Google agrees to delete private browsing records to settle lawsuit

Google agreed to destroy billions of records to settle a lawsuit claiming it secretly tracked the internet use of people who thought they were browsing privately in its Chrome browser’s incognito mode. Users alleged that Google’s analytics, cookies, and apps let the Alphabet unit improperly track people who set Google’s Chrome browser to ‘incognito’ mode and other browsers to ‘private’ browsing mode.

The plaintiffs added that this turned Google into an ‘unaccountable trove of information’ by letting it learn about their friends, favourite foods, hobbies, shopping habits, and the ‘most intimate and potentially embarrassing things’ they hunt for online.

Settlement Terms

Terms of the settlement were filed in one of California’s federal courts and require approval by a US district judge. The class action began in 2020, covering millions of Google users who used private browsing since June 1, 2016.

Under the agreement, Google will update disclosures about what it collects in ‘private’ browsing, a process it has already begun. It will also let incognito users block third-party cookies for five years. The result is that Google will collect less data from users’ private browsing sessions, and that it will make less money from the data.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs valued the accord at more than USD 5 billion, and as high as USD 7.8 billion. Though users will not receive damages, they may still sue individually for damages. Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

According to court papers, Google supports final approval of the settlement but disagrees with the plaintiffs’ ‘legal and factual characterisations’.

Executives from Google said they are limited in how strongly they can market Incognito because it’s not truly private, thus requiring really fuzzy, hedging language that is almost more damaging.

The company has faced similar suits before. In 2022, the Texas attorney general sued the company, alleging that ‘incognito’ mode or ‘private browsing’ is a web browser function that implies to consumers that Google will not track one’s search history or location activity.