Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

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Feds Ordered Google To Unmask Certain YouTube Users. Critics Say It’s ‘Terrifying.’ (www.forbes.com)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (8 children)

You know that ?si= at the end of the YouTube URL that is copied when you share a video from within the YouTube app?

That's an individual tracking ID specific to you. So if you've ever shared a YouTube video on lemmy, reddit, Facebook, tiktok, or anywhere else without removing that code one time, anyone at Google with access to the ID system can now link you to that account with your real name, IP address and time accessed, device name, etc.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (6 children)

While I see that x10,000 with google links, I don't recall I've ever seen it for YT videos.

As a google user, what... what am I doing wrong? 😕

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago (5 children)

As a google user, what... what am I doing ~~wrong~~ right?

Using a browser instead of the YouTube app?

Unless you're talking about Google links then yes. Amazon too, along with many other services. There's a ClearURLs Firefox add-on to remove them automatically.

But it's insidious with YouTube because people are much more likely to share YouTube videos on a public forum, and they just randomly started doing it one day.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

@Synnr @JohnnyEnzyme what do you mean by right?

You're using Google, that's about as wrong as it gets in the privacy space.

But OK, let's say your threat model allows for use of Google in specific circumstances. You should set up your account in an isolated browser container in hardened Firefox, and only use it for YouTube. No other browsing in that container. Use a VPN maybe?

Then idk sip some more koolaid and pat yourself on the back.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

User asked why they never see &si= on their links on Android. @Synnr said they may be copying the link from the browser, which suggests they don't even have the YouTube app installed, as it 'never happens to them.'