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The court orders show the government telling Google to provide the names, addresses, telephone numbers and user activity for all Google account users who accessed the YouTube videos between January 1 and January 8, 2023. The government also wanted the IP addresses of non-Google account owners who viewed the videos.

“This is the latest chapter in a disturbing trend where we see government agencies increasingly transforming search warrants into digital dragnets. It’s unconstitutional, it’s terrifying and it’s happening every day,” said Albert Fox-Cahn, executive director at the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project. “No one should fear a knock at the door from police simply because of what the YouTube algorithm serves up. I’m horrified that the courts are allowing this.” He said the orders were “just as chilling” as geofence warrants, where Google has been ordered to provide data on all users in the vicinity of a crime.

  • mrmanager@lemmy.today
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    8 months ago

    Just another reason to not have a YouTube account. If you use Newpipe, you can subscribe to feeds anyway without any YouTube account.

    • devfuuu@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Until youtube pulls a twitter move where eventually everything will only be available under a login. Wait and see.

    • AtmaJnana@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Isnt NewPipe still making calls to YouTube from your IP? I think you’d need to also configure it to use an Invidious or Piped instance.

    • Pantherina@feddit.de
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      8 months ago

      And a reason for platforms to implement zero trust models. I mean they need to hand out data to 3rd parties, they dont benefit from that?

      SimpleX for the Win.