Recently, I thought Maps was the app that tracks me everywhere I go.
I put Maps in Incognito mode just as an attempt to disable it, but guess what?
It still tracked me all the time. The only difference Incognito made was not remember my search history
Yes, "Incognito" largely only removes local activity history, doing little if anything to disable remote tracking. Though there's some (very slight) advantage in having cookies and the like be made temporary. Access to other identifiers, including Google's ad identity and device-specific identifiers is probably still available. (I'm hazy on this and the situation changes, though at a ground level capacity-to-track largely remains intact over time).
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Recently, I thought Maps was the app that tracks me everywhere I go. I put Maps in Incognito mode just as an attempt to disable it, but guess what? It still tracked me all the time. The only difference Incognito made was not remember my search history
Google settled a $5 billion class action lawsuit over this fact in 2023, though to little practical effect:
<https://apnews.com/article/google-incognito-mode-tracking-la...>
Yes, "Incognito" largely only removes local activity history, doing little if anything to disable remote tracking. Though there's some (very slight) advantage in having cookies and the like be made temporary. Access to other identifiers, including Google's ad identity and device-specific identifiers is probably still available. (I'm hazy on this and the situation changes, though at a ground level capacity-to-track largely remains intact over time).