Seems hard to make the argument to make that browsing history is harmless, given how often it is used in police investigations and court cases.
I also think that data that might be harmful to a user because it could record them breaking a law should be thought of differently than data that could be harmful when used maliciously by a third party. Even allowing for the often oppressive and unfair application of the law, data that is harmful to the user when sent to the authorities should be considered differently than other data because there is obviously a balancing question around relative harms to different parties. If you witness a crime, reporting it might be good, but it isn't always.
[1] Personally I feel like providers should be legally barred from doing anything other than responding to warrants for information related to a real person and they should, in that case, be prevented from including any information linked through statistical imputation.
Is browsing history being used as evidence in criminal prosecution? Where? How?
https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=%22Browser%20history%22&typ...
This isn’t true. The risk is currently low of actually being targeted but that doesn’t mean people are not at risk.
Also law enforcement is not the only problem by a long shot. Civil suits, family court, etc, all routinely use browsing history data.
"Police confirms that Disha was arrested after Google shared details."
https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/disha-ravi-a...
as the tumblr kids say, satire requires a clarity of purpose and target lest it be mistaken for and contribute to that which it intends to criticize.
(In case anyone thinks google sells search history retail: this is a joke...at least for now).
A little far fetched, but if you're employed by one of those agencies, your boss (or bosses boss etc) can access _your_ data, find out how often you're googling basic information and use that information against you.