Websites Selling Abortion Pills Are Sharing Sensitive Data With Google

This article was originally published at ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom.


This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1445935

“Online is pubic. Online is forever.” - Mark Twain

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Women who need abortion care should be using DuckDuckGo, along with AdBlock and a tracker block like Ghostery.

If that’s not sufficient privacy, then the Tor browser should be considered.

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States don’t ban abortions. They ban safe abortions.

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I may, or may not, be getting a bit paranoid here, but I could imagine Gov’s Abbott or DiSantis setting up fake online abortion pill sites to entrap their residents. Kooky? Maybe, but things have gotten weird.

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You’re not being paranoid. The definition of paranoid is irrational fear. We’re still waiting for one of them to say, “Whoa! That’s going too far!” so we cannot put some stunt like this past them.

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Especially when the “true believers” state “we will protect unborn babies at any cost!” Even those babies that don’t attach to the uterine lining, but inside the fallopian tube.

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High tech Salem witch trials.

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And those “babies” whose placenta detaches from the uterus, usually in the third trimester. It is the most common reason for the what the stupids call “late term” abortions. Placental abruption can kill the mother, and will likely kill the fetus no matter what.

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The true believers are smug knowing that although they may have never been right about anything, they are 100% dead right about abortion. It’s child’s play to reinforce that belief, which does nothing to resolve the question of personal rights. What it does do is neatly split voters into two opposing groups. Politicians can take advantage of guaranteed single issue votes and so, fruther their true agenda of getting reelected. Participating churches get to fleece their parishioners, but b doing so, forfeit their religion.

I’m beginning to think paranoia is no longer clinically possible.

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This is just part and parcel of the “soft corruption” that pervades so much of America’s daily life - tech, social media the print and visual medias, industry. I’m thinking that I only trust the scientific community anymore, where there still appears to be a sense of integrity and honesty. But that could change quickly with an authoritarian government, for example the CDC under Trump. Given a second term, the perversion of science might have been irreversible. Loss of reproductive freedom is only one aspect of the greater problem.

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Not to mention that when the debate turns to helping single mothers, or kids in foster care they argue that it’s the parent’s job to raise the kids that they have. I’d like them to be confronted with that 10 year old new mother.

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There is always a poor person who can be blamed. We are a blame and punish society.

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One of these days, a Red State abortion dragnet will scoop up a wife/daughter/sister of a Gooper who voted to ban abortion – sorta like what happened on Thursday’s “Law and Order” episode.

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@mattinpa would approve this message

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I’m wondering even if someone buys the drug how can the state prove they actually used it? Is possession a crime? Of course judges are notoriously corrupt and evil, many may not GAF about “proof”. Still…

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As a TPM subscriber I’d prefer to not see ProPublica’s axe grinding here. There are only two falsifiable claims in this article: websites use Google Analytics, and Google Analytics cannot identify individuals. Entire rest of article is oblique innuendo that is consistent with someone at ProPublica having a real grudge against “big tech”.

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DuckDuckGo is a marketing arm of Microsoft. They use Microsoft’s search technology, and are hosted in Microsoft datacenters. DDG’s privacy policy is silent on the extent to which Microsoft has access to your personally identifying information, such as IP addresses.

It is very foolish to believe that using DDG grants anyone a margin of privacy.

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Plus the Lockdown app, VPN, burner phones and prepaid debit cards (unsure of privacy protections with these but it seems better on its face). Hell, we’re past our reproductive years and I use most of these tools.

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OT.

And a correction: Litman calls the NM DA a “republican” but she is a democrat.

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