Private browsing may not protect you as much as you think

For years, the most popular internet browsers have included options to search for and visit websites in 'private' modes. But clicking the 'private' browsing option might not protect you as much as you think, some privacy experts say.

But clicking the "private" browsing option might not protect you as much as you think, some privacy experts say.

These options have different names — Private Browsing on Safari and Firefox, and Incognito mode on Chrome — but the functionality is similar on each. In these private modes, the chosen browser does not keep a log of sites visited, cached pages, or saved information like credit card numbers and addresses. It also prevents information from sessions from being stored in the cloud.

Although using these options does add a certain level of protection online, privacy experts say it stops short of preventing the user from being tracked altogether -- potentially limiting the protections it may afford women in this new legal landscape.

"We have to recognize that oftentimes simply toggling on a private mode does very little to prevent third-party tracking and especially law enforcement tracking," said Albert Fox Cahn, founder and executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project and a fellow at the New York University School of Law.