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Tech giant Google has agreed to a digital housecleaning which will affect approximately 136 million users. The purge resulted from a lawsuit’s allegations that Google was involved in illegal surveillance on its users while in Incognito mode.

As part of the settlement, Google has pledged to remove billions of records older than nine months from its databases.

The company also agreed to disable third-party trackers by default, to ensure users are informed when their data is being collected.

Details of the settlement were first reported in December in the Wall Street Journal.

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Incognito Browser Settings

The crux of the legal battle centered around Google's tracking of internet activity despite users enabling the Incognito setting.

The $5 billion class-action privacy lawsuit brought against Google in 2020 alleged that the company engaged in spying on users who utilized the Incognito mode in its Chrome browser. 

Plaintiffs argued that Google's advertising technologies and third-party affiliations continued to gather users' browsing data, despite assurances of privacy. 

The settlement not only mandates Google to inform users about data collection in incognito mode but also to deactivate third-party trackers as a default setting.

Misleading Users: Google's Marketing Practices

The lawsuit alleged that Google had known for years that the branding and marketing of its incognito mode was misleading.

In 2013, employees asked the company to simplify the landing page of incognito mode, so users wouldn’t draw "incorrect conclusions" that they were private browsing.

In 2019, Google's chief marketing officer Lorraine Twohill warned CEO Sundar Pichai that incognito mode used "really fuzzy, hedging language that is almost more damaging." Nothing was done about her concerns.

Internal communications within the company underscored concerns for several years that users were being misled about the level of privacy offered by Incognito mode.

New Plaintiffs Emerge

Attorneys representing the consumers hailed the settlement as a historic move towards holding tech giants accountable for their actions.

David Boies, representing the consumers said "The settlement stops Google from surreptitiously collecting user data worth, by Google's own estimates, billions of dollars. "

Google spokesperson José Castañeda claimed, "We are pleased to settle this lawsuit, which we always believed was meritless. The plaintiffs originally wanted $5 billion and are receiving zero. We never associate data with users when they use Incognito mode. We are happy to delete old technical data that was never associated with an individual and was never used for any form of personalization."

The settlement opens avenues for individual claims against Google, with 50 plaintiffs already filing in California state court. They are all seeking damages.