This is misinformation. This has to do with Google collections and how it’s a shared platform, so of course google is going to monitor this.
Your private bookmarks are fine. Relax.
Still, you shouldn’t use Chrome or any Google products if you can help it.
What should I use instead?
Firefox
Alright gonna give it a shot! Thanks.
I went from chrome to Firefox and while there is a slight learning curve (like private browsing is ctrl + shift + P instead of Chrome’s ctrl + shift + n?) But I’ve been having a great time with it.
Okay I appreciate that! Just started using it.
The biggest learning curve for me was the placement of the find bar.
It’s the only way.
Nah. If you want to be outraged at Google, at least be correct.
This has to do with Google “collections”, not synced bookmarks. Afaik, collections are a thing you only access on mobile through the google app, this doesn’t even have anything to do with Chrome.
If you run chrome on mobile, for example, you don’t have access to the collections. It’s only through the google app.
Almost certain they monitor collections because they can be shared with public.
They shouldn’t be monitored either way in my opinion as it’s just a bunch of links, but especially not while still private.
Ultimately I don’t think it quite matters if it technically is bookmarks or “collections”, they seem clearly used in the same manner in this case.
I don’t care if you’re mad about it like I said. I just care about accuracy. The person in the screenshot and this thread’s title are both inaccurate.
I didn’t ever indicate I was mad, I simply stated my opinion. We already know it is inaccurate as you shared this in your original comment.
Some torrent sites have been ordered to be entirely blocked in some countries so they probably have to check for them to comply with local laws.
Eh… the ultimate question, what if it’s a collection of CSAM links?
Some moderation is fine, especially when it can be shared pretty easily. This isn’t private bookmarks, it’s “private” bookmark collections.
Edit: For those downvoting, this is the same concept as a private Reddit/facebook community. Just because it’s “invite only” doesn’t mean it’s free from following the rules of the whole site.
CSAM is never an excuse to violate everyone’s privacy.
I hate seeing people implying that it is. It’s no better then Patriot Act B.s that took away privacy in the name of catching terrorists.
When those links are hosted on Google servers, publicly available to anyone handed the link to them?… how is that a private space?
This isn’t reaching into your phone and checking the information you store on it, this is checking links you added and shared with others using their service. They absolutely have the right to check them.
It is a private space when they are not shared publicly
Except that’s not how it works.
If I go into a public park, put up a tent, then start breaking the parks rules, I’m not “in the clear” just because I’m in a tent and didn’t invite anyone else in.
Words used to have meaning, you know. Like, for example, the word “private”.
Private has various meanings in various contexts. If I take you to the private booth at a club, does it mean I’m allowed to slap around the waiter? No, of course not because rules still apply in private places hosted by a third party.
If you want privacy in the context you explicitly mean, you shouldn’t be using anyone else’s hardware to begin with. If you expect any third party company to be fine with posting anything on them, you’re gonna have a bad time.
For example, how many lemmy instances are fine with you direct linking to piracy torrents?
I’d not expect the private booth to have the club’s employee sitting there and waiting for me to do something that is against the rules preemptively.
We mostly argue about semantics, but in this instance you are trying to excuse some very questionable behaviour by companies by saying something along the lines of “well you better go and live in a forest then”. And I don’t think that’s a good take.
For example, how many Lemmy instances are fine with you direct linking to piracy torrents?
Irrelevant, as all content on Lemmy is public in a proper sense of this word.
Yup. As an analogy, we rent apartments but that doesn’t revoke our right to privacy. We’ve decided people deserve privacy even if they’re only renting and not owning. Same should be true when one is renting space online to store things.
Irrelevant, as all content on Lemmy is public in a proper sense of this word.
/sigh
How many file hosting services let you share pirated data, publicly?
Before you start in on “it’s not the same” it absolutely is. It’s private data, which is being shared through a link publicly. Just like bookmark collections.
And once that file has been identified as piracy, it is very often fingerprinted and blacklisted from not only that instance, but all instances past, present and future.
That’s essentially what is going on here.
I guess we test and see whether I get banned.
Also, it’s not the same. A link to a website is not “pirated content”. A link to a website in a “collection” not shared with anybody is not publicly available pirated content.
Why would Google preemptively ban a set of characters that does not constitute a slur and is perfectly legal to exist?
My bookmarks can also be shared with the public though
I’m not aware of a way of making your bookmarks public through chrome.
Wtf is a collections?
Basically the Google equivalent of Pocket Reader; saves a whole bunch of links from Google News/Articles for you, Google search, and general web links. It’s not the same as your Chrome bookmarks (though at one point they were considering merging them until everyone hated it).
Ok, I just checked. My collections consist almost entirely of saved maps locations of which restaurants and tourist places I want to visit. Interesting.
Beats me, I only use chrome if firefox cannot display the site correctly. And it’s a case to case basis at that, it has to be that I really really need to access that site.
Also i rarely use the Google apps that came with my phone. The most probably used one is Maps.
Edit : so yeah, I forgot. I’m on Android. There’s that, no escaping from them on my part. I can’t be bothered with using and installing my own phone OS.
I’m with you. I’ve disabled some of the more intrusive system apps and Google apps, but there’s no replacement for Maps atm. The best I’ve found is OsmAnd, but it is unusable for me because there’s no way to track movement while observing the convention of north = up.
