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submitted 2 years ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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

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[-] sebinspace@lemmy.world 250 points 2 years ago

Man, they really want you to use Firefox

[-] Throwaway4669332255@lemmy.world 144 points 2 years ago

I can't imagine depending on Google to store anything. They shouldn't be able to even see what links you save.

[-] The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world 65 points 2 years ago

Yeah, this is incredibly intrusive

[-] Dicska@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

As someone who just converted from Chrome to Firefox 1-2 months ago: what alternative can you recommend to Google Drive? I wouldn't miss everything from it, but being able to easily share data (so that they can play videos, audio files or documents without having to manually download them) is one of them.

EDIT: and maybe Google Photos. Mainly for syncing.

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[-] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 122 points 2 years ago
[-] LinyosT@sopuli.xyz 45 points 2 years ago

And stop using chromium browsers too!

No point in ditching chrome just to use chrome with a different coat of paint.

[-] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Yep! A few months ago I moved from Brave to Firefox since Brave can’t be trusted

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[-] Audbol@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago

I'm pretty sure the other browsers have to comply too

[-] jeena@jemmy.jeena.net 9 points 2 years ago

I'm hosting my own sync servers with bookmarks for firefox, if I don't delete it nobody will.

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[-] Hildegarde@lemmy.world 82 points 2 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.

[-] RubberColby@lemmy.world 28 points 2 years ago

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

[-] Grimy@lemmy.world 27 points 2 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.

[-] tomich@lemmy.ml 19 points 2 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.

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[-] streetfestival@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 years ago

What do you mean by privately stored if you're saving it in some google application?

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[-] seejur@lemmy.world 5 points 2 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

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[-] AdmiralShat@programming.dev 50 points 2 years ago

And yet, I can still google torrent sites

[-] HessiaNerd@lemmy.world 10 points 2 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.

[-] MonkderZweite@feddit.ch 50 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

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

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

[-] betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world 10 points 2 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".

[-] VonReposti@feddit.dk 6 points 2 years ago

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

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[-] CaptObvious@literature.cafe 32 points 2 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.

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[-] otter@lemmy.ca 26 points 2 years ago

I don't use this (Google Saved?) and I'm unfamiliar with it, is it similar to Pocket?

Is it this: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/9217379

[-] tym@lemmy.world 24 points 2 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)

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[-] darkkite@lemmy.ml 24 points 2 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

[-] Raiderkev@lemmy.world 10 points 2 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.

[-] kautau@lemmy.world 26 points 2 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.

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[-] johnyrocket@feddit.ch 23 points 2 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.

[-] nutsack@lemmy.world 19 points 2 years ago

it also removed all of my saved places from google maps. thanks i like it

[-] Audbol@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago

I don't think that's related

[-] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 12 points 2 years ago

They had the pirate chests locations.

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[-] Aggravationstation@lemmy.world 15 points 2 years ago

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

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[-] asunaspersonalasst@lemmy.world 10 points 2 years ago
[-] Weslee@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago

I'm gonna give Mullvad a shot, sick of Google's shit.

https://mullvad.net/en/browser

[-] quantum_mechanic@sh.itjust.works 23 points 2 years ago

What's wrong with Firefox?

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this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
600 points (100.0% liked)

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