Kind of a bad title. They can't just "access" searches; they're allowed to accept the search histories from Google (who will willingly give it upon request)
“It is common knowledge that websites, internet-based applications, and internet service providers collect, and then sell, user data,” the court said, as if mass exploitation of personal information had become a civic tradition.
Because that practice is so widely known, the court concluded, users cannot reasonably expect privacy. In other words, if corporations do it first, the government gets a free pass.
The case traces back to a rape and home invasion investigation that had gone cold. In a final effort, police asked Google to identify anyone who searched for the victim’s address the week before the crime. Google obliged. The search came from an IP address linked to John Edward Kurtz, later convicted in the case.
“Google expressly informed its users that one should not expect any privacy when using its services.”
Government mandated toilet cameras will be install in all private homes to protect the children or something, but they assure me that all footage is reviewed by professional genital inspectors.
Until they add Anal Recognition™ technology across the country, so they can track you if you ever use your, or any public bathroom, just in case the existing cameras don't see your face.
How about not having a toilet camera. Also, maybe it's time for a revolution against using tech. It's become less and less in our best interest to be online, to the point now it's more in "their" interest. Join r/datahoardersr/DataHoarder and start collecting yourself a nice big supply of offline entertainment.
LOL, longtime member of /r/DataHoarder/ I am at 3.1PB right now, currently testing about 370TB worth of used drives I just picked up this last weekend.
Not horrible. I keep most of the drives powered down, only keeping my ACTIVE 24 drive pool in a NetApp DS4246 and a few random ones in the NAS itself running most of the time. Pulls about 350 to 390 watts most of the time, but can go up to 450-500 watts if I am using the GPUs for something heavy, which is partly offset by solar.
Here is another photo of more of the disk shelves.
I also lost one when someone tried to steal it, about 500TB of storage gone. I manged to recover about 300TB from backups though.
I dived my storage into 5 parts
ACTIVE - 24 drives always on. 8x 16TB, 8x 18TB, 8x 20TB
TANK - 24x 10TB in RAIDz3. Data is dumped here before being moved to ARCHIVE pools. I usually wait until I get at least 5-6TB to move before doing it.
ARCHIVE - drives are slotted in disk shelves / DAS units, but powered down most of the time. Sizes from 3TB to 12TB, pool are 12 to 24 drives in RAIDz2 or z3.
BACKUP - Copies of data, kept out side the disk shelves, logged in drive shippers and usually in color coded trays. Always sets of 12 in RAIDz2. Sizes ranging from 250GB to 4TB
SCRATCH - 4x 22TB drive inside the hotswap bays in the NAS itself. Stuff I need access to from the ARCHIVE pools is usually kept here.
Fine. As long as they make people's entire google search history publically available if they want to run for office, get government contracts, receive public funds...
Even if they had a warrant, Google gives out practically any data the police ask for. It's been the case for a long time already that you cannot trust Google or its services in any way, shape or form.
If Google detects anything illegal on your account, they'll snitch you out to the Feds right away and freely provide them with all the information linked to your account, relevant or not.
Firefox is pretty good once configured. IronFox or Fennec are good forks. DDG or Brave if you want Chromium, although I avoid Chromium based stuff personally.
You're getting downvoted because of a personal fact? I guess people don't like chromium (v3) and are still sore about v2 brave with entirely optional features they don't like being turned on by default? Is the reddit community just a bunch of default ringtone fanboys? (no browser is good out of the box for just about any opsec / threatlevel).
In my 20+ years in the field, I’ve learned that architecture is rarely permanent, yet people still treat their preferred stack with a religious fervor. The way some people talk down to anyone not using their specific browser setup is a classic example of the technical posturing I've seen my entire career.
It could also be the DDG bots coming out of the woodwork, too too. I refuse to use that POS. Beyond terrible results and right leaning garbage.
Please elaborate. DDG used Bing backend and doesn't save your data, and Startpage is so strict about data purging that sometimes just navigating back to search results from a webpage breaks the results page. Doesn't seem like there's much meat on either bone.
DDG leverages Bing, first of all, and second I have no qualms using Google services, I just don't want them to use me back. If DDG or StartPage prevents my data from getting back to Big Tech, that's good enough for me.
Kagi is not free, so unless you plan to pay my search bill, this is a nonstarter.
It looks like a dick, quacks like a duck, waddles like a duck.... we're calling it a chicken.
