Private Browsing
Private browsing, also known as incognito mode, is a browser feature that opens a session which does not save local history, cookies, form entries, or site data after the window is closed.
How Private Browsing works
Every major browser offers a private mode: Chrome calls it Incognito, Firefox and Safari call it Private Browsing, and Edge calls it InPrivate. When a private window is open, the browser keeps cookies, cache, and history in an isolated, temporary store that is discarded when the last private window closes. It also generally starts without the cookies and logins from the normal session.
The important limitation is that private browsing is a local feature. It controls what is stored on the device itself; it does not make the user anonymous to the sites they visit, to their network, or to their internet service provider. Websites still see the same IP address, request headers, and technical characteristics they would see in a normal session.
Because a private session presents largely the same device and browser characteristics as a regular one, techniques that rely on those characteristics, such as device fingerprinting, can still recognize the device even though its cookies are absent and will not be retained. Historically, private mode also introduced subtle behavioral differences in certain storage APIs, and browsers have worked to reduce such tells to prevent sites from detecting the mode.
Users choose private browsing for many legitimate reasons: shared computers, sensitive research, separating accounts, or avoiding personalized results. It is a privacy-of-storage feature rather than an anonymity tool, and understanding that distinction is key to interpreting what it does and does not conceal.
Why Private Browsing matters for fraud prevention
Private browsing is frequently exploited in fraud and abuse. Because it discards cookies and starts clean, attackers use it to evade cookie-based limits, create multiple accounts, claim repeat promotions, or abuse free trials that would otherwise be blocked by a stored identifier. Cookie-based defenses are therefore easy to defeat with a private window. This is precisely why device intelligence, which recognizes the underlying device from stable technical signals rather than from cookies, remains effective against the multi-accounting and promo abuse that private browsing is used to conceal.
How TRACIO handles it
TRACIO is designed to identify a returning device even when a visitor uses private browsing, because its identification draws on the device's technical signals rather than on stored cookies. This lets customers detect multi-accounting, trial abuse, and promo abuse that would otherwise slip through when cookies are absent. TRACIO also offers incognito detection as a signal, so customers can factor private-mode usage into their own risk decisions. TRACIO frames this as security-oriented recognition of a device, not as surveillance of the person's browsing content, and customers remain responsible for disclosing the practice and setting an appropriate lawful basis.
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