YouTube no longer allowing anonymous viewing?

I always seem to be logged onto YouTube via my Google registration, so when I got this notice when I clicked on a YouTube video link from another website, I found it puzzling.

YouTube Privacy Warning

YouTube (owned by Google) does not let you watch videos anonymously. As such, watching YouTube videos here will be tracked by YouTube/Google.

I can't say I have ever TRIED to log out of YouTube to see if the above is true or not. But it is interesting that Google wants to track whatever videos people are watching on YouTube. I guess they feel that they own my eyeballs or something.

But thinking about it, I know Connie and I have watched YouTube videos on our home entertainment system about a year or two ago, which I am pretty sure was done anonymously. So either the above is just false, or else a recent change in YouTube's (Google's) policy. Well I guess access from my home entertainment receiver could be tracked via IP address as I am pretty certain the same IP would be used no matter what device is being used from the Comcast account I am using.

Maybe I need to be using that VPN service I purchased a while back. But even then, my real IP would still be tracked at the ISP level, even though, if I understand it correctly, the CONTENT of the connection is encrypted between my local PC and the server the VPN connects to. So, push come to shove, I doubt even that would be able to block Google from getting what it wants from us. Heck, they likely OWN every VPN service anyway. They certainly can afford to do so.

Big Brother is watching. And taking notes.

Do you use DuckDuckGo? I know that will pop up on it. I watch youtube without logging in at work at lunch break and never gotten that before with chrome or explorer or Edge. I always figured that if you go on youtube logged in or not that google servers would log IP address anyhow.

Yeah, I do use DuckDuckGo every now and again.

I would imagine it is probably VERY difficult to remain truly anonymous on the internet. Heck, sometimes I find that if I even think about something I may want to buy, I will have an ad pop up somewhere offering it for sale. Google is watching.