Tech & Biz

Incognito: More Than a Trenchcoat for the Web

by Jordan Yerman | September 5, 2008 at 12:53 pm

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I know, you don *not* use private browsing settings for surfing adult content. I'd never imply such a thing. Anyway, this feature, long part of Safari and recently added to Internet Explorer and Chrome beta, can do more than keep your family or flatmates from knowing that the donkey site you visit isn't about Grand Canyon tours*... those features can also throw aggressive advertisers off the trail as they dig ever deeper into your online habits.

That private mode can be used for hiding indiscretions in the Web's red-light district, or, as Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) innocently suggests, for planning "surprises like gifts or birthdays."

But such privacy features have an increasingly more important purpose than hiding your tracks from snooping family members. Google's and Microsoft's (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) new browsing modes don't just wipe incriminating data from a user's hard drive; they offer features that shield users from the Web's ever-more-aggressive behavioral data-gathering by advertisers.

Increased tracking of user behavior online for targeting ads--the subject of a Senate Commerce Committee hearing last July--is one factor driving demand for that privacy cloak, says the Center for Democracy and Technology's Ari Schwartz.