Internet giant Google, which has built an empire by sucking up every detail of users’ personal lives, claims it automatically delete records of users’ visits to abortion clinics in response to growing concerns that the data could be used to prosecute women seeking abortions following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Bloomberg reports that Google has claimed it will automatically delete records of user visits to sensitive locations such as abortion clinics in response to growing concerns that the data could be used to prosecute those seeking to kill their unborn children.
Google said in a post Friday on its website: “Some of the places people visit — including medical facilities like counseling centers, domestic violence shelters, abortion clinics, fertility centers, addiction treatment facilities, weight loss clinics, cosmetic surgery clinics, and others — can be particularly personal. If our systems identify that someone has visited one of these places, we will delete these entries from Location History soon after they visit.”
Google will also be enabling an update for female users of its Fitbit wearable devices who track their periods in the app to delete multiple logs at once. Google is not explicitly referencing the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court, but the update seems to clearly be inspired by the decision.
Google declined to comment, referring back to the blog post, but did want to highlight its policy of fighting government requests that it deems overstep the mark. “We remain committed to protecting our users against improper government demands for data, and we will continue to oppose demands that are overly broad or otherwise legally objectionable,” the company said. Meanwhile, the company relentlessly pushes forward the boundaries of surveillance capitalism, in which the extremely personal user data it sucks up is sold to the highest advertising bidder.
Read more at Bloomberg here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com