If you were in your house and someone was tearing pieces off of it, how long would you wait until you stopped them.
Maybe Trump is following the nazi playbook. Maybe he's not. It LOOKS like he is, so we should TREAT it like it is.
We're setting a bad example for future generations if this shit comes up again in the future. They've captured our attention/drive/wits while they position themselves into absolute rulers. Feudal monarchy wasn't that long ago. These people are still dreaming of being a monarch like their (friends) great grandparents. We need to drive this from society.
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Extreme wealth and political influence = absolute power. This requires intervention. Intervention requires agreement on a goal. You can't tear out a necessary component without a replacement at hand.
Look, I am anti-fascist to my bones and I wouldn't make the remarks like the other person made flippantly since it's too close to home given our environment in the US, but like the movement doesn't spread like a virus because there's no appeal.
Despite all the terrible, possibly irreparable damage this administration has done in under a year, you can describe it to people and a significant number will still say "At least he's doing something."
I understand a good amount of the circumstances and history that got our government to this point, but there wouldn't be so many frustrated Americans willing to vote for the guy willing to "do something" if Congress hadn't been so dysfunctional for at least the past 30 years.
And that gridlock and dysfunction has been enabled by our imperfect system of democracy.
I want us to improve it and don't want to take power away from the people, but as someone who has watched decades of inaction during critical windows to prevent climate change, in the past I too have fantasized about a benevolent dictator that would basically do what Trump is doing to companies right now but to the oil companies and bully other nations if necessary with our superpower status. It's not desirable, but "circumstances demand we act." As I'm sure the fascists of today feel about their white replacement, "culture degradation", whatever bullshit.
The appeal of fascism to a fascist is you decide you're on the winning team and work backwards from there to make it true by any means. Your dear leader doesn't ask anyone for permission, shit just gets done that needs getting done (in one's mind).
So democracy can be slow, indecisive, and dysfunctional (but it's still the least bad system), while the appeal of the idea of a fascist government is that decisions are just made, little to no back and forth, you just act, act, act. Problem is how you get everyone who disagrees to shut up and that it's all fun and games until you're the one that disagree about something or you're the most convenient scapegoat. Or your dear leader got your ass sent to war over something stupid, but that's not exclusive to a fascist government.
Oddly I am not 100% against shit just being done.. no long ass delays, party disagreements, etc. But when 80%+ of the country does not like just about anything you do.. then the "getting it done" is working against the country and people in it. That's the problem we face now. Trump is all about screwing over 80%+ of the people in the country, not helping them, so he and some can get insanely rich while the rest bow down/praise as if hes the good guy.
No stage 4 fascism is when they open they break the law because they have the power to do so the fourth amendment guarantees your right against search and seizure which this covers, a fascist would completely ignore this right it’s fascism
Yeah ignorance is what makes it work… 5 stages of fascism written in the 90s by Robert Paxton. Great paper and research on how fascism comes about and has been spot on…
Failed to remain but succeeded in existed and doing fascism, not like my family was killed in gas chambers from a group of people that failed at trying to do that
Google tracks and indexes you across the web, whether you use Android or not. And whether you ever do a single Google search or not. They literally have trackers embedded everywhere across the net. You aren't escaping them, if you're using the internet today. (And you don't need to be signed in to Google, they track you either way.)
I've long contended that this is the case. Even when people say they have nothing to hide, they are just parroting talking points without thinking about them. Everybody would demand more privacy if they really understood what was going on.
I bet you if I ask 20 people on the street this at least 18 of them would be confused on what I was even saying.
Actually in 2025 now that everything is collecting data, it's been on the news, and all the pop ups, people are aware and understand it. They just don't care because if I'm not doing anything wrong, who cares what they see? Everything administratively important like social security numbers, drivers licenses, your address, the school you went to, etc is pretty much all publicly accessible legally or otherwise with massive databreaches.
People might be all “ohhh the people at google can see my search” and not realize that “oh the employee of Shitty Advertising Inc over in Dublin can see my search history and match it to my age, general city location in the United States and then use that to serve me more targeted ads all because of a dataset that was sold from google to said shitty data trading company”
Targeted advertising isn't new and everyone knows it's a thing. It's already a essentially a social understanding that the devices are listening and pushing ads based on what you say. Major news outlets have already reported on this so it isn't a secret. People just don't care. Unless you block ad network traffic, you're always going to see ads, they just will be a bit less specific to you.
