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U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh decided that class action against Google’s incognito tracking policies could proceed, Bloomberg reports. The lawsuit claims that Chrome’s “Incognito” private browsing mode should also stop Google’s server-side tracking and that Google’s failure to stop that tracking violates federal wiretapping laws. The lawsuit seeks at least $ 5 billion, or $ 5,000 per violation for “likely” millions of users.
Google tried to undo the process based on Chrome’s Incognito explainer, a message that shows every time you start Incognito mode and explains that “your activity may still be visible to the sites you visit”.
That was not enough for the judge, however. “The court concludes that Google has not notified users that Google is involved in the alleged data collection while the user is in private browsing mode,” wrote Judge Koh.
Here is the crux of the process:
Google promises consumers that they can “browse the web in privacy” and maintain “control over what information [users] share with Google. ”To prevent information from being shared with Google, Google recommends that its consumers only need to start a browser such as Google Chrome, Safari, Microsoft Edge or Firefox in“ private browsing mode ”. Both statements are false. When users perform one or both of the steps mentioned above, Google continues to track, collect and identify their browsing data in real time, in violation of federal and state wiretapping laws and in violation of consumers’ rights to privacy.
“We vehemently contest these claims and will vigorously defend ourselves against them,” a Google spokesman told Bloomberg after the decision. “Chrome’s incognito mode offers the option to browse the Internet without saving your activity on your browser or device. As we clearly state each time you open a new anonymous tab, websites can collect information about your browsing activity during the session. “
The anonymous text.
The incognito mode does not use the existing cookie storage and, at the end of the session, it dumps all the cookies, history and autocomplete data that were generated – that’s it. This does not change the way the websites work. If the message on the anonymous “new tab” page is not enough for you, it also points to a “learn more” page that graphically shows details in several paragraphs. If that is enough for Google to evade this lawsuit, it is something that the company will have to discuss in court.