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The Incognito Mode Myth Has Fully Unraveled


To settle a years-long lawsuit, Google has agreed to delete “billions of data records” collected from users of “Incognito mode,” illuminating the pitfalls of relying on Chrome to protect your privacy.

Google has agreed to delete “billions of data records” the company collected while users browsed the web using Incognito mode, according to documents filed in federal court in San Francisco on Monday. The agreement, part of a settlement in a class action lawsuit filed in 2020, caps off years of disclosures about Google’s practices that shed light on how much data the tech giant siphons from its users—even when they’re in private-browsing mode. The settlement's relief is strictly “injunctive,” meaning its central purpose is to put an end to Google activities that the plaintiffs claim are unlawful.

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