Google agrees to destroy browsing data collected in Incognito mode ( www.theverge.com )

Not sure which news website I should be using for the link, sorry! I’m happy to change it if anyone has a better one.

Google agreed to destroy or de-identify billions of records of web browsing data collected when users were in its private browsing “Incognito mode,” according to a proposed class action settlement filed Monday.

The proposal is valued at $5 billion, according to Monday’s court filing, calculated by determining the value of data Google has stored and would be forced to destroy and the data it would be prevented from collecting. Google would need to address data collected in private browsing mode in December 2023 and earlier. Any data that is not outright deleted must be de-identified.

darkmogool ,

yeah… sure…

Zerush ,
@Zerush@lemmy.ml avatar

Most people misunderstand what incognito mode means in the browser. It has nothing to do with anonymous browsing, incognito mode, the only thing it does is delete the browsing data that is saved in the browser and locally, but it does not prevent web pages and search engines from logging the activity on their servers. Extensions like SiteBleacher or Cookie Autodelete do exactly the same thing as browsing in incognito mode. If you want to browse anonymously, at least you can only do it with a VPN and certainly not using Google to search or using it’s services with an account.

MonkderDritte ,

What “agrees”, they have a choice?

Linkerbaan ,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

Are they pinky promising they deleted it? Then I totally trust them now…

rageagainstmachines ,

This would only be meaningful if it wasn’t collected in the first place.

Dsklnsadog ,
@Dsklnsadog@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

And if it wasn’t a lie from the guys who already lied before.

Scolding0513 ,

not a nothing burger, but very close. de-identify means that they will absolutely not do it in an effective manner lol. sorry but this will affect very little in the longterm.

NaibofTabr ,

Hmm, it is nice to see an outcome from a lawsuit that is practical and not just a cost-of-doing-business fine.

But “de-identify” doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence… anonymized data can be de-anonymized pretty easily most of the time. Also have they kept accurate internal records on all the places pieces of that data have gone inside their various projects and systems? Who would be capable of verifying that it had all been deleted?

MeetInPotatoes ,

I’ve verified throughout our fox network that there are no foxes in any henhouses at the moment. They’ve been instructed to take steps to ensure that no foxes end up in any henhouses accidentally going forward and the foxes tell me that they are truly sorry this time. Despite past reassurances of not being evil, they were in fact…evil. We are rolling out an internal audit system with the help of a 3rd party partner who owes us lots of stuff. We plan on letting the advocacy groups check out our henhouses as long as they agree to be bound by an NDA.

oce ,
@oce@jlai.lu avatar

I think in European law, for data to be anonymous, not only there should be no personal identifying information but also there should be no identifiers that allow to link non personal data together to trace the behavior of a single person. edps.europa.eu/…/21-04-27_aepd-edps_anonymisation…

NaibofTabr ,

When the data is aggragated there’s no true anonymization:

techcrunch.com/…/researchers-spotlight-the-lie-of…

fastcompany.com/…/sorry-your-data-can-still-be-id…

oce ,
@oce@jlai.lu avatar

Do you mean not aggregated? Do you mean aggregating different kinds of data, or do you mean grouping together the same data for a category?

NaibofTabr ,

I mean that when lots of data is compiled, you can remove specific identifiers such as names, emails, IP addresses, phone numbers, etc (anonymization) but it’s been demonstrated that it’s relatively easy to re-identify specific individuals from “anonymized” data.

oce ,
@oce@jlai.lu avatar

I think this means you still have some identifier that allows to link those data to a single person. This is quite explicitly not considered anonymization by the gdpr.

LWD ,

Let me get this straight, the data is worth $5 billion to Google, but they aren’t even necessarily deleting any of it?

some_guy ,

After they’ve already benefitted by collating it.

No1 ,
@No1@aussie.zone avatar

Yep, even says in the article ‘destroy or de-identify’. So, they will summarize or transform/anonymize the data and just throw away the source.

dmtalon ,

why is incognito transmitting anything to anyone. Glad I switched to FF a while back.

person , (edited )

[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

    •
    billgamesh ,

    Incognito/private are a bad name. You should pretty much use this to not save history, or to log into a site without using saves credentials and assume it’s otherwise exactly the same as a normal browser session

    someguy3 ,

    “Cookieless”. (Is that even accurate?)

    SoulKaribou ,

    I like cookieless, but there’s also the history saving part. So… “Forgetful” “Goldfish” “Uprooted”

    catloaf ,

    Is that not how people have been using it?

    billgamesh ,

    Given the context of this thread, clearly not

    TheEntity ,

    I’m truly confused about what people expected.

    UnfortunateShort ,

    It’s not exactly the same tho. At least in Firefox there were/are still quite a few differences. Notably experimental privacy features and anti-fingerprinting measures are enabled in private windows

    billgamesh ,

    Fair enough, but it should not be considered “incognito”

    umbrella , (edited )
    @umbrella@lemmy.ml avatar

    in the case of google it seems they were collecting your data too.

    firefox doesnt do this like google, even outside incognito.

    Gabu ,

    FireFox does collect some data, even in incorgnito, and even if you opt out of optional data collection. Last time I checked, you had to change a hidden flag (about:config) to truly stop them from collecting all data (and they could technically re-enable it in future updates).

    umbrella ,
    @umbrella@lemmy.ml avatar

    well i said they dont do it the same way. not nearly to the same extent.

    what flags do you change?

    ZeroHora ,
    @ZeroHora@lemmy.ml avatar

    I don’t know exactly what flag it is but I’ll give you a tip

    Look at the arkenfox hardened config or the Librewolf project, both enhanced Firefox privacy and change some flags.

    Gabu ,

    There are a bunch. I’ll see if I can find the exhaustive list, but you can look for it by searching “Firefox disable telemetry flags about:config” on your search engine of choice.

    Socsa ,

    Hojestly I never interpreted it as anything other than this. It doesn’t save cookies or history. Obviously it doesn’t actually do anything to hide telemetry.

    WarmSoda ,

    Why did you think it didn’t?

    bigkahuna1986 ,

    Well how generous of our overlords…

    Knasen ,

    Sounds like a genuine April’s fools joke…

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