If you use a credit card, guess what? The bank is selling the information on who you are, when you swiped, where you swiped, and what you bought. So your internet foot print is just 1 of many data points. There was a data breach on Nike's website and their custom list was posted on the dark web? Adidas would be interested in the list. Who's going to know that they did?
Since we're talking about the US (you mentioned you were located in the US), GDPR laws don't apply to us if a company in Dublin were to do that. They just can't touch any data regarding an EU citizen.
It can be frighteningly accurate but at the same time isn't solid enough to identify individual users and can only be used to identify devices and still not with 100% certainty.
I used to get a bunch of captchas when using incognito, but now I don't. I suspect Google figured out how to deanonymize my fingerprint, even behind a VPN
In this case it appears as though they requested a Google search results for anyone that had searched for the victim's address in the week prior, and their investigation proceeded based off an IP address.
"Police trying to find a rapist asked Google to produce a list showing anyone who had searched for the victim’s address in the week before the rape and a home invasion happened, according to the Record.
Google informed police that someone at an IEP [sic] address tied to the home of the defendant in the case, John Edward Kurtz, had looked up the victim’s address a few hours before the crime happpened, the Record reports."
You're going to be at the same risk regardless of who you're using. When these companies are presented with a demand from government and/or law enforcement, they're gonna hand it over.
Google has cookies stashed everywhere regardless of whether you use their services or not. It’s called repurposing a commercial application for surveillance.
The PA ruling is problematic but this headline is 100% false. The court did not say police don’t need a warrant, they had a warrant. The problem is that a warrant for “every person” that did something (like a particular Google search) is constitutionally deficient on its face for not being for a particular person. General warrants are blatantly unconstitutional.
This headline is, generously, misleading. Well, it's just a lie, actually. The police had a warrant, and the defendant attempted to claim that his expectation of privacy rendered the warrant invalid.
So does that mean that law enforcement still needs a warrant to view someone Google search history? Also, does it apply to other websites or search engines as well?
The ruling appears limited in scope to just saying, "Nice try, but the warrant is good and we're not throwing the case out." Nothing changes, if you want a companies internal records, you need a court order.
I don't think the defense actually thought this was going to work, but they thought the expectation of privacy argument was the only one that at least seemed a bit original.
They were allowed to identify everyone who searched for her address. It's not like they had a warrant for one person's search history. What you search for could be used against you, even if you had nothing to do with a crime.
The data trail created by using the internet is not involuntary in the same way that the trail created by carrying a cell phone is
How so?
Much like Google storing, using and selling my search data, it is common knowledge that T-Mobile & others log, use and sell my phone data. Like with Google, using T-Mobile's services, I concent to them collecting said information, much like Google's ToS. And police have used cellular data to help solve crimes. Rather than "who searched for the address" as in this case, they would query which devices happened to be near the address at the time.
If, per the Court, I'd prefer not to create a digital trail of searches, I should simply opt not to use the Internet.
Couldn't that work for cellphones too? If I don't want a digital trail of my location history, I could simply opt not to use a cellphone.
I think (I’m guessing) they are making a distinction between a search you chose to do vs a phone tracking your location even if you’re not intentionally using your location info.
The search is active, you have to choose to do it. the phone location info is passive, happens no matter what you do as long as you have a phone.
Unconstitutional as fuck, n another reason we need an Amendment to limit Judges n make them easier to fire. Yes Police should have access, but NOT without Warrant.
Linux - VPN with proven in courts they don't keep logs - Don't use Chrome but I'd recommend for ease Brave though like all browsers go through the settings for additional privacy and yes you can use Firefox though I'd put on a solid ad blocker on it as unlike Brave it doesn't come installed last I checked.
Finally logout always when done with a service/site and erase history to help not be tracked so casually with cookies that stick around between sessions.
Sure you can do a lot more but these basics are good enough to protect you from this type of bullshit overall while not impacting your internet speed.
Oh, and stop using Google. DuckDuckGo, Startpage or even the Brave search engine would all be better. Yes again there are even more privacy based but they really lower quality I have found so not worth it unless you are in deep.
DuckDuckGo, Startpage or even the Brave search engine would all be better. Yes again there are even more privacy based but they really lower quality I have found so not worth it unless you are in deep.
