A lawsuit accusing Google of tracking its users even while they are in the incognito mode can now move forward. The class action lawsuit filed against Google last year accuses the company of violating Federal laws against wiretapping.
U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California rejected an attempt by Google to have the lawsuit thrown out. The judge stated in her ruling that the court concluded ”Google did not notify users that Google engages in the alleged data collection while the user is in private browsing mode.”
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People mistakenly believe that when they use the privacy mode on a given browser that means that no one is watching what they are doing. But more often than not it just means that the browser does not save the list of websites visited and searches made. In this way a user will not need to delete all their browsing history and this comes in handy, especially at work, when you don’t want people to know what you have really been doing all day.
This mode also blocks new cookies from loading.
But while some browsers like Brave and Opera really do offer full privacy and do not track your movements, Chromium based browsers like Chrome and Firefox are not so safe.
Google continues to track its users web browsing even when its browser is in a privacy mode. In this way the company can continue to collect data on your likes, dislikes, web searches and online shopping history. It uses this information to send users targeted ads. This is why you keep getting ads for appliances after searching for a new refrigerator or oven.
This is what lies behind the lawsuit. It states that, “Google tracks and collects consumer browsing history and other web activity data no matter what safeguards consumers undertake to protect their data privacy.” In this way the plaintiffs assert that the company is guilty of spying on them in a form of illegal wiretapping.
