Google Removes ‘Pirate’ URLs from Users’ Privately Saved Links::undefined

    • @[email protected]
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      102 years ago

      Google search really has gone downhill. I’m using fence on my phone and it defaults to duckduckgo. Gotta say, it’s just as good, occasionally a little better.

  • @[email protected]
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    2 years ago

    Don’t rely on online service to save your stuff.

    Edit: how can i exclude < and > from being interpreted?

    • @[email protected]
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      102 years ago

      Usually a backslash (the one under the backspace key, not the one that shares a key with ”?") before a character that would usually be treated as a formatting instruction will stop it from being interpreted as such. Could be different for other machine-interpreted languages but when used this way, the backslash is called an “escape character”.

      • @[email protected]
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        62 years ago

        The \ key. And you might ask how I wrote that symbol without it gettting interpreted. Well, by writing \\.

      • @[email protected]
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        2 years ago

        But that didn’t work for ‘angle braket open’ text ‘angle braket close’? Not even in code tag right now.

        • @[email protected]
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          2 years ago

          How about using “&lt;” and “>” (“<” and “>”, respectively)?

          Edit: Okay, I see what you mean. That is strange. Not sure what to do about that but will look around.

        • @[email protected]
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          12 years ago

          I specified the location of the backslash as a way to tell the difference between that and the forward slash. Probably could have made my intent more clear if I’d stated that the slash sharing a key with the question mark was the forward one as you mention but didn’t see a need.

        • @[email protected]
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          22 years ago

          Imagine being downvoted because someone else can’t figure out the difference between a forward and back slash.

          Lemmings, weird breed. Lots of chuds, it seems.

  • @[email protected]
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    242 years ago

    kinda makes sense. it’s like if a youtube video or soundcloud track gets DCMA’d then they’re going to remove the link.

    if it was you actual browser bookmark i would understand the outrage.

    im still on FF tho

    • @[email protected]
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      102 years ago

      Isn’t removing the bookmarks from people’s browser what they’re mad about? Now that Google is selling content through YouTube TV, I’ll bet they crack down hard on piracy. The old reddit /r/NFLstreams moved to a site a lot of people know. Now that Google owns Sunday ticket, I will not be surprised if it gets DDoS’d to shit this year and becomes borderline unusable. We’ll find out next week I guess.

      • @[email protected]
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        262 years ago

        It’s not from the browser. As stated in the article:

        Initially, it was suggested that this removal impacted Google’s synched Chrome bookmarks but further research reveals that’s not the case. Instead, the removals apply to Google’s saved feature.

        It’s a feature specific to the google app that lets you share collections of bookmarks:

        https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/13128452?hl=en

        They don’t want people sharing links to pirate sites.

        It’s still bad, but saying they are going through bookmarks in chrome and deleting them is misinformation.

      • @[email protected]
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        42 years ago

        I skimmed through the article and didn’t see it mentioned, but in another post I read that this was only done for a shared collection, as in it was at least semi public if not public

      • @[email protected]
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        22 years ago

        yeah but it’s nice to know what has actually been removed so you can get the song/video elsewhere

    • @[email protected]
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      42 years ago

      Just yesterday I saw a post that they did in fact remove bookmark and notified user about it with detail

      • @[email protected]
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        212 years ago

        A users bookmarks on the browser, and a collection saved on google, are different things. One is private, the other can be shared.

  • @[email protected]
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    152 years ago

    Oh boy, I’m feeling ultra smug now. Been using a Keepass database synced via Syncthing for about 3 years now

  • @[email protected]
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    462 years ago

    What excuse are they using if it turns out that the takedown request was false?

    Would they undelete the private user’s lists?

    Would they reimburse anybody for the damage?

  • @[email protected]
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    312 years ago

    Honestly, the only useful Google service these days is gmail. And that’s only because I don’t want to deal with changing providers after 15 years.