Please explain to me how exactly my ISP will be able to provide information about my activities conducted over a VPN.
I'll save you the effort, they can't. The person you responded to literally started with use a VPN that doesn't keep logs. The ISP will see you are connected to a VPN they will NOT know where you are going or what you are searching for.
Personally, I would not trust them, but I don't know if they keep logs, and more importantly if it's ever been legally tested.
Although, to be transparent I automatically distrust any company that does massive social media advertisement campaigns where you can't watch a YT video or listen to a podcast without them being the sponsor.
There are a couple that have been and showed in court cases where they were subpoenaed and testified that they do not keep logs. Proton or Mullvad would be my recommendation. Mullvad if you want to pay in crypto for additional anonymity.
This court order uses Google as an example, but the wording seems broader in scope. If they could search any and all browsers one uses, are they within the confines of the law to do so?
What if you delete your history, and clear cache, etc? Like can they somehow access searches from a decade ago? Because what’s the point in even deleting history, etc if it can all resurface the second they’d like?
Deleting your history will never prevent LEO from getting those records from your ISP. You can delete everything on your PC if you want, the ISP will still have records going back years of what sites you went to, how long you spent on them, how much data you transmitted or received etc.
yeah no. I'm sorry but that's just unconstitutional. Without a warrant violates the law. We need laws making judges easier to fire......AND we need to abolish qualified, judicial and prosecutorial immunity. Abolish Terry v. Ohio and abolish citizens united.
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uhhh what’s that now
Freedom
The freedom 🔔 broke
Have you tried turning Freedom™ off and back on again?
Ahh I need to get Freedom Pro for the feature you say?
I’m all out of $TRUMP coin tho
Kind of a bad title. They can't just "access" searches; they're allowed to accept the search histories from Google (who will willingly give it upon request)
soon your google search history will be part of your job application
Fuck, they already want access to your facebook and other social media pages, what more do they want. Access to my toilet camera!
You have one there? Hmmm...
Government mandated toilet cameras will be install in all private homes to protect the children or something, but they assure me that all footage is reviewed by professional genital inspectors.
Until they add Anal Recognition™ technology across the country, so they can track you if you ever use your, or any public bathroom, just in case the existing cameras don't see your face.
Never have I been so happy to work from home and be a complete hermit.
They'll be mandated there too.
OHH NO!! It's for the CHILDREN!!! /s
It’s just the vacuum cleaner- it just sounds fancier if you imply your bathroom has its own.
How else do you check your hemorrhoids?
They want access to your thoughts and butthole.
Maybe they already have
Holy shitballs - who the hell wants to buy a bidet with a camera attached?
Don't kink shame...
How about not having a toilet camera. Also, maybe it's time for a revolution against using tech. It's become less and less in our best interest to be online, to the point now it's more in "their" interest. Join r/datahoarders r/DataHoarder and start collecting yourself a nice big supply of offline entertainment.
You will need this one day.
LOL, longtime member of /r/DataHoarder/ I am at 3.1PB right now, currently testing about 370TB worth of used drives I just picked up this last weekend.
https://imgur.com/Yhr1FRM - Racks 2024
I'm not worthy 🤘
Hello hi it's me your sick grandmother. Can you please send me a few terabytes to make me feel better?
Sure. do you care if it's a pile of 120 GB IDE drives that I have no use for? I have about 80 of them.
How much is the bill for specifically electricity ?
Not horrible. I keep most of the drives powered down, only keeping my ACTIVE 24 drive pool in a NetApp DS4246 and a few random ones in the NAS itself running most of the time. Pulls about 350 to 390 watts most of the time, but can go up to 450-500 watts if I am using the GPUs for something heavy, which is partly offset by solar.
Here is another photo of more of the disk shelves.
https://imgur.com/H9UG7Ty - Desk 2024
I also lost one when someone tried to steal it, about 500TB of storage gone. I manged to recover about 300TB from backups though.
I dived my storage into 5 parts
ACTIVE - 24 drives always on. 8x 16TB, 8x 18TB, 8x 20TB
TANK - 24x 10TB in RAIDz3. Data is dumped here before being moved to ARCHIVE pools. I usually wait until I get at least 5-6TB to move before doing it.
ARCHIVE - drives are slotted in disk shelves / DAS units, but powered down most of the time. Sizes from 3TB to 12TB, pool are 12 to 24 drives in RAIDz2 or z3.
