Even Googlers think incognito mode is not as secure as people think

Bloomberg reports, on International Data Privacy Day 2021, Google Marketing Director Lorraine Twohill sent an email to Google CEO Sundar Pichai about regaining the trust of users.

“Make Incognito Mode Really Private” is a key piece of the email. “We are limited in terms of promoting incognito mode because it is not really as secure as promised. Using the word ‘anonymous’ in such a vague way will cause users to lose trust in its services,” Twohill wrote in an email.

According to Bloomberg, this tech giant could lose billions of dollars if millions of users take a class-action lawsuit over this feature of Google Chrome.

Twohill’s assessment of Incognito’s shortcomings was candid, given the fact that Google was sued at the time for secretly collecting data even when users browsed in incognito mode last month, Bloomberg said. March 2021.

However, Google denies this behavior of its. “Privacy controls have long been built into Google services, and we encourage our employees to continuously work to improve them,” said Google spokesman Jose Castaneda. “.

Bloomberg revealed a number of internal records showing that many Google employees also criticized the incognito mode as it does not live up to its name. In 2018, in a chat with colleagues, a Google engineer shared that the company needed to stop calling it incognito mode and stop using the spy icon (Spy Guy) for this mode. One person in the group also agreed and said that the spy symbol had turned this mode into a joke and not as private as its name.

In the face of accusations of collecting user data even in incognito mode, this technology giant still asserts that users are fully aware that the browser is tracking data. “Incognito mode helps users hide their identity while browsing the web,” said Castaneda. We’ve made it clear how this feature works.”

According to Bloomberg, this is just one of many cases where users sued Google for violating its privacy policy. On October 4, Google had to pay $ 85 million in fines to the Arizona state government (USA) for allegedly tracking Android users illegally to advertise. The lawsuit claims that the company collects location data from Android users even when users turn off their location settings.

To date, only Google knows what the data collected from incognito mode is used for. This information will be used by advertisers to monitor customer behavior and see how they interact with ads, said Serge Egelman, research director for the Privacy and Security Project at the University of California. .

Many users believe that Google is not clear and transparent in data mining. According to Bloomberg, in a court complaint, users suggested that Google Chrome could change the content “You are protected from other people using this device” to “You are NOT protected from Google” at the start. incognito browser.

Reference: Bloomberg