[MattGaiser]

Incognito seems pretty clear on its startup page about what it does and does not do.

> Chrome won’t save the following information:

> Your browsing history

> Cookies and site data

> Information entered in forms

> Your activity might still be visible to:

> Websites you visit

> Your employer or school

> Your internet service provider

[Closi]

I think one of the slight catch/nuance is that if you sign into Google in incognito mode, then your browsing history will be tracked by Google across both the normal browser and incognito mode.

The idea that Chrome won’t track your browsing but Google might is more than a little incongruous/confusing for the average user IMO.

[magicalist]

> if you sign into Google in incognito mode, then your browsing history will be tracked by Google across both the normal browser and incognito mode.

It'll track your searches on google.com, but not browsing history. Browser history is a function of signing into the browser, and you can't sign in an incognito window.

[Closi]

My understanding is that it’s more than search results - Google will also track any site you visit that uses Google Ads, Google Analytics or the Google token which is most of the web, and link all this to your Google account on their backend.

[rnotaro]

It does say that your activity can still be visible by the websites you visit.

[Closi]

The reality is your activity can still be visible by the websites you visit and google plus maybe one or two other companies that have good adoption of their trackers. It’s the and google that I think is confusing for users. It can do that because of how widely adopted its tracking token is on websites (realistically as a website owner you need to put it on to get good google ads performance).

The discontinuity is that when you go in Google Browsers private browsing mode Google will still track you by the websites you visit, across the web due to their tracking token, and they are one of the only companies on the web that can actually do that tracking.

[notatoad]

i think "the average user" understands that chrome is not a website. the incognito page warns you that "websites you visit" might still track you, and that's exactly what's happening.

there might be a few people who are confused, but i don't think you can make the argument that google has intentionally misled anybody here. the fact that some people might be confused is not really google's fault. a lot of people are confused about a lot of things every day, nobody needs to be liable for that other than the confused people.

[Closi]

Although the average user might understand that “websites you visit might still track you”, I’m not sure they realise that a lot of websites secretly have a google tracking token which then records their cross-site activity and links it back to their google account if they login.

IMO there is a difference between “the websites you visit might track you” and “the websites you visit might have a google tracker on which will mean we will still track your activity and the sites you visit with that token and link them against your identity”. The first might be technically true, but I think a lot of users would be surprised by the second more nuanced version.

[pdw]

That's the new text that was introduced a month or so ago. I'm not sure what the older version(s) said.

[MattGaiser]

It seems more reformatted than substantially changed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxS75EWILNg