I used to joke that by using Google products, the NSA backups my data, but I’m not sure I like ICE having access to my YouTube history.
Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data
291–300 of 830 posts
Re: Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data
#292Privacy, technology and actual freedom overlap massively. Stories like this making it to HN are important since many of the people working at Google that had interactions with this, either by creating the tech or being aware of internal policy changes, read HN. Additionally many founders and decision makers in companies read these stories because it hit HN. Knowing that Google will do this changes your legal calculat…
Knowing that Google will do what changes your calculation? Abide by the law? I would be surprised if Google's so-Called promise to notify the subject of the inquiry was not couched in terms of being subject to legal requirements. Companies are not activists, and they shouldn't be expected to act like activists.
Google is acting like an activist here. They went after this guy willingly.
They were also very eager to supply weapon tech to Israel when the Gaza war started, far more eager than they ever were to supply it to our own country. Leadership was letting employees push back, then all of a sudden in ~2023 they told everyone to shut up and physically gated off the HQ. Then told everyone to shut up even more after some people broke into Thomas Kurian's office.
Maybe the founders have personal reasons. Sergey Brin called the UN antisemitic for calling out genocide in Gaza.
Re: Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you have to work your way round to "they are not people" for the law to be consistent, consider that it might be a bad law.
It's not that they aren't people, they aren't the people that the Constitution refers to. There are many rights that visitors don't have.
That is one possible (specious and self-serving) interpretation of a document that pre-dates the concepts and laws it's being used to prop up.
How many of the Pilgrims had a valid modern visa?
Re: Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data
#294> While ICE “requested” that Google not notify Thomas Johnson, the request was not enforceable or mandated by a court Sounds like Google stopped caring. But... Why on earth do the people filing an administrative subpoena not have to notify the interested parties too? Why is it Google's responsibility? If they didn't tell you, would you ever find out?
What do you mean? Eventually notifying him seems like the one thing Google did right here.
You give Google credit for holding someone's head above the icy lake after they pushed them into lake themselves at the request of the piranhas.
Re: Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data
#295It's not just ICE that can abuse subpoena to get your data-- scammers and other fraudsters can file a federal lawsuit against a bunch of John Does and then run around issuing subponea for records to attempt to uncover their identities.
There appears to be no defense against this beyond not allowing companies access to your data in the first place.
Re: Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data
#296Re: Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data
#297> While ICE “requested” that Google not notify Thomas Johnson, the request was not enforceable or mandated by a court Sounds like Google stopped caring. But... Why on earth do the people filing an administrative subpoena not have to notify the interested parties too? Why is it Google's responsibility? If they didn't tell you, would you ever find out?
> But... Why on earth do the people filing an administrative subpoena not have to notify the interested parties too?
Generally they do - with some notable exceptions being if you're a non-citizen and you're no longer in the US, and it's either a criminal investigation or related to intelligence or national security.
Re: Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not that they aren't people, they aren't the people that the Constitution refers to. There are many rights that visitors don't have.
That is one possible (specious and self-serving) interpretation of a document that pre-dates the concepts and laws it's being used to prop up. How many of the Pilgrims had a valid modern visa?
USA was founded well after the Pilgrims. I don't think anyone in 1776, or even in the Pilgrim days, was thinking a foreigner should have the right to vote for instance.
Re: Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
Migrating is such a good feeling. You don't have to do it all at once, either: I migrated to fastmail over the course of several years. Each time google did something that got my blood pressure up I went into my password manager and migrated another account. In aggregate it was a hassle, but these days I almost miss the feeling of being able to do something in response to stinky actions from google.
I've migrated everything from Google except for Google Voice. I have yet to find an alternative that can match the feature set and ease of use, regardless of the cost.
What part of the feature set in particular has been lacking in competitors?
EDIT: asking because I've been working on an alternative of sorts. I used GV a lot before I figured I could go without it/Google.
Re: Google broke its promise to me – now ICE has my data
#300The linked Google policy states: >We won’t give notice when legally prohibited under the terms of the request. The post states that his lawyer has reviewed the subpoena, but doesn't mention whether or not it contained a non-disclosure order. That's an important detail to address if the claim is that Google acted against its own policy.
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Weird take. When it comes to trying to compel tech companies to not be evil, trying to use legal precedent for crimes you can charge them with is usually difficult and turns into a semantic debate. I think what's more important is that we recognize when people and companies abuse power to do evil things, regardless of what legal precedent or written corporate policy is relevant. These companies act exactly as evil as they can possibly get away with without pushing us to other products and services.