AUSTIN – Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed an amended petition that adds Google’s Incognito mode to his previous geolocation-related lawsuit against the tech giant, a press release states.
Incognito mode or “private browsing” is a web browser function that implies to consumers that Google will not track your search history or location activity.
This is Paxton’s fifth lawsuit against Google, and in it Texas argues that the company misled consumers by tracking their personal location without consent, and in many cases continued to track them after the feature was disabled by users, all of which constitute a violation of the Texas’ Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
While Texas consumers were under the impression they were not being tracked, Google continued to use their private location information to boost company profits, the press release states.
The state now alleges that Google’s representations that users can avoid having their internet search and activity history recorded by using Incognito Mode are similarly misleading.
“Google claims to give users control and to respect their choice but in reality, regardless of the settings users select, the Big Tech giant is still hard at work collecting and monetizing the location and other personal information that users seek to keep private,” said Paxton. “I am not going to let Google succeed in deceiving Texans.”