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 aren't. They are made from links that appear in Google search results. Google is notifying the person that the link you've saved is being removed. Therefore it will be removed from your collection as well.
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.
I'm getting really sick at the amount of misinformation that gets spread here. There's plenty of stuff to hate Google without making shit up, and resorting to misleading titles.
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).
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.
It's really that simple for much of their products. I really don't understand why people still insist on using chrome, in particular. Google is a horrible company that would literally sell you into slavery if it was legal and they thought it'd boost their ad business somehow.
Part of the problem is that Google has an entire ecosystem that is ridiculously useful and is designed to hook people and keep them around. And once they're hooked it's really hard to move away from, even if it's in their best interest.
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.
Are you fucking shitting me rn? I am sick of how lame this dystopian future is. Where are my neon lights and grungy underground bars? All we get in this timeline are takedown notices, corporate overreach, disappearing content and DMCA strikes.
TBF in your grungy cyberverse the corporatocracy would simply try to kill you or turn you into a vegetable instead of sending you a DMCA violation notice by email.
I think they meant the Kickass Torrents (KAT) link. It was taken down in 2016, but it looks like it's back by the original people that were running it.
Which technically speaking makes sense as those are Google-stored data referencing illegal data. You can't store actual ripped movies in Google drive either. Just no browser has decided to pull the trigger on this policy before since it's so much work to collect this data unless you're an actual web browser company as well. (So I guess this might be coming to Edge in the future)
Good thing I've been using Raindrop.io to manage my bookmarks for years because I used to switch browsers so often. I've settled on Firefox for the most part, but am looking forward to Arc on Windows.
This is kind of amusing actually. Imagine a program that gives you a ton of bookmarks to legally questionable websites, like how that other website (used to?) automatically spam incriminating Google searches into your search history. Then watch the auto-bookmark-moderator suck it all up like a roomba.
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.
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