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 223 points 2 years ago

Man, they really want you to use Firefox

[–] Throwaway4669332255@lemmy.world 133 points 2 years ago (3 children)

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 63 points 2 years ago

Yeah, this is incredibly intrusive

[–] Dicska@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (12 children)

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.

[–] Saxoboneless@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

For storage, for free options I'd recommend filen.io, which gives you 10GB free. If you're open to other paid options, proton drive and infomaniak drive seem alright.

Just skimming the alternativeto entries for google photos, the open source alternatives to Google photos look like they tend to be either paid or self hosted. Stingle Photos has a free 1GB tier you could try out. Otherwise, paid options include Stingle, ente, and seafile, and self hosted options include immich and Nextcloud (which is also a drive alternative).

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[–] Throwaway4669332255@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

Depends on how much effort you want to put into it. Nextcloud is the closest in terms of features but you'll need to set it up.

I have a ProtonDrive account and I like it but it doesn't have auto upload of photos. You need to manually upload them. I'm personally fine with this since 90% of my photos are receipts and junk.

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[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago (3 children)

My work, which is supposed to keep things private for customers, stores so much on Gmail and Google Drive. It's comical to me.

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[–] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 110 points 2 years ago (4 children)
[–] LinyosT@sopuli.xyz 36 points 2 years ago (1 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 18 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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[–] Hildegarde@lemmy.world 60 points 2 years ago (2 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 20 points 2 years ago

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

[–] Grimy@lemmy.world 17 points 2 years ago (5 children)

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 15 points 2 years ago (3 children)

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 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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

[–] Grimy@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (5 children)

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".

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[–] seejur@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago (3 children)

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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[–] MonkderZweite@feddit.ch 42 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years 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 9 points 2 years 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 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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

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[–] AdmiralShat@programming.dev 42 points 2 years ago (2 children)

And yet, I can still google torrent sites

[–] HessiaNerd@lemmy.world 8 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.

[–] NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world 39 points 2 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?

[–] 1984@lemmy.today 31 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years 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 18 points 2 years 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 10 points 2 years 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 2 years 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 3 points 2 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).

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[–] otter@lemmy.ca 25 points 2 years 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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[–] CaptObvious@literature.cafe 24 points 2 years ago (3 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.

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[–] johnyrocket@feddit.ch 22 points 2 years 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 20 points 2 years 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 2 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.

[–] tym@lemmy.world 18 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)

[–] nutsack@lemmy.world 17 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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

[–] Audbol@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago (3 children)

I don't think that's related

[–] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 10 points 2 years ago

They had the pirate chests locations.

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[–] Aggravationstation@lemmy.world 12 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

[–] asunaspersonalasst@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago
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