    • @[email protected]
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      32 years ago

      I wish other providers had the tab system that Gmail has, I’d switch in a heartbeat if it did. Folders just aren’t as convenient.

    • @[email protected]
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      22 years ago

      There’s gotta be an app for that, though that could ve dangerous since you’re letting it access your Gmail.

      • AphoticDev
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        122 years ago

        Yeah, the issue is with going through every service you’ve used that you might use again and changing the email. That can take many hours, depending on how many sites you have an infrequent need to use.

        • @[email protected]
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          102 years ago

          It took me about 6 months to de-gmail. Well worth it in the end. Im with paid protonmail now.

          • Great Blue
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            102 years ago

            You can ‘future proof’ your mail by using your own domain and use it with your proton account.
            So if you want or need to change your mail provider or self host in the future, you just need to redirect your domain to your new provider.

  • @[email protected]
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    22 years ago

    ITT: nobody actually reading the article

    Initially, it was suggested that this removal impacted Google’s synched Chrome bookmarks but further research reveals that’s not the case. Instead, the removals apply to Google’s saved feature.

    This Google service allows users to save and organize links, similar to what Pinterest does. These link collections can be private or shared with third parties.

  • @[email protected]
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    242 years ago

    I think the word private in “privately saved” should be in quotes, clearly.

    Remember kids - firefox was built off the netscape navigator kernel. A download for FF is a vote for the right side of antitrust history (and therefore future)

    • @[email protected]
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      2 years ago

      This has got nothing to do with browsers. The article is saying that if you use an online Google service to save Google search results, then when they are forced to take said search result down due to DMCA then it also is (obviously) gone from the saved collection. This could just as easily happen in Firefox if you use Google’s saved pages service, which is a bit like Pinterest. Meanwhile Chrome, like Firefox, never touches your actual bookmarks

  • Hildegarde
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    822 years ago

    This feels like a corporation complying with their obligations under the DMCA.

    To maintain their safe harbor status, companies have to remove allegedly infringing content in response to a properly filed takedown notice. This does include links stored in google’s search results. This is what a company like google has to do when storing user data on servers in any country that signed the WIPO Copyright Treaty.

    They don’t seem to be doing this in a malicious way. They have done their duty and removed the offending links from their service. But they quite kindly chose to notify the user by email, including the exact URL that was removed. The user can store that link elsewhere.

    It would have been far easier to remove the link silently.

    • @[email protected]
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      272 years ago

      They shouldnt be reading and playing with things privately stored. Are they going to go through all my documents to replace any swear words? It’s completely inexcusable. Private doesn’t mean private until some big company asks about it wtf.

      • @[email protected]
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        52 years ago

        If that’s the case (what OP mentioned), I think it’s still the responsibility of who made those effing laws. You cannot ask a corporation to break the law to protect your privacy. But you can definitely ask your representative to protect it

          • @[email protected]
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            32 years ago

            If they have anything to gain from it financially, which they probably don’t in this case, and are even being kind enough to let you know what they’re removing.

            Corporations aren’t nice to be nice, it usually helps their bottom line when they are.

            • @[email protected]
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              32 years ago

              That’s kind of my point. They are being dicks, why do people feel the need to defend and excuse their behavior.

      • Alex
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        22 years ago

        This is google we’re talking about, there never was any privacy to begin with, and what you believed was there was always just an illusion. This was always their interpretation of the ideal and power of the internet with its “free sharing of ideas and knowledge” - they literally went with including personal data in that much like facebook and both have yet to be stopped or held accountable to start treating it as such.

      • @[email protected]
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        202 years ago

        It’s not on bookmarks. Is on collections(a different thing) that are public, shareable and technically hosted by Google. This whole thing has been overblown by not fact checking.

        • @[email protected]
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          42 years ago

          It deleted them from public and private collections.

          If google was taking out mentions of Tiananmen Square at China’s request, would you be okay with it?

