Google CEO was aware of incognito mode issue in 2019 but kept it out of spotlight, says lawsuit

The attorneys, citing Google documents, said Pichai was informed in 2019 that Incognito should not be referred to as 'private' because that ran “the risk of exacerbating known misconceptions about protections Incognito mode provides.”

Google CEO Sundar Pichai in 2019 was warned that describing the company's incognito browsing mode as private was problematic, yet it stayed the course because he did not want the feature under the spotlight, according to a new court filing. Google spokesman Jos Castaeda told Reuters that the filing “misunderstands the characteristics of emails that refer to unrelated second-hand and third-party accounts. We are regularly discussing ways to improve privacy management built into our services,” Castaneda said.