the next couple of months.
Google were contacted for comment but did not respond.
What does Chrome’s ‘Incognito’ mode actually do?
Private browsing in Google Chrome keeps your browsing history private from others who use the same device.
Google’s support page explains that “none of your browsing history, cookies and site data, or information entered in forms are saved on your device” when using ‘Incognito’ mode.
But it does little to protect user privacy beyond that, which means that browsers, platforms, websites and network providers can all still track private browsing sessions.
One way to think about it is to imagine yourself driving a car, says Dr Brydon Wang, legal scholar in trustworthy data governance at the Queensland University of Technology.
“When you stop driving, you delete the path of your journey from the in-car navigation system, you may even delete how many kilometres you’ve travelled from the odometer,” he explains. “That’s ‘Incognito’ mode.”
“It doesn’t stop anyone along the road or who is watching you through surveillance cameras from tracking where you have been.”
Why doesn’t private browsing mode keep browsing private?
The privacy lawsuit claimed tracking users in ‘Incognito’ mode “allows Google to offer better, more targeted, advertisements to users”.
It argued that this was “the core of Google’s business”, with the tech company generating billions in revenue from its advertising business each year, and that Google sold data that was collected from private browsing sessions.
In other words, as Dr Wang puts it, Google hasn’t designed it that way.
While other browsers have “slightly different” private browsing modes, says Dr Wang, “it is very hard to have complete anonymity online.”
Firefox, a privacy-focused web browser, explicitly states that its private browsing mode “doesn’t make you anonymous” when a private window is opened.
Dr Wang says that terms like privacy and private browsing are “ambiguous”, which makes it difficult for companies to accurately communicate how their products work.
“All this should prompt us to think about what we are actually agreeing or consenting to when we go on the internet,” he said.
“There are no fixed definitions to some of the terms being bandied about: what someone might think ‘private’ means might be interpreted differently by another.”