The recent story of Google which is forced to delete billions of data from hundreds of millions of users who browsed in the so-called in mode incognitoor anonymouson the Chroome browser with the accusation of having collected their data without having correctly informed them, turns the spotlight on this little-known and perhaps underestimated aspect.
What really happens
When you surf the Internet, not even “private mode” protects you 100% from tracking your arrivals and this does not only apply to the Google search engine but also to all the others: by opening a window in the described above, technically we do not leave any trace except on our device (PC, smartphone or tablet). When you say “anonymous”, or “incognito”, it essentially means that there won't be a chronology of the searches we carry out on the Internet (the various websites, for example). The same goes for i cookies of the site, enabled to save navigation information. The “convenience” is that, with normal browsing, they are automatically saved to be easily reopened while with anonymous this does not happen.
This way, not even the data will be saved login on social media, which happens when browsing in non-anonymous mode: the usefulness of this method can be exploited above all to avoid leaving data in memory when we connect to a bank's website, for example, or when we browse from a device which is not ours and we don't want to leave a trace of what we have done.
What is recorded
The anonymity of browsing, and this is the “open secret”, applies exclusively to the device with which you connect to the Internet which does not save anything locally but everything else is visible. What are we referring to? Both to the company that provides us with the connectionboth at provider but also ours IP address it will always remain traceable because it is assigned by the provider who keeps a register of our movements on the Internet. In practice, very little changes: the anonymous activity that we activate still remains visible and tracked. In practice, if it is true that the login on Facebook does not remain memorised, if we look for a product within the social network we will find it shortly afterwards as advertising so much for hidden navigation. Experts explain that, in any case, a “digital footprint” remains thanks to which our activity can be traced perfectly. Finally, anonymous browsing does not protect in any way from hackers, viruses and computer pirates.
Why it is used
The problem has always been in the name by which it is called and this is the reason why Google is now paying dearly for information that is not entirely correct. There is nothing anonymous about it apart from the local history which is not recorded on the PC as well as the lack of cookies that we mentioned at the beginning.
However, the convenience of this anonymous browsing session is there, it exists: if we want to buy plane tickets or book a holiday in a hotel, we will be able to find more advantageous prices because the famous cookies with which the company or company are not saved airline “know” that we have tried something by increasing costs.