An iOS developer has discovered a Chrome bug that isn’t respecting users requests to delete Google site data.
When users ask Chrome to delete all cookies and site data whenever you quit the browser, users expect the policy to apply to all websites. However, the bug has prevented data from being removed for Google and YouTube.
The iOS developer, Jeff Johnson, published a blog post stating that he found local storage data for Google.com and YouTube.com that wasn’t removed even after the browser restarted.
The Register notes that the bug could allow the search giant to keep cookie-style data as site data and essentially have the ability to track users even when they believe they deleted all of their cookie and site data.
Google has acknowledged the problem and stated that it’s working on a fix. It appears that a fix has already been implemented for YouTube.
“We are aware of a bug in Chrome that is impacting how cookies are cleared on some first-party Google websites. We are investigating the issue, and plan to roll out a fix in the coming days,” a spokesperson for Google has stated.
It seems that the bug was introduced as Google was phasing out Chrome’s support for hosted apps.
Source: Jeff Johnson, The Verge
