Hmm. Good point; agreed it's likely just getting ingested by online system. I guess I would've thought that Google would drop non-logged-in requests from going into their online system, or that at least they would do so for incognito requests from their own browser. Haha. How naive I am!
Actually — while I'm here: does anybody have recommendations for per-app or per-site VPNs, especially on iOS? That's basically what I would want here: a different IP address when I open an incognito window, or for each app on my phone (e.g. Brave should have a different IP address than Gmail). I ask because while system-wide VPNs help somewhat... if I ever open anything identifying, I can effectively be fingerprinted anyways.
For example, if I start a Mullvad VPN, and open up an incognito window, but am still signed into Google (on my non-incognito window), Google now knows who I am (in both windows). Then if I browse a website that has GA (within incognito), theoretically Google could figure out who I am. This would be avoided if I shared nothing (not IP address, not browser fingerprinting) between my two windows. Is there any way to do that at scale besides just... closing everything before I go into incognito?
Curious to get HN's take on this. I was pretty surprised at Google a few days ago. A family member had recently passed away, and so I Googled ("funeral homes <location>") in incognito on Google Chrome (I suppose it felt a bit sensitive and I didn't want my Google account associated with it). A few minutes later I opened up Google Maps on my phone (different device, but logged into my Google account) and there were a few ads for funeral homes (they looked like squares and were highlighted).
Obviously, this is technically feasible: I was on my home internet (both computer & phone), and presumably there are <5 accounts that share this IP address. So when I search, they ~know who I am, and so therefore could serve me ads when I'm logged in. But I was still surprised that Google would do it — I guess I would've thought that Google would drop incognito mode requests and not use them for ad targeting. (Since, well... it is quite trust destructive.)
Does anybody know if Google is doing this intentionally? It seems like this is pretty value destructive for them long-term? Or... am I just being paranoid and this is just a frequency illusion?