Isn't that a distinction without a difference though? It's not Chrome, it's Google Analytics. It's all Google in the end, isn't it?
A good lawyer could quite successfully argue that all three being "Google" is not sufficient for the public to reasonably expect that "private browsing" means Google will still be monitoring you. And while Google would argue that its EULA no doubt contains a clause along those lines, the deception is still there, and can still be litigated (even if the verdict ends up being "this is deceptive and you must change this aspect of your product" without this particular thing, among many many others, requiring punitive measures)
Edit: the parent has since been edited. It had said only "Not in court, no. In court that is a huge difference."
The intent of the user is clear.
To a web server incognito mode isn't a thing. It's a client only thing. You don't know if a user is using incognito mode, or if they just cleared their cookies / cache. There's no way to know the user's intent.
But I still see a problem with Google's control of both sides of the connection, and with fingerprinting in general.
Expecting laypeople to understand that distinction is probably a bit optimistic.
What is interesting is that they do explain this more clearly in some of their help articles -- but the leave out some of those details in description embedded in chrome. It takes 4 clicks to get to this from the "learn more" link -- it's pretty buried.
> Your activity, like your location, might still be visible to: * Websites you visit, including the ads and resources used on those sites * Search engines
https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/7440301
Yet, the first click from "learn more" has even more confusing language:
https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/9845881
> Chrome doesn’t tell websites, including Google, when you're browsing privately in Incognito mode.
It seems that you really have to dig to get to the parts that tell you clearly that Google is one of the "websites that track you" that they're talking about.
No they aren't. It's spelled out entirely when you just open incognito mode. It specifically says "Chrome won't save the following information" and also specifically says "Your activity might still be visible to websites you visit"
You don't have to dig into any help articles or have deep technical knowledge of how Google Analytics works. Open up incognito and it's all right there right in front of you.
0: For example: ask anyone who works at a helpdesk what it means when someone says "my Google doesn't work"
1: For example: Regulatory action against AT&T for "unlimited data" claims
Let's remove computers from laypersons because they can't understand simple English. /s
Seems to me that the end result of such a lawsuit, if it moves forward, is that Chrome will drop the feature. It's not like it has any legal requirement to provide a feature like Incognito and if the courts decide that it can be easily misunderstood (and if it costs Google actual money because of that decision) then why spend engineering time providing such a feature.
Its basically like insider trading. You are playing both sides.
But suppose I were to take your argument - are the entities actually separate? Is Chrome development not funded by revenue from google ads? They would not pass any kind of test for 'independance'
Takata is a company. They produced defective airbags...
"Chrome will not save the following information"
"Your activity might still be visible to websites you visit"
The reasonable expectation to have is that nobody is monitoring you in the first place. This is doubly true when using private browsing features. Anyone violating this assumption is obviously guilty: the first group did not explicitly consent and the second group explicitly did not consent.
Google Analytics is installed by the owner of the website; it makes a promise to them: it collects everything it can.
If Google Analytics actually ignored data from Chrome in Incognito mode, it raises some questions:
* How does it detect that, exactly?
* Is there an unfair competition aspect to it? What about other browsers, not from Google?
If incognito mode is undetectable, there’s no way for Google Analytics to distinguish between “cross-device” traffic from an incognito window vs. from a phone and a laptop. Whether or not cross-decide tracking is good or bad, it’s irrelevant to this question.
I'm pretty sure incognito is detectable right now. I'm always going to assume it is.
Huh, maybe the level of integration here is just inherently problematic and companies shouldn't try to fulfill every role in the market.
The most honest implementation would be to set the DNT header in incognito mode (as Firefox apparently does) and to have Analytics honor it. Does not require anything shady/anticompetitive
Detect that chrome didn't send the x-client-data id it sends to every google owned domain. Oh, wait, it probably still does that in incognito mode.
Sure, but chrome does not do this in incognito mode, same as any other private mode browser, there's nothing specific about chrome that allows GA to collect your analytics in incognito mode, GA can do so in any browser.