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Meta could track your browser sessions even in incognito and link them with your real identity
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this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2025
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Privacy
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Since January Google has been using browser fingerprinting and IP triangulation to track across incognito windows.
Meta wants in the game as well. Nothing done on a phone with Meta apps is done in isolation.
Edit: seems like only vanilla mobile browsers affected. Brave was not vulnerable, DDG minimally so, and I expect Iron/Waterfox with uBlock would also not have allowed tracking.
https://securityonline.info/androids-secret-tracking-meta-yandex-abused-localhost-for-user-data/
What is IP triangulation?
Let's say you use a VPN, and all your internet traffic comes from an IP in London. 178.238.10.1.
It doesn't matter if you have a VPN, if you log in to anything with any account tied to your real name ([email protected]), your email and anything done on that London IP are all linked. Google builds a profile on you based on the activity on that IP. AND your browser profile. Private/incognito window or not, if there's a Google tracker on the site, they connect it all. Google doesn't care about private windows. If you go to reddit in a private window on the same IP as your gmail, Google sees that and tracks every page you look at.
So let's say that you log into your email from work. Google now has a treasure trove of new info about you and people you know. Same for FB, who uses the fact that you and someone else were logged on from the same IP range to suggest new friends.
Let's pretend that you live in China and still have access to a VPN and want to learn about the Tienanmen Square Massacre. But the government can ask Google about you. What do you need?