4 ms·

> tracking doesn't seem to negatively impact my quality of life at all but it keeps the many free services I value greatly running. Your data is not worthless,

> tracking doesn't seem to negatively impact my quality of life at all but it keeps the many free services I value greatly running. Your data is not worthless, and generally I consider data harvesting harmful because of the nation-state subpoenas it enables. If I attend a protest for abortion rights, and my geo data is bound to that event and then I seek an abortion in another state, ive now created a wonderful fingerprint that may soon lead to my incaerceration. (For americans) But the united states is not even the worst perpetrator. Imagine your least favorite government demanding google gives them a list of anyone that might be a political dissident based on audio they have collected. Data is a liability.

mrhands556 4y ago
Has this happened before?
- t-writescode 4y ago
  Well, the "before Google" was librarians, and they have a history, a long, long history of saying "no" to the feds when it comes to giving out reading and checkout lists of people. *Of course* Google and friends happily give that information out "pre-warrant".
  - autoexec 4y ago
    > Well, the "before Google" was librarians, and they have a history, a long, long history of saying "no" to the feds when it comes to giving out reading and checkout lists of people. In the US they lost that fight and now reading lists are handed over to the state.
- jwalton 4y ago
  Yesterday: https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/a-dad-took-photos-of-his-naked-toddler-for-the-doctor-google-flagged-him-as-a-criminal/ https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/a-dad-took-photos-...
  - sushisource 4y ago
    It's a valid point but, is pretty different in its intent from what GP comment is getting at. This wasn't a result of "let's target this group we've deemed political enemies", it was "we're attempting to enforce this law (mind you, effectively everyone agrees with) via data collection". I can buy how that's a pretty darn thin line, but, in practice I think it's also true that we haven't seen much evidence of the more shady interpretation that GP's post implies.
    - jwalton 4y ago
      I think this example was even worse, because it wasn’t the government asking Google for data about a user, Google went out and proactively offered it (and erased this poor guy’s email and cancelled his phone). There’s also been plenty of cases where people were charged with a crime on the basis of a warrant to find all phones in a given location at a given time. The political-dissidents-from-audio-clips sounds a little far fetched, but certainly there have been cases where Alexa recordings were supoenaed and used against their owners. GP was certainly right that companies collecting data about me is a liability for me.
kylevedder 4y ago
Your complaint is with the government, not Google. The FBI could just as easily setup a StingRay [1] and capture all cell information. The only protection against that is robust digital civil rights legislation protecting Americans from governmental over reach, not lampooning big tech companies for having data. It's not like Google is willing to just shovel data at anyone who asks nicely, they will actively fight the government on nominally lawful requests it thinks are unreasonable/won't hold up to further legal scrutiny [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_phone_tracker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_phone_tracker [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/08/18/google-refused-an-order-release-huge-amounts-data-will-other-companies-bow-under-pressure/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/08/18/google-...
- mixmastamyk 4y ago
  Some of us have the forethought to avoid issues before they happen. A "marshmallow test" for adults. We shun snitches for good reasons. Data is never deleted (with fewer and fewer exceptions), so liability only grows over time.

mrhands556 4y ago

Has this happened before?

t-writescode 4y ago
Well, the "before Google" was librarians, and they have a history, a long, long history of saying "no" to the feds when it comes to giving out reading and checkout lists of people. *Of course* Google and friends happily give that information out "pre-warrant".
- autoexec 4y ago
  > Well, the "before Google" was librarians, and they have a history, a long, long history of saying "no" to the feds when it comes to giving out reading and checkout lists of people. In the US they lost that fight and now reading lists are handed over to the state.
jwalton 4y ago
Yesterday: https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/a-dad-took-photos-of-his-naked-toddler-for-the-doctor-google-flagged-him-as-a-criminal/ https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/a-dad-took-photos-...
- sushisource 4y ago
  It's a valid point but, is pretty different in its intent from what GP comment is getting at. This wasn't a result of "let's target this group we've deemed political enemies", it was "we're attempting to enforce this law (mind you, effectively everyone agrees with) via data collection". I can buy how that's a pretty darn thin line, but, in practice I think it's also true that we haven't seen much evidence of the more shady interpretation that GP's post implies.
  - jwalton 4y ago
    I think this example was even worse, because it wasn’t the government asking Google for data about a user, Google went out and proactively offered it (and erased this poor guy’s email and cancelled his phone). There’s also been plenty of cases where people were charged with a crime on the basis of a warrant to find all phones in a given location at a given time. The political-dissidents-from-audio-clips sounds a little far fetched, but certainly there have been cases where Alexa recordings were supoenaed and used against their owners. GP was certainly right that companies collecting data about me is a liability for me.

kylevedder 4y ago

Your complaint is with the government, not Google. The FBI could just as easily setup a StingRay [1] and capture all cell information. The only protection against that is robust digital civil rights legislation protecting Americans from governmental over reach, not lampooning big tech companies for having data. It's not like Google is willing to just shovel data at anyone who asks nicely, they will actively fight the government on nominally lawful requests it thinks are unreasonable/won't hold up to further legal scrutiny [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_phone_tracker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_phone_tracker [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/08/18/google-refused-an-order-release-huge-amounts-data-will-other-companies-bow-under-pressure/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/08/18/google-...

mixmastamyk 4y ago
Some of us have the forethought to avoid issues before they happen. A "marshmallow test" for adults. We shun snitches for good reasons. Data is never deleted (with fewer and fewer exceptions), so liability only grows over time.