Chrome again exempts Google from user site data settings
A developer uncovers yet another instance where Google Chrome appears to exempt its own sites from user privacy settings, specifically by retaining google.com site data after all windows are closed. This echoes a previous 'bug' from six years ago, raising questions about data privacy and Google's transparency. The Hacker News community is keenly interested in browser integrity and the power dynamics of tech platforms, making this a relevant and potentially infuriating discovery.
The Lowdown
Jeff Johnson reports a troubling recurrence: Google Chrome is once again retaining google.com site data despite user privacy settings configured to delete all site data upon closing windows. This mirrors a similar "bug" he exposed six years ago, which eventually led to a fix by Google. The author suggests that while it might be incompetence rather than malice, Google's extensive resources mean there's no excuse for such lapses in quality assurance.
- The author reproduced the issue on two macOS machines running Chrome version 152.0.7977.83, first changing his default search engine to DuckDuckGo to isolate variables.
- Chrome's settings were explicitly configured to "Delete data sites have saved to your device when you close all windows," and the author was not signed into Chrome.
- After performing a Google search and subsequently closing all Chrome windows,
www.google.comdata, amounting to 1,216 KB (including Cookies, Local Storage, and Session Storage), was found persistently stored in the browser's profile. - This retention occurred even after quitting and relaunching Chrome, and the issue re-manifested after manually deleting the data and repeating the steps.
- The author observed that
www.google.comappeared to be the sole site exempted from these user-defined data deletion rules.
The author critiques Google's quality assurance, advocating for better testing given the company's financial and engineering might. He also expresses frustration with Google Search's practice of replacing direct URLs with opaque https://www.google.com/goto?url= links when users are not signed in, calling for government action against what he views as Google's search monopoly.