Jeff Johnson reports that Chrome again exempts Google-owned sites from user site data settings, persisting even after closing windows and relaunching the browser. He reproduced the issue on two Macs with Chrome version 152.0.7977.83, confirming that google.com site data (cookies, local storage, session storage) remains despite settings configured to delete all site data on close. Johnson tested with Duck Duck Go as default search engine and disabled Chrome sign-in to rule out confounding factors.

The issue appears specific to www.google.com and persists across sessions. He previously reported a similar bug six years ago, which Google eventually fixed. Johnson attributes the problem to incompetence rather than malice, citing Hanlon’s razor, and calls for improved QA and unit tests.

He criticizes Google’s engineering standards given its resources and expresses frustration over opaque search results when not signed in. The post references prior coverage by Michael Tsai, Hacker News, The Register, The Verge, and Gizmodo.