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If I understood the article correctly, the title is misleading. The cops were not granted an entire raw database of all google searches by person. Instead, the
by stagbeetle 10y ago
If I understood the article correctly, the title is misleading.
The cops were not granted an entire raw database of all google searches by person. Instead, they were granted "'any/all user or subscriber information' of anyone in Edina who'd looked up that name between December 1, 2016, and January 7" which is IMHO a much less serious breach of privacy.
You could retort that collecting these users' "name(s), address(es), telephone number(s), dates of birth, social security numbers, email addresses, payment information, account information, IP addresses, and MAC addresses" is a serious breach of privacy, but I believe those are all available to law enforcement (save the internet-specific info).
- johansch 10y agoThat is still really quite bad though. And all of this privacy invasion just for a wire fraud case?
- rhino369 10y agoGoogle uses this stuff to advertise for toys etc. Using it to catch a fraudster is more important than that.
- bholzer 10y agoDo the ends really justify the means in this case? I don't think so, personally
- rhino369 10y agoSure they do. Especially when compared to what is accessible to civil plaintiffs. Your searches aren't even private since you let google look at them.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- ed_balls 10y agoUnless you are prosecuted by accident, news papers write about you and charges are dropped. You apply for a job, someone googles you and reply with "Thank you for your time. Unfortunately..."
- rhino369 10y agoI don't think we can assume more information increases the likelihood of false accusations. It certainly can for any given situation, but it can certainly greatly reduce the risk by identifying the real perpetrator. If I were on trial when I was innocent, I'd really appreciate having this information available. Though if there was empirical data to suggest that it was more risky, I could be convinced.
- angryasian 10y agogoogle uses it for advertising but doesn't hand it over to any one particular person or company.
- CamperBob2 10y agoGoogle didn't murder a hundred million of its own users in the last century alone. It took police and government forces to do that.
- rhino369 10y agoWell if the government did murder 100 million people it would certainly use Google to assist. Nazi's used IBM, VW, Bayer, etc. Letting them get search data about fraud won't make that any more or less likely though.
- stagbeetle 10y agoThe few people who searched for douglas would be inconvenienced slightly, sure. But what harm has been, or might reliably, be done with this info?
- tyingq 10y agoIt sets an interesting precedent for more broad fishing expeditions. Slippery slope and that sort of thing. Have you watched the film Minority Report?
- seangrogg 10y agoHave you? The concept was "pre-crime" which is stopping crimes before they happened - not investigating crimes that have already conclusively been committed. Additionally, upon finding the system in use was faulty it was dismantled and everyone affected by it given a pardon. Not saying the slippery slope argument is invalid, but the use of Minority Report is better kept to arguments where the intent is to use "big data" to predict and prevent crimes - not for when crimes have been committed and the intent is to figure out who did it.
- tyingq 10y agoI mentioned it because it is the bottom of the slippery slope. Once search data is open game for any law enforcement purpose, why not preemptively tag searches that are common before a crime takes place? That said, I'm a bit confused as to how a "happy ending" would invalidate moral concerns raised by an illustrative story. Also FWIW, leading with "Have you?" reduces the chance I might read what you had to say with an open mind.
- stagbeetle 10y agoNo, but I get the general premise. I don't see how it directly meshes into the issue at hand though.
- tyingq 10y agoSweeping through large swaths of data on what people do in order to single out one potential person in the data. Once you're good with that, it leads places.
- madamelic 10y agoFailed wire fraud. Yeah, they are doing this for a loss of... $0.
- willvarfar 10y agoPrinciple is more important than money.
- madamelic 10y agoFailed wire fraud. Yeah, they are doing this for a loss of... $0.
- ars 10y ago> And all of this privacy invasion Can you clarify what you mean by "all this"? Because as far as I can tell all they are asking for is the identity of the person who searched for a specific word. That's hardly an invasion of privacy.
- ars 10y agoYou are quite right, and it's a shame people are downmodding you. For some reason there is this belief that anything you do electronically should be immune to warrants, and warrants should only apply to physical documents. Just read the comments and see, it's really astonishing. It was the same thing with that phone the FBI was hacking, [some] people had a deep-seated belief that because it was encrypted the FBI should not be permitted to hack it! (Some people had other issues with it, but they were a minority - most simply felt the FBI should not be allowed to try to hack a phone.)
- lovich 10y agoIf a bike was stolen from a street, the police do not have the right to enter and search every home on that street to see if you committed the crime. We already have the legal framework for these kinds of questions in meatspace. The courts are treating it differently because its on a computer, the same way companies are getting patents for unpatentable processes as long as they do it on the internet
- ars 10y agoExcept that's a terrible analogy. A better analogy is the police are asking all the landlords to check their security cameras for someone carrying a bicycle.