Internal Google documents show employees‘ alarm at the lack of privacy afforded by Chrome Incognito mode.
For most of its lifetime, Chrome’s Incognito mode simply opened a fresh browser window with no cookies or history, then deleted any cookies or history accumulated during use once the window was closed. More recently, Google added the further capability of blocking third-party cookies, which could be utilized to track users across different websites. However, even with this additional feature, Incognito mode is far from a truly private or anonymous browsing mode. Nonetheless, users can be forgiven for thinking that Incognito mode is exactly that.
One Google Chrome engineer, speaking with some fellow Chrome engineers in 2018, wrote, “We need to stop calling it Incognito and stop using a Spy Guy icon.” Another engineer responded to this message by linking to a wiki page for a character from the TV show The Simpsons named “Guy Incognito.” This character is played off as a gag, appearing as a poorly disguised Homer Simpson, the show’s main character. Guy looks almost exactly the same as Homer Simpson, excepting a small mustache, a suit, and hat. After linking to this character’s wiki page, the engineer joked, “Regardless of the name, the Incognito icon should always have been Guy Incognito. Which also accurately conveys the level of privacy it provides.” This week, the Northern District of California court is considering whether to let a l awsuit filed against Google continue as a class action lawsuit. The suit in question is seeking statutory damages on behalf of millions of Google Chrome users, claiming that Google misled users of Chrome’s Incognito mode into a false sense of privacy all while collecting their data. The court documents submitted as part of this case include emails and messages sent by Google employees discussing the possibly misleading nature of Incognito mode and even cracking jokes at its expense.
