this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
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Google Removes ‘Pirate’ URLs from Users’ Privately Saved Links::undefined

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[–] sebinspace@lemmy.world 241 points 1 year ago

Man, they really want you to use Firefox

[–] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 111 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] LinyosT@sopuli.xyz 37 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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

[–] jeena@jemmy.jeena.net 9 points 1 year 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 61 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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 19 points 1 year ago

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

[–] AdmiralShat@programming.dev 49 points 1 year ago (2 children)

And yet, I can still google torrent sites

[–] HessiaNerd@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year 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 48 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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

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

[–] betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (6 children)

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 1 year ago (2 children)

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

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[–] NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world 45 points 1 year 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?

[–] 1984@lemmy.today 34 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

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

[–] danielton@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] Haui@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 1 year ago

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

[–] Saneless@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] Akuchimoya@startrek.website 4 points 1 year 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).

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[–] CaptObvious@literature.cafe 28 points 1 year ago (4 children)

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.

[–] Yoru@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] AphoticDev@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] mertn@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] GreatBlue@infosec.pub 10 points 1 year 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.

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[–] otter@lemmy.ca 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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

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[–] johnyrocket@feddit.ch 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] BrownianMotion@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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".

[–] AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year 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.

[–] nutsack@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] Audbol@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I don't think that's related

[–] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 12 points 1 year ago

They had the pirate chests locations.

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[–] tym@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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)

[–] miridius@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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

[–] Aggravationstation@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] pickledpoops@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I use it too...but I like to spell it KeepAss.

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[–] darkkite@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 year ago (4 children)

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 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] gammasfor@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

Would have been nice to have amended the headline to reflect the actual story.

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[–] miridius@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year 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.

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