Google plans to remove data from Incognito tracking.

Google has agreed to a proposed legal settlement that entails removing billions of records and adhering to specific limitations on its user tracking capabilities.

The agreement seeks to settle a class action lawsuit filed in the US in 2020, alleging that the tech giant violated users’ privacy by collecting their data even while browsing in “private mode.”.

The lawsuit sought $5 billion in damages.

While Google is endorsing the settlement, it contests the allegations.

In response to the lawsuit, Google has already implemented modifications. The data erasure will also extend beyond the borders of the United States.

In January, shortly after both parties revealed intentions to resolve the case, the company revised its disclosures to clarify that it continued to track user data even when users chose to search privately or use its “Incognito” setting.

Although this mode offers some heightened privacy by not saving browsing activity on the local machine, Google’s tracking practices persisted.

During the same month, the company announced it was initiating trials for a feature aimed at automatically blocking third-party cookies, which are used to track user activity, for all Google Chrome users. This feature had already been automatically implemented for Incognito users shortly after the lawsuit was initiated in 2020. Under the terms of the settlement deal filed on Monday in federal court in San Francisco, Google has agreed to maintain this block for five years.

Additionally, Google has agreed to delete “hundreds of billions” of private browsing data records it had amassed, as stated in the court filing on Monday. Google spokesperson Jorge Castaneda expressed satisfaction with the settlement, emphasizing that the company believed the lawsuit lacked merit and would not entail any damages.

Despite this settlement, Google still faces individual lawsuits over privacy infringements, which could result in financial penalties.

The lawsuit alleged that Google had tracked users’ activity despite claims to the contrary, particularly when users set the Google Chrome browser to “Incognito” mode or other browsers to “private mode.”. Documents revealed during the legal proceedings depicted Google employees characterizing Incognito as “effectively a lie” and “a confusing mess.”.

In a noteworthy development last year, Judge Yvonne Rogers denied Google’s attempt to dismiss the case, asserting that she could not conclude that users had consented to Google collecting information on their browsing activity.

The settlement now awaits court approval.

This settlement arises amidst heightened scrutiny of big tech firms’ practices in the US and beyond. In the US, Google and its parent company, Alphabet, are facing two separate monopoly cases brought by the federal government. Additionally, Google has recently settled several other lawsuits, including a nearly $400 million settlement in 2022 with US states over allegations of tracking the location of users who had opted out of location services, and a $700 million settlement in December 2023 to resolve a lawsuit brought by a group of US states accusing it of stifling competition to its Play Store on Android devices.