Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Google on Thursday (May 19), alleging that Google’s search engine’s “private browsing” mode is deceptive, saying “in fact, even if Users use incognito mode, and Google deceptively collects a range of personal data.”
Incognito mode, or “private browsing,” is a web browser feature that Paxton said by itself means Google doesn’t and cannot track data like search history or location coordinates.
This comes after Texas, Indiana, Washington and the District of Columbia filed separate lawsuits against Google in state court in January, alleging that their alleged deceptive location tracking practices violated users’ privacy.
Paxton’s lawsuit adds to a lawsuit filed in January by adding Google’s Incognito Mode deception, alleging that Google keeps track of users by continuing to track their location even when they try to prevent them from being tracked. to mislead consumers. Texas says Google has a “Location History” setting that notifies users that “places you’ve been will no longer be stored” if they choose to turn it off.
Google offers “private browsing” options that may include “viewing highly personalized websites that may reveal a user’s medical history, political beliefs, or sexual orientation, among other things. Or the user may just want to buy a surprise gift,” the lawsuit said. But it was noticed by gift recipients because of a series of targeted advertisements.”
Google has not responded to a request for comment on the lawsuit. In January, Google said, “The attorney general is suing based on inaccurate claims and outdated assertions about our settings. We’ve always built privacy features into our products and provided strong controls for location data.”