Google Agrees to Destroy Billions of Private Browsing Records in Settlement 🛡️

Google to Settle Lawsuit by , Destroying Billions of Private Browsing Records.<br />In 2020, Google was sued by numerous <br />users who claimed that the tech giant <br />secretly tracked their internet use despite <br />browsing in Chrome's incognito mode.<br />The plaintiffs claim that this allowed <br />Google to be an "unaccountable trove <br />of information," 'The Guardian' reports.<br />To settle the lawsuit, Google has agreed <br />to destroy billions of private records.<br />The company will also update <br />its "private" browsing disclosures. .<br />Additionally, incognito users will be <br />able to "block third-party cookies for <br />five years," 'The Guardian' reports.<br />The result is that Google will <br />collect less data from users’ private <br />browsing sessions, and that Google <br />will make less money from the data, Plaintiffs' lawyer, via 'The Guardian'.<br />While Google supports the settlement, it <br />does not agree with the "legal and factual characterizations" put forth by the plaintiffs.<br />We are limited in how strongly we <br />can market Incognito because it’s <br />not truly private, thus requiring <br />really fuzzy, hedging language <br />that is almost more damaging. , Google’s chief marketing officer, Lorraine Twohill, <br />wrote to the CEO, Sundar Pichai, in 2019, via 'The Guardian'.<br />A lawyer for the plaintiffs called <br />the agreement "a historic step in <br />requiring honesty and accountability <br />from dominant technology companies.".<br />While plaintiffs will not receive damages as part of this settlement, they could still sue individually to be monetarily compensated.