Google Will Stop Telling Law Enforcement Which Users Were Near a Crime::(Bloomberg) – Alphabet Inc.’s Google is changing its Maps tool so that the company no longer has access to users’ individual location histories, cutting off its ability to respond to law enforcement warrants that ask for data on everyone who was in the vicinity of a crime.Most Read from BloombergNetanyahu, Under Pressure Over Hostage Deaths, Vows to Press OnMike Johnson May Be the Next House Speaker to Lose His Job‘Underwater’ Car Loans Signal US Consumers Slammed by High RatesUS Navy Shoots Do

  • glowie@h4x0r.host
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    11 months ago

    There must have been an operational bottleneck with handling the LEOs requests that they decided to prevent the data requested from even existing in order to not be able to reply to such requests. Surely this came down to business and not alturism.

    • helenslunch@feddit.nl
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      11 months ago

      Surely this came down to business and not alturism.

      These are not necessarily mutually exclusive ideals.

      From time to time businesses will do things that actually benefit their customers in order to keep their business.

  • Chemical Wonka@discuss.tchncs.de
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    11 months ago

    Use GrapheneOS and stop giving power to Google. Google is not a friend of the people for offering “free” services, the user is the product and the companies and the surveillance state are the customer.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      11 months ago

      the surveillance state are the customer.

      Except it would seem not, since you know this news.

      • ruplicant@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        why not? the quote is in the present tense - while article claims Google will change policy

        and are you sure this is the only service Google is offering to the surveillance state?

    • Ethalia@feddit.ch
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      11 months ago

      That means they got better methods of tracking, or send the data straight to the accurate person, cutting the middleman.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      11 months ago

      Why would they. Don’t like they gain anything by giving this information to the police.

      They probably been forced by other countries to have some kind of effective data protection it’s ridiculous employees have random access to this data.

  • Otter@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    Well that’s an odd and inflammatory headline to use for the issue

    • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      Not really. Google is making this change so they have no way to share incidental bystanders location data when its requested/demanded by law enforcement. Google is the only tech company cooperating with police to provide this type of “geofence/general area” location data.

      The change comes three months after a Bloomberg Businessweek investigation that found police across the US were increasingly using warrants to obtain location and search data from Google, even for nonviolent cases, and even for people who had nothing to do with the crime.

      Google will change its app so that it can no longer tell law enforcement its users location data, inline with more privacy focused companies like Apple and their maps app. This change comes after years of advocacy from digital rights groups, but appears to be mainly motivated by negative press coverage.

      The headline is specifically about what the article is about.

      • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Wow, surprising that for once Apple is the good guy here. There’s a good reason this is a bad idea, and it’s not reallt hard to see why. Circumstantial evidence isn’t evidence of an actual crime for a reason.

        • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          Apple has been pushing digital privacy as a selling point for a while, and actually living up to it a bit.

          • yolo@r.nf
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            11 months ago

            pushing digital privacy as a selling point and living up to it doesn’t add up when you do compromise privacy behind closed doors

            • QuaternionsRock@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago
              1. Apple and Google are both guilty of this. Frankly, however, neither of them are particularly “guilty”, as
              2. Both Apple and Google were legally obligated not do disclose this practice until recently. It was revealed by Apple as soon as this embargo was lifted.

              I’m not sure what more they could have done in that situation. Did you expect them to break the (very fucked up) law just to alert the public? Can Signal no longer claim to be privacy-focused if the government forces them to log a suspect’s password?

              • loki@lemmy.ml
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                11 months ago

                That is even worse, they knew they were compromising privacy and still boasts about being privacy centric. It’s like Saudi Arabia claiming to be a utopia while actively using modern slavery in the background.

                Apple and Google are both guilty of this. Frankly, however, neither of them are particularly “guilty”,

                Google doesn’t claim to be a herald of digital privacy, nor its users claim Google is a saint.

                • yolo@r.nf
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                  11 months ago

                  Apple users every time any criticism comes up

                  Other companies do it too…

                  Ya no shit, we know other companies are bad, however, keeping Apple at the pedestal no matter what is annoyingly cringe.

  • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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    11 months ago

    As usual, I have to scroll down more than a page to get past all the generic “Google bad” comments to see any discussion of the topic at hand. Never change, Lemmy.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      11 months ago

      What you’re looking for is effective moderation. It would be nice wouldn’t it.

      • Ethalia@feddit.ch
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        11 months ago

        If you’re looking for an echochamber that is. Just accept that people can have different opinions and views. Besides if you’re a technical person you would know the amount of bullshit and mistrust there is.

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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          11 months ago

          Not wanting low effort comments is not an echo chamber. I am perfectly fine with dissenting opinions a lot of the comments on here aren’t at the level of opinions that just knee jerk reactionary comments