BACKUP - Copies of data, kept out side the disk shelves, logged in drive shippers and usually in color coded trays. Always sets of 12 in RAIDz2. Sizes ranging from 250GB to 4TB
SCRATCH - 4x 22TB drive inside the hotswap bays in the NAS itself. Stuff I need access to from the ARCHIVE pools is usually kept here.
Cache
You are now one of my heroes.
Fine. As long as they make people's entire google search history publically available if they want to run for office, get government contracts, receive public funds...
Jokes on them I don't use Google🤣
Joke's on them, I've never had social media!
They know.
Even if they had a warrant, Google gives out practically any data the police ask for. It's been the case for a long time already that you cannot trust Google or its services in any way, shape or form.
Do not use Google.
If Google detects anything illegal on your account, they'll snitch you out to the Feds right away and freely provide them with all the information linked to your account, relevant or not.
Or anything Google's algorithm flags as illegal, whether it actually is or not.
Time to get my ass off google
r/degoogle can help ☺️ I started this year and it’s been way worth it imo. Fuck that company
The others aren't going to be any better.
Better time than ever to make the switch to a privacy based browser like Librewolf on your PC, and a privacy based android ROM.
Any suggestions for a mobile web browser? I already use Firefox?
DuckDuckGo has a pretty good browser.
Firefox is pretty good once configured. IronFox or Fennec are good forks. DDG or Brave if you want Chromium, although I avoid Chromium based stuff personally.
I use Brave on both mobile & desktop.
You're getting downvoted because of a personal fact? I guess people don't like chromium (v3) and are still sore about v2 brave with entirely optional features they don't like being turned on by default? Is the reddit community just a bunch of default ringtone fanboys? (no browser is good out of the box for just about any opsec / threatlevel).
No, Brave is just a terrible browser that everyone needs to stop using: https://thelibre.news/no-really-dont-use-brave/
thats mostly about the creators opinions and not the browser. fortunately im capable of separating the two
In my 20+ years in the field, I’ve learned that architecture is rarely permanent, yet people still treat their preferred stack with a religious fervor. The way some people talk down to anyone not using their specific browser setup is a classic example of the technical posturing I've seen my entire career.
It could also be the DDG bots coming out of the woodwork, too too. I refuse to use that POS. Beyond terrible results and right leaning garbage.
quetta
I use vanadium on my phone, and mullvad browser and librewolf on pc
On top of that I use PipePipe and Freetube for youtube
I use Waterfox on both desktop and mobile.
None. You're good where you are. Just change useful settings and install useful extensions, if you haven't already.
Im using ublock, and that's it. What are some other good extensions?
CanvasBlocker, Decentraleyes, and Privacy Badger are pretty good.
There's also NoScript, though it's a bit overpowered and you'll have to tweak it for every single website.
You will want to read here and here as well.
Privacy Badger isn't recommended ever since they switched to using a blacklist. Now it's just an inferior uBlock.
https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/why-privacy-badger/32590
What does this matter? They can get the info from your ISP.
FWIW, US versions of pixel (not sure of all models) only have esims. If you're talking about an OS related to pencils.
Are there issues with Brave?
Its chromium based
Aside from being Chromium-based (which is a problem itself), yes: https://thelibre.news/no-really-dont-use-brave/
Thanks!
I switched over to Brave with uBlock Origin Lite extension
[deleted]
The internet is a series of tubes
Got to put peanut butter in the Internet vents for protection
It is long past time to pivot to DuckDuckGo or StartPage search engines.
And keep your search history cleared.
Just because you press "clear" doesn't mean it's actually erased. Just saying.
Definitely. It’s my homepage and default search engine.
Use of Google DB, so they can still get your history from G collecting your IP.
Please elaborate. DDG used Bing backend and doesn't save your data, and Startpage is so strict about data purging that sometimes just navigating back to search results from a webpage breaks the results page. Doesn't seem like there's much meat on either bone.
DDG is trash, use a search engine that does not depend on google's indexing results.
DDG leverages Bing, first of all, and second I have no qualms using Google services, I just don't want them to use me back. If DDG or StartPage prevents my data from getting back to Big Tech, that's good enough for me.
Kagi is not free, so unless you plan to pay my search bill, this is a nonstarter.
You can either pay for privacy, or use a service where you are the product.
