[karaterobot]

> It was always clear that websites could track you in incognito mode.

Why call it incognito mode, if not to imply you couldn't be tracked? It's absolutely not unreasonable for the average Chrome user to draw this conclusion.

[mattlondon]

Um isn't it completely obvious that this is about local history?

Let's say that you are using the internet to "buy your wife some jewellery". You want to be sure that she won't see your search history for "jewellery" or visiting "jewellery" websites.

It is perfect for that. Anyone who thought this somehow made them anonymous on the internet is probably the sort of person who thinks that wearing dark glasses or growing a beard is going to let them hide from the police too.

[brandensilva]

I don't think the average user understands that but for us more tech driven folks we've known this for ages and probably take it further with VPNs and not using Chrome at all for any serious privacy searching where we want to avoid cookies saving, advertiser fingerprinting, DNS and ISP tracking, etc.

[andromeduck]

If you can sign in accross sites in incognito, there's clearly some tracking going on.

[imiric]

I reckon that the average Incognito user is not even aware of "tracking" in the cookie/advertising way, and it's not why they use the mode. It's merely to not leave traces of their browsing history on their computer, which they may share with others.

To tech-savvy users it was always clear that sites would still be able to track you, whether or not you clear your local history and cookies. Cookies are just one, quite outdated at this point, way of tracking.

[shadowgovt]

Because it made it harder for your family to track what you were doing with the browser on the one desktop computer the whole family shared.

Then usage patterns drifted but the term didn't change.