Technically they need one to force a company to hand over data as well, but in this case they’re not forcing anything. The issue here isn’t the NSA buying the data, it’s Google fucking selling it in the first place. We desperately need better data privacy laws. If Google couldn’t sell the data, and ideally couldn’t collect it in the first place, then the NSA would have nothing to buy and really would need a warrant.
Google doesn’t sell your data. That would eliminate their entire business model.
What Google sells is a platform with access to that data to target ads. They have the data, you have a target audience you want to advertise to, you pay them to make sure your ads reach your target with surgical precision.
Technically they need one to force a company to hand over data as well, but in this case they’re not forcing anything. The issue here isn’t the NSA buying the data, it’s Google fucking selling it in the first place. We desperately need better data privacy laws. If Google couldn’t sell the data, and ideally couldn’t collect it in the first place, then the NSA would have nothing to buy and really would need a warrant.
To be clear, Google/Alphabet is not named in the article; which probably refers rather to military contractor companies such as Palantir.
Google doesn’t sell your data. That would eliminate their entire business model.
What Google sells is a platform with access to that data to target ads. They have the data, you have a target audience you want to advertise to, you pay them to make sure your ads reach your target with surgical precision.