Question Husband's Android google searches show up on wife's phone

[mikeymikec]

No, it didn't cause marital difficulties AFAIK

I think the issue was localised in the Chrome app, which the wife has an icon on her phone's desktop that takes her specifically to the Google site in Chrome. Wife and husband have separate google accounts, each phone only has a Google account set up for the respective person who is the primary user of the phone. Also, Chrome didn't appear to be signed in to a Google account (which AFAIK isn't the default setting).

This one has me stumped. If one or both phones had both Google accounts set up I'd understand it. The only X factor is that the wife was trying to fix the gmail app on her phone which suddenly stopped working (I ended up clearing cache and data from it which did the trick, it was hanging every time the user tried to open an email), and I wonder if in her attempts to play with account settings that she caused something to happen. I think the only linkage between the two accounts is that each could be set up as a recovery address for the other, but if that's in place, it's been in place for ages.

 

[ElFenix]

shared IP?

 

[mikeymikec]

shared IP?

Sure, but that would mean a shedload of privacy violations globally.

 

[manly]

Sure, but that would mean a shedload of privacy violations globally.

Didn't you just describe Google's core business model? They're currently being sued for incognito mode; people assumed there's no user tracking, but that applies to third parties. Google can easily use some combination of IP and browser fingerprints to keep tabs on husband and wife. No harm so long as they visit the same massage parlors.

 

[mikeymikec]

Didn't you just describe Google's core business model? They're currently being sued for incognito mode; people assumed there's no user tracking, but that applies to third parties. Google can easily use some combination of IP and browser fingerprints to keep tabs on husband and wife. No harm so long as they visit the same massage parlors.

Yes, but personal search history would be absolutely useless if you were say on a campus with hundreds of other people, both from the perspectives of "you are the product" and "this is a feature for you". Google can be described as a lot of things, but I don't think many people would describe them as incompetent.

 

[manly]

Yes, but personal search history would be absolutely useless if you were say on a campus with hundreds of other people, both from the perspectives of "you are the product" and "this is a feature for you". Google can be described as a lot of things, but I don't think many people would describe them as incompetent.

Of course they know that, and would handle a single-family home differently from a dense environment. I did mention browser fingerprinting as one technique they can use. I'm not saying that's what happened in your case, which sounds like some bug? My point was that the ongoing lawsuit claims that incognito mode does not mean that Google stops data collection for their own purposes.

 

[WelshBloke]

Didn't you just describe Google's core business model? They're currently being sued for incognito mode; people assumed there's no user tracking, but that applies to third parties. Google can easily use some combination of IP and browser fingerprints to keep tabs on husband and wife. No harm so long as they visit the same massage parlors.

Tbf Google puts up a big full screen explanation of that when you open an incognito tab!

 

[WelshBloke]

I have a bunch of shortcuts on my phone screen for signing into different browser accounts. I bet its that, she's logging into his chrome account and not seeing the login screen because chrome is remembering it.

I have 3 brave browser shortcuts on my phone screen and they all take me into different accounts, and they all do that without me having to log in.

 

[WelshBloke]

Get rid of the chrome shortcut, clear her chrome cookies and (if she let's you) have a rummage around in her saved accounts and passwords.
Then just put a chrome shortcut there the normal way.

 

[WelshBloke]

Also just use Brave instead!

 

[mikeymikec]

I have a bunch of shortcuts on my phone screen for signing into different browser accounts. I bet its that, she's logging into his chrome account and not seeing the login screen because chrome is remembering it.

Chrome wasn't signed in (at least, the google page her shortcut was loading showed the 'sign in' button top-right of the page).