You ALL be regretting writing, or attempting to write, that book or script about the serial killer.
Prosecutor: “The defendant googled ‘How does a murderer clean up the scene?’ is that not highly suspicious?!”
Sobbing writer: “But it was for my pulp crime novel! And I still can’t get a publishing deal!”
My worst fear has been realised.
I’m not saying this to be a mean stick in the mud, but this isn’t going to affect fiction writers lol. Researching your crime noire novel (or, let’s be honest, fan fiction) isn’t going to get you arrested. The case reported on had this used to create a profile of narrowed down suspects related to a vandalism, without needing a specific warrant. When this gets used further, it will be primarily to profile activists (especially black activists) based on who searched for organizing efforts related to certain protests, or some similar measure against dissent. It’s not going to be used directly against you in court unless a warrant is issued, which has been a factor for years now.
As with most privacy concerns these days, the issue isn’t so much what it will do to any one specific person, but how it empowers law enforcement to enact wider authoritarian controls on populations using such enformation. More invasive methods of monitoring become more widespread and ubiquitous reprisals.
Regardless, you should already be moving away from using google as your primary search engine.
Stop using Google and instead use alternative search engines:
DuckDuckGo
Searx
Quant
Startpage.com
Also
install the TrackMeNot extension, which provides a constant stream of fake input to pollute data to the point of making it unusable.
be extra extra careful when you’re looking for directions. Cops are all over travel planning apps and map apps, looking for people who drove to or looked for a bus to a protest sight. It’s a treasure trove of data and almost every site that provides travel planning shares their data with cops.
