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Google Maps and search are getting an Incognito mode

Google Maps and search are getting an Incognito mode

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Photo: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Google is building Incognito modes into Maps and search, allowing the apps to be used without having data linked back to a specific person’s account. You could always use these apps privately by opening up a private tab in your browser, but this change will make private modes accessible inside apps as well. Users will be able to tap their profile icon, then choose “turn on Incognito mode,” and the app will stop tracking them.

It’s an important privacy addition, as the places and things you look up in these two apps can be particularly sensitive. The easier Google makes it to turn off tracking, the more people will think to take advantage of it when it makes sense. The company already started off by building an Incognito search mode into YouTube last year. The feature is supposed to be “coming soon” to Maps and search.

Photo: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

In addition to Incognito modes, Google is also making it easier to figure out what data each app is collecting on you in the first place. By tapping your profile icon in Chrome, search, Assistant, YouTube, News, and Maps, you’ll be able to access a setting called “your data” that’ll allow you to control how long Google can hang onto your information. It’s available for web and app data starting today, with location history coming soon.