Google will settle in lawsuit over tracking in Chrome’s incognito mode

In 2020, a lawsuit was filed over Google’s practice of tracking activity while users were in Chrome’s incognito mode, and now, Google has agreed to settle the case.

Incognito mode in Google Chrome allows users to do searches and visit websites without that data being saved to the browser, but many incorrectly believe that incognito mode acts as a cloak of invisibility from their ISP and the websites they visit, which is not how it works.

Yet, a lawsuit attempted to seek damages of over $5 billion because when users were using incognito mode in Chrome, Google would still be able to harvest data. The original lawsuit argued that Google “cannot continue to engage in the covert and unauthorized data collection from virtually every American with a computer or phone.”

In August 2023, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled that the case would move forward, saying that Google’s privacy notice and splash screen for incognito mode leaves room for question on whether “these writings created an enforceable promise that Google would not collect users’ data while they browsed privately.” The judge also took issue with Google collecting data from users in incognito mode in “the same logs” as users without incognito mode enabled.

Now, as ArsTechnica brings out, Google has opted to settle the case rather than move forward to a full trial.

Terms of the settlement have not yet been announced, but the agreement will be presented to the court toward the end of January and given approval sometime in February. Google previously said that it would “defend [itself] vigorously against” the claims because the Chrome browser “clearly [states] each time you open a new incognito tab, websites might be able to collect information about your browsing activity during your session.”

In 2021, possibly in response to the lawsuit, Google briefly tested a revised design of the incognito page but ended up sticking with the original design.