“Regardless of the name, the Incognito icon should have always been” Guy Incognito, the employee said. He was referring to the image of sunglasses under a hat that pop ups with a message, “You’ve gone Incognito,” when a user opens a new tab to browse privately.Ī colleague responded by posting a link to a wiki profile of a character on “The Simpsons” cartoon show called Guy Incognito, who is a doppelganger of protagonist Homer Simpson. “We need to stop calling it Incognito and stop using a Spy Guy icon,” one engineer said in a 2018 chat among Google Chrome engineers, after sharing research that showed users misunderstood features of private browsing modes. “Privacy controls have long been built into our services and we encourage our teams to constantly discuss or consider ideas to improve them,” spokesman Jose Castaneda said in an email.Ĭourt filings show that well before the search engine giant was taken to court, rank and file Googlers frankly voiced their own frustrations that Incognito didn’t live up to its name. Twohill’s assessment of Incognito’s shortcomings was remarkably candid considering Google had already been sued at the time she messaged her boss, who himself had shepherded the feature through development back when the company launched its Chrome browser in 2008. Now, billions of dollars in damages could be at stake in a consumer lawsuit targeting the private-browsing feature if a judge agrees Tuesday to let the case proceed as a class action on behalf of millions of users. “We are limited in how strongly we can market Incognito because it’s not truly private, thus requiring really fuzzy, hedging language that is almost more damaging.” “Make Incognito Mode truly private,” she wrote in a bullet point. Chief Executive Sundar Pichai’s inbox from Google’s marketing chief Lorraine Twohill full of ideas on gaining user trust. As we clearly state each time you open a new Incognito tab, websites might be able to collect information about your browsing activity during your session.(Bloomberg) - On International Data Privacy Day last year, an email popped into Alphabet Inc. “Incognito mode in Chrome gives you the choice to browse the Internet without your activity being saved to your browser or device. “We strongly dispute these claims and we will defend ourselves vigorously against them,” a Google spokesperson told Bloomberg after the ruling. When users undertake either-or both-of the aforementioned steps, Google continues to track, collect, and identify their browsing data in real time, in contravention of federal and state laws on wiretapping and in violation of consumers’ rights to privacy. Google promises consumers that they can “browse the web privately” and stay in “control of what information share with Google.” To prevent information from being shared with Google, Google recommends that its consumers need only launch a browser such as Google Chrome, Safari, Microsoft Edge, or Firefox in “private browsing mode.” Both statements are untrue. "The court concludes that Google did not notify users that Google engages in the alleged data collection while the user is in private browsing mode,” Judge Koh wrote. That was not enough for the judge, however. Google attempted to get the lawsuit thrown out on the basis of Chrome's Incognito explainer, a message that shows every time you start up Incognito mode and explains that "your activity might still be visible to websites you visit." The lawsuit seeks at least $5 billion, or $5,000 per violation for "likely" millions of users. The lawsuit contends that Chrome's private browsing "Incognito" mode should also stop Google's server-side tracking and that Google's failure to cease such tracking violates federal wiretap laws. US District Judge Lucy Koh has ruled that a class-action lawsuit against Google's Incognito tracking policies can go forward, Bloomberg reports.
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