This is very true. Sadly though, if the product you pay for ever gets big enough, they will sell you out too. Trust no one.
this is what we call fascism
Not there yet but definitely chipping away
I’m not sure it’s a hard line. We’re deep in the gradient
It looks like a dick, quacks like a duck, waddles like a duck.... we're calling it a chicken.
If you were in your house and someone was tearing pieces off of it, how long would you wait until you stopped them.
Maybe Trump is following the nazi playbook. Maybe he's not. It LOOKS like he is, so we should TREAT it like it is.
We're setting a bad example for future generations if this shit comes up again in the future. They've captured our attention/drive/wits while they position themselves into absolute rulers. Feudal monarchy wasn't that long ago. These people are still dreaming of being a monarch like their (friends) great grandparents. We need to drive this from society.
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Extreme wealth and political influence = absolute power. This requires intervention. Intervention requires agreement on a goal. You can't tear out a necessary component without a replacement at hand.
No, facism is useful compared to this - this is just plain stupidity
Uh.. WHAT? By all means.. explain how any part of fascism is useful? I am dying to hear how you make it sound like something good...
Look, I am anti-fascist to my bones and I wouldn't make the remarks like the other person made flippantly since it's too close to home given our environment in the US, but like the movement doesn't spread like a virus because there's no appeal.
Despite all the terrible, possibly irreparable damage this administration has done in under a year, you can describe it to people and a significant number will still say "At least he's doing something."
I understand a good amount of the circumstances and history that got our government to this point, but there wouldn't be so many frustrated Americans willing to vote for the guy willing to "do something" if Congress hadn't been so dysfunctional for at least the past 30 years.
And that gridlock and dysfunction has been enabled by our imperfect system of democracy.
I want us to improve it and don't want to take power away from the people, but as someone who has watched decades of inaction during critical windows to prevent climate change, in the past I too have fantasized about a benevolent dictator that would basically do what Trump is doing to companies right now but to the oil companies and bully other nations if necessary with our superpower status. It's not desirable, but "circumstances demand we act." As I'm sure the fascists of today feel about their white replacement, "culture degradation", whatever bullshit.
The appeal of fascism to a fascist is you decide you're on the winning team and work backwards from there to make it true by any means. Your dear leader doesn't ask anyone for permission, shit just gets done that needs getting done (in one's mind).
So democracy can be slow, indecisive, and dysfunctional (but it's still the least bad system), while the appeal of the idea of a fascist government is that decisions are just made, little to no back and forth, you just act, act, act. Problem is how you get everyone who disagrees to shut up and that it's all fun and games until you're the one that disagree about something or you're the most convenient scapegoat. Or your dear leader got your ass sent to war over something stupid, but that's not exclusive to a fascist government.
Oddly I am not 100% against shit just being done.. no long ass delays, party disagreements, etc. But when 80%+ of the country does not like just about anything you do.. then the "getting it done" is working against the country and people in it. That's the problem we face now. Trump is all about screwing over 80%+ of the people in the country, not helping them, so he and some can get insanely rich while the rest bow down/praise as if hes the good guy.
What part of "compared to this" did you idiots not understand?
No stage 4 fascism is when they open they break the law because they have the power to do so the fourth amendment guarantees your right against search and seizure which this covers, a fascist would completely ignore this right it’s fascism
Fascism has "stages" now? I didn't know that.
Yeah ignorance is what makes it work… 5 stages of fascism written in the 90s by Robert Paxton. Great paper and research on how fascism comes about and has been spot on…
Yes, truly a shocking turn of events.
Fascism failed every time it was attempted.
Failed to remain but succeeded in existed and doing fascism, not like my family was killed in gas chambers from a group of people that failed at trying to do that
See the comment I made to the other fellow.
Here is a link to the full PDF of the court's decision, for anyone interested: https://www.pacourts.us/assets/opinions/SUPREME/out/J-36A-2024oajc%20-%20106611829340009817.pdf
So in other words no one who uses Google can reasonably expect privacy, is what they are saying.
Good reason to never use androids.
Google tracks and indexes you across the web, whether you use Android or not. And whether you ever do a single Google search or not. They literally have trackers embedded everywhere across the net. You aren't escaping them, if you're using the internet today. (And you don't need to be signed in to Google, they track you either way.)
Fuck that!
“It is common knowledge that websites, internet-based applications, and internet service providers collect, and then sell, user data,”
I bet you if I ask 20 people on the street this at least 18 of them would be confused on what I was even saying.
