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0 pointswater-your-self3y ago0 comments

> tracking doesn't seem to negatively impact my quality of life at all but it keeps the many free services I value greatly running.

Your data is not worthless, and generally I consider data harvesting harmful because of the nation-state subpoenas it enables.

If I attend a protest for abortion rights, and my geo data is bound to that event and then I seek an abortion in another state, ive now created a wonderful fingerprint that may soon lead to my incaerceration.

(For americans) But the united states is not even the worst perpetrator. Imagine your least favorite government demanding google gives them a list of anyone that might be a political dissident based on audio they have collected.

Data is a liability.

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7 comments · 2 top-level

mrhands5563y ago· 4 in thread

Has this happened before?

t-writescode3y ago

Well, the "before Google" was librarians, and they have a history, a long, long history of saying "no" to the feds when it comes to giving out reading and checkout lists of people.

*Of course* Google and friends happily give that information out "pre-warrant".

autoexec3y ago

> Well, the "before Google" was librarians, and they have a history, a long, long history of saying "no" to the feds when it comes to giving out reading and checkout lists of people.

In the US they lost that fight and now reading lists are handed over to the state.

jwalton3y ago

Yesterday: https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/a-dad-took-photos-...

sushisource3y ago

It's a valid point but, is pretty different in its intent from what GP comment is getting at.

This wasn't a result of "let's target this group we've deemed political enemies", it was "we're attempting to enforce this law (mind you, effectively everyone agrees with) via data collection".

I can buy how that's a pretty darn thin line, but, in practice I think it's also true that we haven't seen much evidence of the more shady interpretation that GP's post implies.

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kylevedder3y ago· 1 in thread

Your complaint is with the government, not Google. The FBI could just as easily setup a StingRay [1] and capture all cell information. The only protection against that is robust digital civil rights legislation protecting Americans from governmental over reach, not lampooning big tech companies for having data. It's not like Google is willing to just shovel data at anyone who asks nicely, they will actively fight the government on nominally lawful requests it thinks are unreasonable/won't hold up to further legal scrutiny [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_phone_tracker

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/08/18/google-...

mixmastamyk3y ago

Some of us have the forethought to avoid issues before they happen. A "marshmallow test" for adults. We shun snitches for good reasons.

Data is never deleted (with fewer and fewer exceptions), so liability only grows over time.

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