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Google Piracy IT Technology

Google Removes 'Pirate' URLs From Users' Privately Saved Links 58

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
To date, Google has processed more than seven billion copyright takedown requests for its search engine. The majority of the reported links are purged from Google's search index, as required by the DMCA. Recently, however, Google appears to gone a step further, using search takedowns to "moderate" users' privately saved links collections. TorrentFreak: A few hours ago, Eddie Roosenmaallen shared an email from Google, notifying him that a link had been removed from his Google Saved collection because it violates Google's policy. The reason cited for the removal is the "downstream impact," as the URL in question is "blocked by Google Search."

"The following saved item in one of your collections was determined to violate Google's policy. As a result, the item will be moderated..," Google writes, pointing out a defunct KickassTorrents domain as the problem. 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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Google Removes 'Pirate' URLs From Users' Privately Saved Links More

Google Removes 'Pirate' URLs From Users' Privately Saved Links

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  • "private" means something different to Google (Score:4, Insightful)

    by david.emery ( 127135 ) on Thursday August 31, 2023 @04:53PM (#63813048)

    "All your data on our servers belongs to us...."

    Sure, it was consistent with Google's Terms of Service. I wonder why anyone stores anything "private" on any "cloud". Apple has at least provided a way to encrypt stuff in iCloud (but it's not the default mode, and it's a pain to set up across a bunch of devices. And if you have one "too old" device, you can't use the encryption.)

    But then, the only "cloud" I trust is my own. At least I know what the privacy policy is, how data is shared, and who to blame when there's compromise or data loss.

  • Who trusts Google with their bookmarks? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Thursday August 31, 2023 @04:54PM (#63813054)

    Seems like a really bad idea. Oh, and look, it is.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Threni ( 635302 )

      What does this have to do with bookmarks?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Bookmarks on the whole are a bad idea, except for use as shortcuts to frequently accessed sites.

      For preserving links for later use, you rely on the content staying up and not changing. Sometimes the Wayback Machine can help, but often not.

      These days I just clip the whole page into Joplin. Saved forever, and with a link if I want to check for updates.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        You must be bookmarking vastly different pages than I do. My bookmarks keep working and the only cases where I had to use Internet archives are links put into documents by others.

        • Same. The only real times that this doesn't work is when a website goes down or restructures itself.

          But most of my bookmarks are shortcuts for things that are dynamic so freezing the page wouldn't serve my needs very well (granted, my needs may be very different then AmiMoJo and good for him for finding a tool to work for his needs.)

  • Yeah, so?
    Where did you get them? Who taught you how to do this stuff?
    You, alright!? I learned it by watching you!

  • Please note (Score:5, Informative)

    by RegistrationIsDumb83 ( 6517138 ) on Thursday August 31, 2023 @05:12PM (#63813108)
    Before everyone gets out their pitchforks, note these are not people's chrome bookmarks. These are public webpages that are being redacted to remove illegal content. It is not that different from Google removing pirate links from search.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ukoda ( 537183 )
      That is an important point I missed, your post needs up rated. The original new story could have been clearer.

      However it is still over reach. There are valid reasons to include links to pirate sites, which would include people working to protect copyrights.

      I'm still sharpening the tines on my pitchfork just in case Google get more bright ideas about where to reach too next.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      google docs can be public too, shouldn't they be included?
      The more things that make people realize the cloud is poisonous the better, I say.

    • Before everyone gets out their pitchforks....

      Nothing you said should keep people from getting out their pitchforks. Google is altering its users' saved data to remove references to websites. Not only should people be throwing their pitchforks at Google, they should be using this as (yet another) wakeup call to not use other people's servers to store important data.

      There is nothing keeping Google from extending this policy to trawling your Google Docs documents and altering them in whatever way they see fit, or doing the same thing to your Chrome bookm

  • You Know Where You Can Stick Your Policies, Goog! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Motleypuss ( 10291831 ) on Thursday August 31, 2023 @05:13PM (#63813112)
    This is why I self-host -- the only person who gets to fuck up my Web links (or my site pages, for that matter) is me. There are other reasons, such as independence from Teh Goog's (or other) analytics scripts, trackers or other such bollocks, none of which are either necessary or welcome in my little corner of the World Wide Wait.

    • What I need, but lack the ability to code or the will to learn it - a browser extension that records my Google search results and the text from pages I visit, them dumps them into a private search engine. And that same extension should inject its own results into the top of future Google search results.

