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Google Will Stop Telling Law Enforcement Which Users Were Near a Crime (finance.yahoo.com)

submitted 11 months ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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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

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[–] mosiacmango@lemm.ee 32 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (13 children)

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 -4 points 11 months ago (12 children)

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 15 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (10 children)

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

[–] yolo@r.nf 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

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 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Apple and Google are both guilty of this. Frankly, however, neither of them are particularly “guilty”, as
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 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

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 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] QuaternionsRock@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

The only argument I’ve ever heard is that Apple has comparatively better privacy practices than most companies we interact with. I frankly don’t think that argument is particularly unreasonable.

[–] QuaternionsRock@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

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

I never did, nor would, claim either of things about Apple.

[–] mosiacmango@lemm.ee 1 points 11 months ago

Yall need to read the "a bit" part of that sentence too.

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