I know it sounds kinda weird but with Russian hacking and just general internet shit, why haven’t more public figures been outed for their search history? In all the current day scandals I can totally see some celebrity or somebody in office getting outed for being into weird porn but that never really happens. I’m not saying I wish it did I just think its odd that, living in the internet age, there isn’t more of that kind of scandal. Is it that hard to get that kind of data?
In: Technology
There was an actual law passed when Robert Bork had his video rental history leaked by the press trying to subvert his nomination for the Supreme court in 1988. The push against him was so destructive and slanderous that “Borked” became a verb.
Besides probably being illegal (and not profitable), you’d have to hack the companies that maintain the data (Google, Microsoft, major ISPs, etc), and that data would need to be attributable to a specific person.
This data is likely very well protected, and it’s probably not in a form that makes it immediately obvious or easy to determine whose is whose. There are various ways to obscure identities while still delivering targeted content to a specific person, by assigning unique IDs instead of names, and splitting this information across data stores, among other things.
[removed]
I guess it’s because nobody gives a shit.
Also, it would be somewhat hard to prove without doubt that this is [insert public figure name]’s history.
Porn is the biggest industry on the internet. I’m not sure what “outing” someone influential would do. “You like naked men/women? SCANDALOUS!”
Most of these answers seem to be speculation, and truth be told, we don’t really have much to go off of. I will say though, I think it’s similar to the Cold War where both side have info on one another so they just keep it.
>Is it that hard to get that kind of data?
Yes.
Different countries have different laws, but in the European Union, for example, GDPR says data can only be stored for the shortest time possible.
Different jurisdictions within the EU interprets ‘shortest time’ differently, it could be a few weeks or a few months.
In my country, it is illegal for an ISP to store browsing history for more than 3 weeks. And the fines to not comply is staggering; they *start* at 2 million euros. *Per instance.*
What they do in the US, idk. But in Europe, storing data longer than absolutely neccessary for ensuring technical operation of the service + any accounting needs is illegal.
Latest Answers