I like the maps integration with Android auto so that has to stay
Crazy that I had to scroll past 9 other comments to reach this one. Maybe I oughta start sorting comments by top.
You can access through google.com/save
That’s not a function of chrome though, I can do that on any browser.
Thats’s what I meant by posting the link, you can access it anywhere.
Okay sure but that’s not a service that google is explicitly providing and hosting on their server. Bookmarks are saved locally.
getfirefox.com and disable google search in your preferences. F*ck google.
the only two things that shock me about this is
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That it took until now for it to happen
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that people are shocked by it.
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People are saying this is fake, maybe that image in particular is, but I just got that email and that’s annoying me so here’s a pic
Dose it means Google actually deleted it?
From the collections yes, I can’t see that item there. They are just bookmarks from mobile device though, it’s been so many years I didn’t even know that was there lol.
As if I needed any more reasons to avoid their craptacular browser like the plague that it is.
Not on firefox they’re not
Google keeps taking L’s and firefox keeps taking W’s. If they keep going maybe firefox will be most used browser again
I hate that I have to keep chrome on my machine because some sites I visit don’t work well, or at all, on Firefox.
I’ve heard a lot of people mention this recently and I must live a charmed life because I’ve never had this happen. There was I think maybe, once where I was having a problem with a site and it said that I needed to use a browser like chrome so I begrudgingly did and it still didn’t work so I don’t count that as an example and other than that, I’ve just never seen it. In fact I’m pretty sure it’s not since about 2001 that I’ve seen any website give me shit with only working on certain browsers and that was sites designed to work on IE6 or something.
Brave or ungoogled chromium are other options
both are still just chromium and as such still subject to google’s bullshittery like amp, manifest v3 and web integrity
Use brave
That’s just chrome with a hat on and does nothing to help reduce the encroachment of Google as the internet’s sole provider
But it is more private than chrome and makes heavy modifications for privacy/freedom’s sake it is definitely better than actual chrome if you have to use something chromium based
it’s literally made by an adtech company. you’re falling for marketing hype
seeing as no one has delivered proof so far i would argue that thats not the case.
i mean one can literally check for themself (even i, if i could be bothered)
It’s still chromium based, which I’m trying to get away from as much as possible.
How to make people care, though
A few days ago, a friend asked me what browser I was using, a question he asked me in a genuine manner of getting my opinion. When I asnwered that I was using Firefox, he - again, what seemed to be genuine - wanted to know why. Knowing that he likes to use adblockers, I then told him about Google’s recent attempts of attacking an open web, specificly mentioning ManifestV3 and WEI API and how they are a potential threat to his use of adblockers.
“Well, I use ublock origin on chrome and it still works, so I’ll keep using that.”
Apparently, I am not convincing enough.
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Unless they sort out their funding (find someone that is not Google for majority of their money), people shouldn’t care.
I don’t understand. You think people shouldn’t care about privacy? You think people shouldn’t care about one or two massive corporations having complete control over the internet?
Explain.
Not at all. They should find an alternative that cannot be just unplugged on demand.
Mozilla cannot be unplugged on demand. That would cause Google to become a monopoly, and they would be held to extreme harsh laws by the EU. Like in the case of IE6 back in the day.
Google does not want that, so they donate to Mozilla to keep Firefox as a competitor. And Firefox has to do jack shit in return other than exist.
The only way Firefox could be unplugged is if a new non-chromium browser becomes one of the big browsers.
This is all technically correct. Although I think it’s a little naive to say that a corporation “cannot” do something today. There are lots of things they technically cannot do yet it happens on daily basis.
I think his point is that as long as Google is the primary funding source for Mozilla it’s not worth relying on Firefox because there’s always the risk Google will demand Mozilla capitulates and tows the line. Once/If Mozilla secure independent funding then they can be ‘trusted’
This is why you read the licence agreement, people!
Eat a bag of dicks google
As people have said, this is fake, but why would you keep any important data with Google anyway?
People keep saying this is fake, but I just received this email today on another site lol that’s annoying
It’s fake in that this is about shared collections, not just your regular bookmarks as implied.
You also can’t share pirate material on YouTube, can you?
Here’s the print from my mail. And that is a bookmark from my mobile device, that website is not mine.
Is it maybe about items in this? https://www.google.com/save
I have plenty of links in my bookmarks that google doesn’t like, haven’t received any email. I do not use the “save” feature though…
In another capture, it says that the link is hidden for others but also for the current user.
Op you’re so easily fooled
firefox doesn’t do this
Either does Chrome probably. This is probably fake
it’s their private property !
chrome can E2E encrypt your bookmarks, I didn’t realize it wasn’t used by default
E2E encryption is only (potentially) effective if the threat is a MITM. If your threat model shows any possibility for your threats to be on either end, it is effectively useless.
Now I’m not saying that you should model Chrome as a threat, but I’m certainly saying that you also can’t be certain you don’t need to. The whole thing is closed source, the publisher is a Machiavellian megacorporation; and if I were Google, and had to spy on users for profit, that’s certainly where I’d start. You know, as anonymized metrics, to “help improving Chrome”.
Edit: oh and, I haven’t checked what they mean by that, but potentially, the E2EE is meant in the context of the transit only, meaning the data at rest is not encrypted, on your computer, or on the Google servers.
under “keep your info private”, this is different than encrypted in transit. I mean I guess they could be lying 🤷♂️
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