Google employees comment on Chrome’s incognito mode: ‘You’re not protected by Google’

On October 18th, according to foreign media reports, a series of internal emails exposed in court showed that Google employees joked about the “Incognito” of Google Chrome browser and criticized the company for not implementing user privacy features for the browser. expectations.

In a 2018 chat, a Google engineer proposed changing the incognito mode icon in the Chrome browser to “Guy Incognito,” the nameless character from the cartoon “The Simpsons,” court documents show The character, aside from the beard, looks exactly like the main character, Homer Simpson.

The Google employee said that Guy’s slouchy camouflage “accurately portrays the level of privacy that [the browser’s incognito mode] can achieve” compared to Chrome’s standard browsing mode.

In another internal email, Lorraine Twohill, Google’s marketing chief, suggested the company strengthen data protection in Incognito mode so it can gain user trust.

“Make Incognito truly private,” Tohill wrote in a 2021 email. “We’ve been limited in promoting Incognito Mode, mainly because it’s not really a privacy product, so requires ambiguous language and is more disruptive.”

In order to protect their privacy, many users of the Chrome browser often open new incognito browsing windows when surfing the Internet, thereby switching to incognito mode. But critics and Google’s own employees say the company doesn’t know exactly how much user information is exposed.

According to a 2018 study by the University of Chicago and Leibniz University in Hannover, more than half of users mistakenly believe that using incognito mode prevents Google from seeing what they search for online. The study also revealed that more than 40 percent of users mistakenly believed that Chrome’s incognito mode made it impossible for websites to estimate their location.

In 2018, a Google engineer wrote: “We need to stop calling it Incognito Mode and stop using icons.” The employee also included a link to a study that users overestimated Incognito Mode’s protections.

Another employee even suggested changing the new private browsing window in Incognito to read: “You are not protected by Google.”

Google executives rejected the offer, court documents show.

Google’s current new incognito window in incognito mode informs users that “other users who share this device with you will not see your activity,” but “the websites you visit,” “your employer or your school ” and “Your Internet Service Provider” may still see your activity. There’s no mention of Google being able to see users’ activity.

“Privacy controls have long been included in our services, and we encourage teams to keep discussing or thinking about how to improve,” Google spokesman José Castañeda said in a statement. Provides a private surfing experience, and we are well aware of how it works and what it does, but the plaintiffs in this case have deliberately misinterpreted our statements.”