YouTube could soon to make it easier users to embrace their guilty pleasures on its service: The Google-owned video service is testing an incognito feature for its mobile apps, according to a report from Android Police.
As part of these tests, a subset of YouTube’s users can currently access a shortcut for an incognito mode after clicking on their profile picture within the YouTube mobile app.
After entering this mode, the app doesn’t track any video plays for future personalization — meaning YouTube won’t keep suggesting embarrassing 80s music videos to you if you suddenly decide to go on a David Hasselhoff binge.
Android Police previously reported that code changes pointed to plans to add an incognito mode to both YouTube’s regular app as well as YouTube Music. A YouTube spokesperson declined to comment.
YouTube’s incognito mode seems to be very similar to the way Google’s Chrome browser handles tracking of user sessions. All data is being discarded after a user ends their sessions, but using the mode alone doesn’t actually provide true anonymity online. Internet service providers and other middlemen may still be able to monitor who watches which videos based on the traffic passing through their pipes.