It is hard —although tremendously frequent— when a company’s own employees do not align with its practices and decisions, as has happened with the google incognito modeto the point of making fun of her even if it is in the internal channels.

Apparently the Mountain View people has mocked the kind of protection offered by the functionality, and this is known by the Sundar Pichaipresident of the company, because a marketing manager has seen fit to make him share the problem, basically asking him that the mode should be truly incognito. We read it on Bloomberg.

In the mail, Lorraine Twohill asked him to “make Incognito mode really private”, and warned him that users were losing trust in google for using unclear language when explaining its functionality. This comes on the heels of a 2020 multi-million dollar class action lawsuit for tracking or monitoring the activities of those individuals despite browsing the “private mode“.

In 2018, another employee responded by referencing the character Guy Incognito (“Incognito Type“) that appeared in a memorable episode of The Simpsons. For him that absurd costume “accurately conveys the privacy level which provides [el modo Incógnito]”.

What is Incognito mode for Google?

Incognito mode or “private browsing” of Google Chrome hides our browsing history from the rest of people using the devicebut it does not prevent Google or its advertising partners from collecting the information they need to serve economic benefit.

So when the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxtontook care to continue the previous demands, reiterating that Sundar Pichai’s company promoted its Incognito mode as something “false and misleading“.

Google has taken – slightly – cards in the matter and has had no problem denying the allegations, for now before the press. Gizmodo, for example, has echoed the words of a company spokesperson.

Privacy controls have long been an integral part of our services, and we encourage our teams to discuss and consider ideas for improvements. Incognito mode offers a private browsing experience, and we have made it clear how it works and what it does, but the plaintiffs have misrepresented our statements.

That is, Incognito mode only protect your data inside your homeoffice, library, etc., but it does not protect them from the Internet provider, your boss, other pages, governments…

Now, going back to the Bloomberg article, according to the one in Mountain View, everybody knows that this mode of navigation does not make our actions on the web invisible, apart from the fact that when activating it, users accept the terms of use.

A product manager, however, suggested changing the tagline on the private mode cover to read “Google does NOT protect you“, instead of “Google protects you from other users of this device”, but it is obvious that his idea did not come to fruition. Perhaps Sundar Pichai’s company creates really makes things clearbut if there are disparate bricks in your own structure, it will be for a reason.