Is Chrome incognito really private? Do I have a case for a lawsuit if it's not?
Recently I had red freckle on my skin. Since one of my grandparents died of hepatitis B and had some red freckles, I googled on Incognito mode about red freckles and hepatitis. Next day my facebook (non-incognito) was full of Adefovir ads, which is apparently an Hepatitis B medicine. A friend who is a doctor saw it and asked me if I was sick. I feel extemely wronged and I believe I'm entitled to punitive damages. What's the legal framework on this?
2 Answers
When you open a new incognito tab, the following message is shown:
"Pages you view in incognito tabs won’t stick around in your browser’s history, cookie store, or search history after you’ve closed all of your incognito tabs. Any files you download or bookmarks you create will be kept. Learn more about incognito browsing
Going incognito doesn’t hide your browsing from your employer, your internet service provider, or the websites you visit."
Meaning that if someone goes to your computer and checks your browser history or cache files from the sites you've visited, that person should indeed see nothing.
However, the moment you log in to a website that becomes irrelevant as your information can be tracked. Moreover, it says the deletion occurs AFTER you've closed all your tabs, which means that whatever happens in between is fair game.
Now if you use Google and don't log in to perform a quick search, I'm not sure how exactly that information can be associated with you. Even though you are not logged into anything when opening an incognito tab, I see no information on whether your "normal" chrome cookies are accessible by the browser or not,
Either way, though I'm not a legal expert and don't make myself liable for this information, I very much doubt you have a case for a lawsuit.
"Pages you view in incognito tabs won’t stick around in your browser’s history, cookie store, or search history after you’ve closed all of your incognito tabs. Any files you download or bookmarks you create will be kept. Learn more about incognito browsing
Going incognito doesn’t hide your browsing from your employer, your internet service provider, or the websites you visit."
Meaning that if someone goes to your computer and checks your browser history or cache files from the sites you've visited, that person should indeed see nothing.
However, the moment you log in to a website that becomes irrelevant as your information can be tracked. Moreover, it says the deletion occurs AFTER you've closed all your tabs, which means that whatever happens in between is fair game.
Now if you use Google and don't log in to perform a quick search, I'm not sure how exactly that information can be associated with you. Even though you are not logged into anything when opening an incognito tab, I see no information on whether your "normal" chrome cookies are accessible by the browser or not,
Either way, though I'm not a legal expert and don't make myself liable for this information, I very much doubt you have a case for a lawsuit.
I can understand your problem, first thing, law suit, you'll loose, there will be a pack of strong lawyers who will back such big Giants.
My suggestion, first create a fake email for some anonymity purposes, now, using that email, post the same question in google forums, without using the words lawyer and law suits.
Developers, BA win Google will respond to you accordingly.
My experience, I looked at a car in regular logged in mode, and now I get ads related to that car all the time.
I don't think Google search is linked to Facebook:
https://support.google.com/ads/a...
and you have the right to opt out.
Now coming to Facebook ads based on your search, did you sign in incognito mode too?
This guy didn't mentioned about your Google search.
http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/1...
please read Facebook/ads for info.
This is a post from mid of last year, so I think Facebook already started using info from your browsing history. It mentioned a spokesperson, writer didn't mention whether it is from Google or ISP.
http://www.businessnewsdaily.com...
I defined recommend Google forums to get more info.
wish you good luck .
My suggestion, first create a fake email for some anonymity purposes, now, using that email, post the same question in google forums, without using the words lawyer and law suits.
Developers, BA win Google will respond to you accordingly.
My experience, I looked at a car in regular logged in mode, and now I get ads related to that car all the time.
I don't think Google search is linked to Facebook:
https://support.google.com/ads/a...
and you have the right to opt out.
Now coming to Facebook ads based on your search, did you sign in incognito mode too?
This guy didn't mentioned about your Google search.
http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/1...
please read Facebook/ads for info.
This is a post from mid of last year, so I think Facebook already started using info from your browsing history. It mentioned a spokesperson, writer didn't mention whether it is from Google or ISP.
http://www.businessnewsdaily.com...
I defined recommend Google forums to get more info.
wish you good luck .