Google faces $5B lawsuit in U.S. for tracking 'private' internet use | Hacker News Reader

Google faces $5B lawsuit in U.S. for tracking 'private' internet use

reuters.com

20 pointsJesseJon8 comments

Discussed earlier:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23397045 (73 points, 13 hours ago, 36 comments)

The crux of this is that turning on Incognito browsing in Chrome _doesn’t_ turn off Google’s JavaScript trackers (like Google Analytics) on random web pages.

I’m no fan of Google in the monopoly sense but this lawsuit is total bullshit.

What’s the alternative here? Blast out an HTTP header “HEY IM IN INCOGNITO MODE! DONT TRACK ME!!!”

I'm not so sure it obvious bullshit.

If some company told me I could go "private", then when it turned out they were following me everywhere they said "Oh no, when we said go private we only meant part A of our company, part B is still following you everywhere", then I'd be unhappy.

The question is, how do Google advertise incognito mode? At the moment the pages are very minimal, but I am sure they used to make bigger claims in the past (this will of course come up in the case)

They clearly state when you open an Incognito window:

Chrome won't save the following information:

Your browsing history

Cookies and site data

Information entered in forms

----

Your activity might still be visible to:

Websites you visit

Your employer or school

Your internet service provider

> The lawsuit seeks at least $5 billion, accusing the Alphabet Inc unit of surreptitiously collecting information about what people view online and where they browse, despite their using what Google calls Incognito mode.

So, just another iteration of "Let's sue a megacorp"

Feels like they are blaming Google (Chrome) for Google (search) tracking users altogether? Maybe we need to start legally enforcing "Do not track" browser state?

It is somewhat sad that -apparently- nowadays it is enough to just think of some (magic) functionality and then you can sue a company if the product does not fulfill this fantasy (even if it clearly says so on every incognito tab you open)

But isn't it even more depressing that every tech news outlet has to jump on that craziness and amplify it thereby? Why do wee need to read about this... as if it would be something to consider even vaguely truthful?

Do people really believe that private browser modes were intended to protect them from tracking?

I thought it was pretty clear that the intention was to hide history activity from users of the same computer.

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