Google Removes ‘Pirate’ URLs from Users’ Privately Saved Links | Hacker News Reader

Google Removes ‘Pirate’ URLs from Users’ Privately Saved Links

torrentfreak.com

133 pointsgslin49 comments

Largely a dupe of [Google moderates Google Collections items](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37301600) 101pts, 1day ago, 38 comments

Thanks! Macroexpanded:

Can Chrome Sync or Firefox Sync be trusted with sensitive data? (2018) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37309189 - Aug 2023 (28 comments)

Google moderates Google Collections items - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37301600 - Aug 2023 (38 comments)

Are there others?

Oh Google...

if you don't use your analytics account, they just delete the data.

if you don't log in into your account for X period of time they will remove it.

if you god forbid forgot to check your mail account for an alert about this, well, then, so sorry, your data was deleted.

I'm fantasizing when this will reach Youtube users who will notice that their videos disappeared?

Is there a word for companies that heavily rely on their customers that also actively hate their customers?

Google

Attention brokers, a.k.a. Internet advertising companies.

If the product is free, you are the product.

The modern web

Google specifically calls out accounts with YouTube videos as exempt from their new two year inactivity policy.

I mean I get what you’re saying, but as they say, “content is king”.

Does that mean you can upload any old junk to prevent the account being deleted?

Probably, but we know how much Google loves to kill its creations. So, sprinkle liberally with salt. :)

No, uploads won't save you at all. See upthread.

No, this is false.

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/12418290?hl=en#zi...

Now, it is true that this alleged "YouTube exception" was listed in emails sent to us. But those emails aren't worth the pixels they're printed on; the only policy that matters is the one published above, and you can plainly see that there are no exceptions for YouTube creators.

I spent over 20 minutes in a chat with One Support to get clarity on this, and after a lot of ignoring my plainly worded questions and a lot of Support copy pasta, I determined that the email was a malicious lie or an innocent mistake. Don't trust what they told you, trust only what they've published.

The revolution will not be recorded.

The faster we compress AGI to run locally, the faster we get cameras that are incapable of recording the revolution...

I just had a cyberpunk vision of illegal optical film manufacturing labs that exist so people can take pictures that can't be AI-censored by camera-chip firmware, web browser code, hard drive controllers, or USB chipsets.

Whoever controls the present controls the past...

not that im a chrome user, but i cant be the only one that copies important things to a location out of browser?

===================================

also, take a look at what google sent [?]

https://torrentfreak.com/images/saved-google.jpg

the url was removed from favorites, but google provided the url again.

it would be trivial to copypasta to an external file.

> the url was removed from favorites, but google provided the url again.

> it would be trivial to copypasta to an external file.

You can argue about whether or not this was a reasonable action, but, if it was an unreasonable action, then I think that this is not really a reasonable expectation for mitigation. Presumably, at least some people have lots of links affected.

im thinking its ineffective if the goal is to eliminate user access, but probably effective if goggle is interested in not being an avenue for sharing 'pirate' urls

Let's go ahead and ban pen and paper, typewriters, email, and unregulated verbal speech too, to make sure they aren't avenues for sharing pirate urls.

For many years my browser home page has been a local file named "home.html"

I edit that file to include commonly used links and links I want to remember.

A new bookmark is simply copying the URL and then in a shell: echo '<paste>' >>~/home.html. I go in periodically and organize.

None if this depends on any functionality in the browser, and it is usable in any browser from Chrome to Firefox to Lynx.

This is just great. Thanks for the idea.

Just glomming on to say that this is a brilliant idea. I am kicking myself for not having thought of this years ago!

It is easy and simple. If you want to share between computers, keep it in github or just sync it online somewhere. That's good anyway in case you accidentally clobber it. And maybe set "noclobber" in your shell.

I love this idea!

could even include something like a single page self editing wiki as your home page (like tiddlywiki)

I remember doing this years ago, but it longer works on Firefox out of the box. Setting a custom page for a new tab requires an extension. Apparently, that's for security reasons: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1092024

The original Netscape Navigator circa 1994ish saved it's bookmarks in bookmarks.html.

um, why can google read any of this to do the censoring?

What about google docs or google drive links? Can‘t those also be made public to an unlimites number od users?

Encrypt your emails with CyberChef

Is "saved" like Google's version of Pocket?

Did they update the TOS?

No, just the POS.

I guess the big problem here is that Google calls these "Google Collections" "favorite pages" and to anyone that's used the internet while Internet Explorer existed that has a pretty clear meaning: local bookmarks. This is badly named feature causing expectations that upset people when they aren't fulfilled because it's cloud crap.

> 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

Pretty sure no one would confuse that for local bookmarks? This is a "your Google account" thing, not a browser thing.

> This is a "your Google account" thing, not a browser thing.

Pretty sure 90% of the general public could not explain the difference.

Pretty sure it's >95%.

But having said that, an HN bot to automatically send out a poll to random users on Twitter or something whenever someone types "general public would be nifty. Obviously not scientific, but at least as a straw poll it could indicate something

I don't see a meaningful difference. If I had an HTML file of my bookmarks folder on my Google Drive, should Google be able to edit pirate links out of it?

Given that you'd be explicitly uploading content to Google's servers... yes? They get to moderate user generated content to high heaven and back, whether you share that content or not.

In fact, given the last 2 decades of Google, how is this something that you (the person reading HN and knowing what Google does) would not expect? And have explained to your friends and family to expect as part of just standard day to day internet education?

They are allowed to delete files that violate their content policies. Nothing in the terms of service, however, gives them the right to edit files without the user's permission.

Switch to Brave!

Or some other Chrome fork.

Or ungoogled-chromium.

Or Firefox

Animal Farm shit.

How’s that? As far as I can remember, nothing comparable happens in Animal Farm.

Or do you mean ‘1984?’

If it were an Animal Farm situation, google would start out by saying users are allowed to save any links, and then later change their policy to only allow users to save some links.

The main takeaway from Animal Farm is generally understood to be “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” - it’s equivocation around the term ‘equal.’ It doesn’t address censorship, or liability, which is the realm that Google’s policy deals with.

The silently changing commandments was what I was referring to.

The pigs go around chanting the new slogan after they've changed it. That doesn't seem like a silent change.

I'm pretty sure they're enforcing an existing rule, it's just that people weren't aware that urls booked from the Google Search app would get stored somewhere else that was sharable, and ended up getting flagged.

It doesn't seem like something sinister from Google, but rather poor planning when developing how links get saved. As far as I can tell, this has nothing to do with your Chrome Browser bookmarks or anything, but a different system that most people are either not using, or are unknowingly using.

This really could be fixed by only enforcing this policy on infringing collections content that is shared. As an example, you can still upload movies and TV shows to Google Drive without consequence, it's only when you share those files that Google might intervene.

Why do you think this was an preexisting rule? The fact that no one expected this behavior weighs somewhat in the other direction.

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