Privacy

I think I was mistaken about data harvesting specific to incognito mode, but the lawsuit mentioned does seem to make several allegations about Chrome itself directly spying on you, in addition to their other products used by websites spying on you:

Perhaps most troubling is Google’s ability to match its web tracking capabilities with its Android operating system data and various Google application data on mobile devices. In a 2018 white paper entitled “Google Data Collection,”3 Professor Douglas C. Schmidt of Vanderbilt University concluded that Google’s Android operating system, and several of Google’s mobile applications, are constantly sending system and location data to Google’s servers. Specifically, Professor Schmidt wrote:

Both Android and Chrome send data to Google even in the absence of any user interaction. Our experiments show that a dormant, stationary Android phone (with Chrome active in the background) communicated location information to Google 340 times during a 24-hour period, or at an average of 14 data communications per hour. In fact, location information constituted 35% of all the data samples sent to Google.

Indeed, media outlets such as The Register recently exposed Google’s practice of using a browser level unique persistent identifier (a “X-client-Data Header”) for individuals using Chrome, even when users clear their browser cache. Google reportedly sends this persistent identifier whenever the Chrome browser is viewing a page with Google Analytics or Ad Manager—presumably even when the user is in private mode.