      My own personal Google backup so they can't become a Ministry of Truth and destroy the most easily accessed records of the past.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by narcc ( 412956 )

        For saving things locally, just press ctrl+s to save the page, print to pdf, or use one of many addons for saving pages locally. As for searching your local hoard, you'll find no shortage of tools for that for most platforms.

        The whole addon with google integration thing you imagine seems poorly thought out. What do you do with similar but not exact queries? Do you expect your addon to do its own local search? If so, what's the point of prepending them to the Google search results? If you're looking for

    • My bookmarks list is a local plain HTML page, set as my browser homepage. When I want to add or remove links, I just edit the HTML. I put dates on all the links, so technically it's kind of version controlled, too.

      I never have to mess with importing bookmarks or worry about browser updates screwing anything up. All my browsers share the same HTML page, so they all work the same way. I don't travel much, but one of these days perhaps I'll write a script to automatically sync my local HTML page with my we

      • That's my approach too :-)

        I did once toy with the idea of having a simple top level page with categories and separate link listing pages below, but decided it was simple enough but too much effort.

  • ... that the advertising company formerly known as "Google" has not had "Don't be evil" in their values for many years now.

    • No: it's your daily reminder than when you entrust your data to someone else on the cloud, you lose control of it.

      If you don't want Google to mess with your data, don't share your data with Google in the first place.

  • Has never removed a link from my collection.

  • GMail Story (Score:5, Informative)

    by bartle ( 447377 ) on Thursday August 31, 2023 @05:53PM (#63813192) Homepage

    I had something similar happen a few weeks ago with Gmail. I had just purchased a new Android phone but I wanted to install a very old app I enjoyed, one that had been removed years ago from the Google Play store. No problem I thought, I have a copy of the apk stored as an attachment in Gmail. I could not download it. I dug up the email on Gmail's website and saw the following:

    Anti-virus warning – 1 attachment contains a virus or blocked file. Downloading this attachment is disabled.

    The app did not have a virus, I've been using it on my phone for years. It was, however, pulled from the Google store due to copyright violations. So I guess this is the state of play at Google these days, we can expect take-down requests and legal orders to be far reaching, even into our private files

    As a side note, I was able to get my file by downloading the entire email as a .eml file, loading it into Outlook, and extracting the attachment that way.

    • And that is why I NEVER SAVE ANYTHING in the cloud.

    • Yet another reason for a Googlectomy. We've had our email with a local ISP for years. It costs money, of course, whereas Gmail is free. But we all know what "free" really means, nowadays.

      It is nearly impossible to live in the modern, Internet-driven world without a Google account. However, with a bit of effort, you can go weeks, or even months between times that you actually need and use it...

    • Anti-virus warning – 1 attachment contains a virus or blocked file. Downloading this attachment is disabled.

      I workaround that by making sure everything I save on my Gmail or GDrive that might cause problems down the line due to their policies, is saved within an encrypted 7-Zip or, depending, as an encrypted PDF. Google cannot scan within those, so it merely warns the file cannot be scanned for viruses.

  • You lost me (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Unpopular Opinions ( 6836218 ) on Thursday August 31, 2023 @06:21PM (#63813272)

    With the combination of Google and Private. There is zero privacy in Google, and after over 20 years, that should have been clear to anyone feeding personal data to them.

  • My reminder the "cloud" is the wrong language (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Friday September 01, 2023 @02:38AM (#63814057)

    "cloud", English, little fluffy looking puff of vapor in the sky.
    "klaut", German, homonym to "cloud", English, imperative plural of "klauen", to steal. I.e. a command to a group to steal your stuff.

    And that's pretty much what you do when you put stuff in the cloud.

  • But so flourish profits of the media companies. There is no need to go stricter with this crap, it's all pure greed.

  • Gosh, it's sure good that Google has "Don't be Evil" in their code of condu... wait? what they removed that in ... checks Interwebs... 2018

    Seriously talk about a fall. I think it comes down to

    Money corrupts, Billion@ corrupts absolutely

  • In addition to the "Twilight Zone" aspect of some big-brotherish organization controlling what I can and can't view, this has a kinda Clockwork Orange [youtu.be] flavor as well. Granted I'm not being forced to watch Uncle Samoogle-approved content. Yet.
  • If they are talking about websites that recruit people to steal from ships and hurt people, I am all for it. Please do censor the recruiting of innocent people to become hardened criminals. If this is talking about limiting sharing of artwork though, that would be a shame. Art is an important part of culture and should be shared as much as possible. I think I heard about a certain religious figure that was known for sharing (among other things). He too was persecuted.

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