I've long contended that this is the case. Even when people say they have nothing to hide, they are just parroting talking points without thinking about them. Everybody would demand more privacy if they really understood what was going on.
I have nothing to hide in my pants but I’m not going to strip naked in the streets when asked.
Actually in 2025 now that everything is collecting data, it's been on the news, and all the pop ups, people are aware and understand it. They just don't care because if I'm not doing anything wrong, who cares what they see? Everything administratively important like social security numbers, drivers licenses, your address, the school you went to, etc is pretty much all publicly accessible legally or otherwise with massive databreaches.
No I don’t think that’s the case.
People might be all “ohhh the people at google can see my search” and not realize that “oh the employee of Shitty Advertising Inc over in Dublin can see my search history and match it to my age, general city location in the United States and then use that to serve me more targeted ads all because of a dataset that was sold from google to said shitty data trading company”
Targeted advertising isn't new and everyone knows it's a thing. It's already a essentially a social understanding that the devices are listening and pushing ads based on what you say. Major news outlets have already reported on this so it isn't a secret. People just don't care. Unless you block ad network traffic, you're always going to see ads, they just will be a bit less specific to you.
If you use a credit card, guess what? The bank is selling the information on who you are, when you swiped, where you swiped, and what you bought. So your internet foot print is just 1 of many data points. There was a data breach on Nike's website and their custom list was posted on the dark web? Adidas would be interested in the list. Who's going to know that they did?
Since we're talking about the US (you mentioned you were located in the US), GDPR laws don't apply to us if a company in Dublin were to do that. They just can't touch any data regarding an EU citizen.
Another reason to use DuckDuckGo
Good night, Google search.
How do they know it’s your history? Does everyone make a Google account?
Google uses tracking cookies to identify you across the internet. The system is decently sophisticated, and honestly pretty scary.
It can be frighteningly accurate but at the same time isn't solid enough to identify individual users and can only be used to identify devices and still not with 100% certainty.
I wouldn't put any money on that assertion.
I used to get a bunch of captchas when using incognito, but now I don't. I suspect Google figured out how to deanonymize my fingerprint, even behind a VPN
I currently get to swear I’m not a robot with nearly every search. So should I actually be happy clicking the boxes with stairs??
In this case it appears as though they requested a Google search results for anyone that had searched for the victim's address in the week prior, and their investigation proceeded based off an IP address.
https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/pa-supreme-court-rules-that-police-can-access-google-searches-without-a-warrant
"Police trying to find a rapist asked Google to produce a list showing anyone who had searched for the victim’s address in the week before the rape and a home invasion happened, according to the Record.
Google informed police that someone at an IEP [sic] address tied to the home of the defendant in the case, John Edward Kurtz, had looked up the victim’s address a few hours before the crime happpened, the Record reports."
That’s interesting. I wonder if people using DDG are at similar privacy risk.
You're going to be at the same risk regardless of who you're using. When these companies are presented with a demand from government and/or law enforcement, they're gonna hand it over.
Given that DDG relies on google's index/results I'd say probably yes. Kagi is where it's at.
So basically it's just silly and put in stone since Google will give out data for funsies.
Nothing is anonymous.
This doesn’t answer the question.
Google has cookies stashed everywhere regardless of whether you use their services or not. It’s called repurposing a commercial application for surveillance.
I wish people would get this. And those who follow /r/privacy should really understand this basic concept.
Privacy has been eviscerated
The PA ruling is problematic but this headline is 100% false. The court did not say police don’t need a warrant, they had a warrant. The problem is that a warrant for “every person” that did something (like a particular Google search) is constitutionally deficient on its face for not being for a particular person. General warrants are blatantly unconstitutional.
This headline is, generously, misleading. Well, it's just a lie, actually. The police had a warrant, and the defendant attempted to claim that his expectation of privacy rendered the warrant invalid.
So does that mean that law enforcement still needs a warrant to view someone Google search history? Also, does it apply to other websites or search engines as well?
They got a "warrant" search for everyone's Google searches. This was not a warrant for an individual.
Thanks for helping me understand 👍
The ruling appears limited in scope to just saying, "Nice try, but the warrant is good and we're not throwing the case out." Nothing changes, if you want a companies internal records, you need a court order.
