Google’s fine print may cost your Fourth Amendment rights — Pennsylvania Supreme Court allows authorities to access your search history without a warrant | The court says that accepting Google’s privacy policy waives privacy rights, allowing warrantless access to search.
https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/pennsylvania-supreme-court-google-searches-are-not-private
29 Comments
I hate the companies can basically bury anything they want into a TOS and since in many cases you need to use their account to do day to day things you are forced to accept it.
>As such, the court ruled that the authorities were within their rights to access a potential offender’s search history without a warrant. The court argued that everyone using these services knows they are being watched anyway. According to the court: *“It is common knowledge that websites, internet-based applications, and internet service providers collect, and then sell, user data.”*
People know they sometimes let their friends in their house to use the bathroom, so let’s let the police just go in without a warrant.
>Consequently, the authorities obtained a *“reverse keyword search warrant,”* which allowed them to ask Google to hand over the I.P. address of any user who googled the name or address of the victim leading up to the commission of the crime.
Do people know that you’re going to violate all of the general public’s privacy and not just the suspects? Honestly I am surprised google was so easy to hand the information over without a warrant. I’ve seen Apple to tell the government to kick rocks before. Doesn’t that sort of negate the first argument?
This has been true forever except for a few exceptions. If a third party is involved your 4th amendment rights are waved excerpt for the following:
1) library rental records
2) video rental records.
2 was she a video store going out of business in DC in the 80s. A local newspaper bought the customer data and was going to do an expose on family values senators who rented porn from the store. Congress passed a law in under 48 hrs giving video rentals the same protections as library checkouts.
> The court argued that everyone using these services knows they are being watched anyway.
The fuck kind of argument is this
I’ve pretty much abandoned Google due to this kind of BS. There are alternatives.
well good thing it doesn’t waive our 13th amendment rights too….
It seems that companies are dead set with disrespecting individual’s privacy. Yeah yeah it legal – It shouldn’t be – whatever, the disrespect is there, and its becoming only worse.
I’d be up for challenging that in court.
I always thought this was true. Being online has no expectation of privacy to me unless I’m on a private website with a vpn.
My search history is basically just a wall of pink nipples right now.
this is seriously sketchy.
So Firefox and DuckDuckGo then?
This can now even apply to third party civil suits. Like with OpenAI being forced to give over hundreds of millions of user chats in the NY times case.
Why are all these big companies so disgusting??
—-goes to Google search it.
What happened to a courts ruling about “who expects someone to read fine print”?!
> the court ruled that the authorities were within their rights to access a potential offender’s search history without a warrant. The court argued that everyone using these services knows they are being watched anyway.
first of all, why not just get a warrant? it shouldn’t be that hard to get a warrant in a situation like this just o access search history.
second, knowing that Google has a database of my search history to feed me ads is not the same as knowing that authorities can access that information at any time without a warrant. my Gmail also lies on Google servers. can they also access that without a warrant?
this is just a terrible ruling with at best specious reasoning.
Warning that people have the ability to look through your windows doesn’t give those people the right to peeping tom.
That’s the exact opposite of the concept of a right. And the court has said multiple times, you can’t click your way through removing a right.
>[The Homeowners Association Loophole](https://reason.com/2003/01/27/the-homeowners-association-loo/)
*Reason*. January 27, 2003
>The FBI didn’t need a warrant to search the home of the Almasri family in Florida, who departed “suspiciously” for Saudi Arabia shortly after 9/11. All they needed was to tag along with representatives of the homeowners association, who had the right to enter houses falling under the association agreement for “maintenance, alteration, or repair.” Besides that, the Almasris were late paying their association dues.
>This Miami Herald story has the details, including this contextual tidbit: Such a tool, while apparently never used in the context of a terrorist investigation, is frequently used by police who have suspicions but not enough evidence for a search warrant, said Milton Hirsch, a Miami defense lawyer and author of a legal text on criminal procedure.
>”It happens every day,” Hirsch said. “There is a substantial body of law that allows law enforcement to accompany others who have authority to enter private property — motel operators, college roommates.”
>That’s a loophole big enough for an entire constitutional amendment to get lost in.
In January 2018, [John Cowherd](https://cowherdplc.com/meet-john-c-cowherd/) — an attorney in Virginia specializing in property rights — asked on his Twitter account (which has since been deleted):
>What lawyers & experts are exploring emerging legal issues in “smart homes?” What happens when the “smart home” industry starts teaming with the community association industry?
>I think that the greatest area for privacy law etc. issues will come from smart condominium complexes, where you could have multi-owner information collection by the same people who are dolling out nonjudicial fines, liens, foreclosures for violation of rules, etc..
>The insecurity of IoT plus the dysfunction of HOA governance – add where HOA’s have “right of entry for inspection” – is a perfect storm for massive invasion of privacy in our homes.
Imagine a near future when your doorbell camera, network-connected door locks, and network-connected utility meters do not report to you but to the H.O.A.
Rumplestiltskin wants your first born.
Why do so many people crave stealing our rights?
I am Jack’s complete Jack of surprise
we should all stop using Google, we should have a long time ago
And where is the opt out of agreement with their terms of use?
Where’s the Congressional action to protect the citizenry from Monopolies?
If fine print can take your rights away then they aren’t rights.
This is the kind of shit that you think isn’t important that ends up as the beginning of losing everything you’ve cared about. You think it doesn’t effect you right now, but is part of the path that you realise people are stealing and using your data in a way you don’t like. It might be now, a few months, a few years or even decades. But ultimately this is the start of the path.
No doubt ‘Google’ thinks they aren’t harming users, but in their pursuit of money they will end up destroying privacy as we know it. We’ll all look back and think, ‘Wow, we had it so good’. Now is ultimately the time we say NO. Whether you think you have something to hide or not doesn’t matter. They will eventually intrude on you’re rights as a being and this could very well be the moment you wish you’d contributed to you’re right to privacy or safety online.
That’s not how rights work.
The Google TOS does not supercede the constitution
you cant waive amendment rights… this ia just a slime corporation abusing the court system and shitty judges siding with money. no personal with a shred of moral integrity would rule otherwise.
Ok. Sounds like Google is speed running reasons to disconnect from their services. What a damn shame.
Guess it’s Brave browser, VPNs and DuckDuckGo from here out.