Chrome Private Mode Not Quite Private

wiplash writes "Google Chrome appears to store at least some information related to, and including, the sites that you have visited when browsing in Incognito mode. Lewis Thompson outlines a set of steps you can follow to confirm whether you are affected. He has apparently reported this to Google, but no response has yet been received."

Comments

Addicted.

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is addicted to your information, and will do whatever they can to get more.

They cannot help themselves.

Resist.

Re:Addicted.

[sopssa]

Yes, it's the basis of their business model. They need all that information to serve their advertisers better. This means they're also constantly looking for new ways to get even more and more information. Even if some of their services currently aren't related to advertising (like their free DNS service), there's no guarantee that they cannot be in the future. They're awfully easy to integrate later when they have grown, and with publicly traded companies you never know what is going to happen in the future. Especially when they're looking for new ways to generate advertising revenue.

Notice that all of their services are related to obtaining information, usage statistics, datamining and serving advertisement. YouTube too is a great resource for advertisers, as soon as online video matures a little bit more (though they're already working on it).

Not that it's a bad business model - but if you value your privacy, you might want to consider forgetting freeloading for a moment and buying software. You know, the business model that is based on customers paying for the software instead of selling their soul for advertisers. Google is the new adware business, they have just hidden it better.

Re:Addicted.

[steelfood]

I'm not too worried about my privacy when it comes to corporations. Partly, it's because they already have a lot of data on me. Partly, it's because if they abuse it, I have at least a possible method of recourse.

What I am worried about is the government getting their hands on such data. Now that's a danger that far exceeds what a corporation can do. And, you have no method of recourse against the government.

Look at it this way: The worst a corporation could do is deny me a loan, because I buy a lot of junk online, and that means (by whatever twisted logic corporations employ) I'd be more likely to default on it.

The worst a government can do is pull me over for a traffic violation, and throw me into prison without a trial because the routine check brought up the fact that I frequent sites that advocate extreme or even locally unpopular views.

Which all leads to why I try to keep as anonymous as practically possible. Corporations don't have adequate data retention (or deletion) policy for my needs. And they cave easily to the government. Google is only slightly better in that they explicitly state how long they'll keep the data. But until every corporation adopts far more restrictive data retention policies whether by government regulation or by public outcry, I'm going to keep data on me from leaking out as much as possible.

And before anybody points out the obvious contradiction above, I'm just going to say that entities can work for you sometimes, and against you sometimes, neither of which precludes them from doing the complete opposite at the same time.

Um no

[coolsnowmen]

There are many ways to finger print something that are not reversible. For instance, this is just page viewing preference data about a site you visited. What if it takes a hash of the url and uses that to store settings like current zoom and scroll location. There is almost no way this violates the idea of 'incognito' mode.

Re:Pitchforks down, please, no story here

[McDutchie]

You're missing the point. If Chrome records zoom levels for particular sites, each such record is proof by implication that you visited the site. The Incognito mode is supposed to prevent recording of what sites you visit.

Its Not about Trust

[hax0r_this]

I think you're missing the GPs point. Although many around here might well hold the beliefs you allude to (I don't think its a significant population on Slashdot, as victimized as you might feel by them), the GPs point is that the cost of betrayal by the Government far exceeds the cost of betrayal by a Corporation. In fact, the worst a Corporation can do do you is really limited by what the Government will allow it to do - if you are really so afraid of what a Corporation can do to you, you are implicitly afraid of what the Government will let it do.