The lawyers cited Google documents to say that Pichai was informed in 2019 that incognito should not be referred to as ‘private’ because it would increase “the risk of known misconceptions about the security provided by incognito mode”.
In 2019 Google CEO Sundar Pichai was warned that describing the company’s incognito browsing mode as private was problematic, yet it stayed the course as he was under the spotlight, according to a new court filing. Google spokesman Jose Castaeda told Reuters that the filing “misunderstands features of an email that refer to unrelated second-hand and third-party accounts. We regularly discuss ways to improve the privacy management built into our services”.
The lawyers said, citing Google documents, that Pichai was “informed in 2019 as part of a project run by Twohill that incognito should not be referred to as ‘private’ because it would lead “the risk of known misconceptions about the security provided by incognito mode. As part of these discussions, Pichai decided that he did not want Incognito Mode to be spotlighted, and Google continued without addressing these known issues.” A written update on court preparations submitted to the US District Court on Thursday, user lawyers noted that they expected to try to oust Pichai and Google’s chief marketing officer, Lorraine Twohill.
Google’s lawyers said they resisted efforts to fire Pichai and Twohill. Last month, plaintiffs deposed Google’s vice president Brian Rakowski, who was described in the filing as “the ‘father’ of Incognito Mode.” He testified that although Google says Incognito enables browsing “privately,” what users expect “may not match” with reality, according to the plaintiffs’ writings. Google’s lawyers rejected the summary, writing that Rakowski used words including “private”, “anonymous”, and “invisible” with proper context “could be super helpful” in explaining the incognito.
In June last year, three complainants filed a class-action against Google, alleging that Google runs an extensive data tracking business. It further noted that Google collects browsing history and other web activity data even after incognito private browsing mode is enabled on Google Chrome. The lawsuit alleges that Google uses a variety of systems to track users, including Google Ads Manager, Google Analytics, website plug-ins, and other applications, including mobile apps.