I don't think the defense actually thought this was going to work, but they thought the expectation of privacy argument was the only one that at least seemed a bit original.
Ahh, gotcha. Thank you.
I still find this alarming. The warrant was not individual, it was a "warrant" for mass surveillance.
They were allowed to identify everyone who searched for her address. It's not like they had a warrant for one person's search history. What you search for could be used against you, even if you had nothing to do with a crime.
Maybe I'm just misunderstanding the logic
How so?
Much like Google storing, using and selling my search data, it is common knowledge that T-Mobile & others log, use and sell my phone data. Like with Google, using T-Mobile's services, I concent to them collecting said information, much like Google's ToS. And police have used cellular data to help solve crimes. Rather than "who searched for the address" as in this case, they would query which devices happened to be near the address at the time.
If, per the Court, I'd prefer not to create a digital trail of searches, I should simply opt not to use the Internet.
Couldn't that work for cellphones too? If I don't want a digital trail of my location history, I could simply opt not to use a cellphone.
I think (I’m guessing) they are making a distinction between a search you chose to do vs a phone tracking your location even if you’re not intentionally using your location info.
The search is active, you have to choose to do it. the phone location info is passive, happens no matter what you do as long as you have a phone.
Delete all of it.
Yeah, that's not going to hold up to challenges... Sadly, someone's going to have to spend a lot of money to "test" it.
Unconstitutional as fuck, n another reason we need an Amendment to limit Judges n make them easier to fire. Yes Police should have access, but NOT without Warrant.
Im so glad the children will be safe
Solution: don't use google.
Google or not, doesn't matter.
They will never get it.
Shit I look up cheat codes will I will always be considered a suspect. Yes officer I up down left b button down up a button to kill.
Murderer!
Linux - VPN with proven in courts they don't keep logs - Don't use Chrome but I'd recommend for ease Brave though like all browsers go through the settings for additional privacy and yes you can use Firefox though I'd put on a solid ad blocker on it as unlike Brave it doesn't come installed last I checked.
Finally logout always when done with a service/site and erase history to help not be tracked so casually with cookies that stick around between sessions.
Sure you can do a lot more but these basics are good enough to protect you from this type of bullshit overall while not impacting your internet speed.
Oh, and stop using Google. DuckDuckGo, Startpage or even the Brave search engine would all be better. Yes again there are even more privacy based but they really lower quality I have found so not worth it unless you are in deep.
Kagi > any other search engine
Google or not, it doesn't matter. They can still get this information from the ISP.
Please explain to me how exactly my ISP will be able to provide information about my activities conducted over a VPN.
I'll save you the effort, they can't. The person you responded to literally started with use a VPN that doesn't keep logs. The ISP will see you are connected to a VPN they will NOT know where you are going or what you are searching for.
Does nord keep logs?
Personally, I would not trust them, but I don't know if they keep logs, and more importantly if it's ever been legally tested.
Although, to be transparent I automatically distrust any company that does massive social media advertisement campaigns where you can't watch a YT video or listen to a podcast without them being the sponsor.
There are a couple that have been and showed in court cases where they were subpoenaed and testified that they do not keep logs. Proton or Mullvad would be my recommendation. Mullvad if you want to pay in crypto for additional anonymity.
just wow
What the fuck?
This court order uses Google as an example, but the wording seems broader in scope. If they could search any and all browsers one uses, are they within the confines of the law to do so?
So, does Google have the capability to access usage of apps from playstore is what I'm wondering.
What if you delete your history, and clear cache, etc? Like can they somehow access searches from a decade ago? Because what’s the point in even deleting history, etc if it can all resurface the second they’d like?
Deleting your history will never prevent LEO from getting those records from your ISP. You can delete everything on your PC if you want, the ISP will still have records going back years of what sites you went to, how long you spent on them, how much data you transmitted or received etc.
i guess ill log out of chrome then
One more reason to not use Google
We really need to make an effort to distance ourselves from US tech companies.
yeah no. I'm sorry but that's just unconstitutional. Without a warrant violates the law. We need laws making judges easier to fire......AND we need to abolish qualified, judicial and prosecutorial immunity. Abolish Terry v. Ohio and abolish citizens united.
Thought police
They can't access my Google searches if I don't use Google!
Bing: MY TIME HAS COME!
How would Bing help you here? The logic of the ruling would apply to any request for search data including other providers.
Awesome! This is great!!