      • @[email protected]
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        22 years ago

        Please contact your congressperson. Having dealt with shit like this, a company’s other option is fines approaching infinity and jail time for those who don’t comply. We elected the people who did this.

        We should be angry at corporations for monopolistic behavior, using profits from one business to prop up another and drown competitors (Bard), cross-business-unit offerings that smaller companies can’t compete with (Prime shipping, video, music), not this. This is a company complying with a terrible law.

        • @[email protected]
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          2 years ago

          I don’t think something becomes public just because it’s saved in a Google app. I consider the contents of my gdrive private and my own. There’s ethics to consider that go wildly beyond “if it ends up on Google’s hardrive, it automatically belongs to them”.

          • @[email protected]
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            2 years ago

            I don’t know how useful a public versus private distinction is here or in the current big tech digital age generally. The point is that if you’re storing your data on google servers, you aren’t entitled to (or receiving) any privacy from them or anyone they choose to sell your data and/or information to. They give you cheap storage because they’re interested in mining your data; it’s highly, highly profitable

              • @[email protected]
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                22 years ago

                In an abstract moral universe, you’re entitled to your opinion, and I don’t disagree. But you don’t have a legal leg to stand on here, and this is just the modern big tech internet these days. Forewarned is forearmed though: back your stuff physically or in other ways that you have fuller control over. Because of all the bucks to be made off of harvesting user data, everyone wants to push you to the cloud

                • @[email protected]
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                  2 years ago

                  I know very well just how powerful google is. I’m not saying it’s illegal, I’m saying it’s a dick move and isn’t defendable. They are behaving like shit and we should be vocal about it, even if they do own us.

    • @[email protected]
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      282 years ago

      See, this is why I like reading comments. Cooler heads prevail. Thank you for the context.

  • @[email protected]
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    232 years ago

    It’s wierd. 4 Days ago I got an email saying they removed a link from my saved websites. Only the link, in the email, was of a reddit post from 8 years ago on how to plug in speakers into a Motherboard I used to have??? How is that piracy? Its on the buildapc subreddit.

    • Brownian Motion
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      242 years ago

      You should be asking how the fuck do these cunts still have a reputation that you are supporting?

      Googles new, but not announced motto is, “We are the evil”.

      • Dizzy Devil Ducky
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        32 years ago

        That motto ain’t even new. It’s been a thing for at least a close to a decade now if you ask me.

  • @[email protected]
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    2 years ago

    Maybe it will make people see Google for what they are. So many are stuck in some kind of illusion.

    • @[email protected]
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      72 years ago

      They’re an advertising company that tries to collect information about targets through products those targets use. That’s it

      • @[email protected]
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        42 years ago

        I signed up for a Google Ads account for a non-profit I volunteer with. I had to verify the organization with governing documents, okay, fair enough. They also “require” my drivers license or passport. Excuse me? We will no longer have a Google Ads account after Sept 15 (the cut off to verify my identity).

    • @[email protected]
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      22 years ago

      I think because the moment you admit to yourself that Google is not so good a company, you are forced to recognize most are not and that is too much for many to swallow.

    • @[email protected]
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      222 years ago

      They did a lot of good for the FOSS community for many years. Unfortunately, those days are long gone.

      • @[email protected]
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        112 years ago

        “You Either Die A Hero, Or You Live Long Enough To See Yourself Become The Villain” — Harvey Dent

      • @[email protected]
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        112 years ago

        Not entirely true. The mullvad browser adds a lot of anti-tracking stuff, which was originally implemented in the TOR Browser. So you’re definitely safer using the mullvad browser instead of plain Firefox

      • @[email protected]
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        12 years ago

        Firefox is usable with some tweaks and not that evil, even though sponsored by Google. But many people feel that they can’t believe Firefox like 10 years ago.

        Some users feel it’s so wrong that they have forked the project: LibreWolf, which seems a good option too.

        • @[email protected]
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          12 years ago

          you gotta make some tweaks to LibreWolf as well to make sure it doesn’t break some websites