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Category Archives: Global Domination

After Snowden and now Trump, Europe  Finally begins to worry about US-controlled clouds

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In a recent blog post titled “It is no longer safe to move our governments and societies to US clouds,” Bert Hubert, an entrepreneur, software developer, and part-time technical advisor to the Dutch Electoral Council, articulated such concerns.

“We now have the bizarre situation that anyone with any sense can see that America is no longer a reliable partner, and that the entire large-scale US business world bows to Trump’s dictatorial will, but we STILL are doing everything we can to transfer entire governments and most of our own businesses to their clouds,” wrote Hubert.

Hubert didn’t offer data to support that statement, but European Commission stats shows that close to half of European enterprises rely on cloud services, a market led by Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, Salesforce, and IBM – all US-based companies.

While concern about cloud data sovereignty became fashionable back in 2013 when former NSA contractor Edward Snowden disclosed secrets revealing the scope of US signals intelligence gathering and fled to Russia, data privacy worries have taken on new urgency in light of the Trump administration’s sudden policy shifts.

In the tech sphere those moves include removing members of the US Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board that safeguards data under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, alleged flouting of federal data rules to advance policy goals. Europeans therefore have good reason to wonder how much they can trust data privacy assurances from US cloud providers amid their shows of obsequious deference to the new regime.

And there’s also a practical impetus for the unrest: organizations that use Microsoft Office 2016 and 2019 have to decide whether they want to move to Microsoft’s cloud come October 14, 2025, when support officially ends. Microsoft is encouraging customers to move to Microsoft 365 which is tied to the cloud. But that looks riskier now than it did under less contentious transatlantic relations.

The Register spoke with Hubert about his concerns and the situation in which Europe now finds itself.

[…]

Source: Europe begins to worry about US-controlled clouds • The Register

It was truly unbelievable that EU was using US cloud in the first place for many reasons ranging from technical to cost to privacy but they just keep blundering on.

Ron Wyden asks for rules about knowing whether you own your digital purchases

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Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) has sent a letter to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) chair Andrew Ferguson urging the FTC to require that companies admit when you’re not really buying an ebook or video game.

Wyden’s letter, shared with The Verge, requests guidance to “ensure that consumers who purchase or license digital goods can make informed decisions and understand what ownership rights they are obtaining.”

Wyden wants the guidance to include how long a license lasts, what circumstances might expire or revoke the license, and if a consumer can transfer or resell the license. The letter also calls for the information “before and at the point of sale” in a way that’s easily understandable. “To put it simply, prior to agreeing to any transaction, consumers should understand what they are paying for and what is guaranteed after the sale,” Wyden says.

[…]

Source: Ron Wyden asks for rules about whether you own your digital purchases | The Verge

You Should Download Your Kindle E-Books Now, Before It’s Too Late

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This week, Amazon is eliminating the “Download & Transfer via USB” option for Kindle users. If you own a vast library and hope to take your reading elsewhere, this may be your last opportunity.

Amazon has stated in a note on users’ library management page that, starting Wednesday, Feb. 26, it was eliminating “Download & Transfer via USB. All Kindle e-book owners will be restricted to downloading Kindle books via WiFi. The former option was one of the last loopholes readers could use to take their proprietary Kindle format e-books off Amazon’s closed ecosystem. This deposited files in the AZW3 format, and there are more tricks for disabling DRM with those files than with the more modern KFX format. The USB download option also backed up Kindle books in case something happened to your device or your Amazon account.

There are a growing number of non-Amazon e-book brands, like Bookshop.org, but the issue is Amazon uses its market dominance to source exclusive deals, both in audiobooks and e-books. Considering that, we suggest you do your best to download your current library before it’s too late. If you want to send your e-book library to your computer, go to Amazon first, then click Accounts & Lists. Scroll to Content Library, then click on Books. Click on the “More actions” option for the book you want to download, then select the Download & transfer via USB button.

When they’re downloaded to your PC, you may be able to convert them to other viable reading formats. “Download & Transfer via USB” is a known hack in the Kindle community, used to remove the DRM locks on some older e-book formats. So, if you want to lend your friend an e-book like you would any paperback, this was one of the few ways to do so without dealing with Amazon’s arcane subscription infrastructure.

[…]

As the Kindle terms of service make it clear, owning any Kindle content means you own a “license” for that e-book, not the e-book itself. You only have a right to view the content “solely through Kindle software” and only on “supported devices specified in the Kindle store.” Some open-source apps like Calibre can read most e-book formats, and if you download your books now, you can use them to read your Kindle library without Amazon’s blessing.

That’s why we suggest you also check Libby, a library app that connects with local libraries and allows you to get in line to download and read e-books for a set period (and yes, this does support your local library). Don’t forget to check out Project Gutenberg if you’re trying to find a classic title in EPUB format. If all you want is DRM-free literature, try e-Books.com.

Source: You Should Download Your Kindle E-Books Now, Before It’s Too Late

Under: You don’t own what you buy.

Google pulls plug on Ad blockers such as uBlock Origin by killing Manifest v2

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Google’s purge of Manifest v2-based extensions from its Chrome browser is underway, as many users over the past few days may have noticed.

Popular content-blocking add-on (v2-based) uBlock Origin is now automatically disabled for many in the ubiquitous browser as it continues the V3 rollout.

[…]

According to the company, Google’s decision to shift to V3 is all in the name of improving its browser’s security, privacy, and performance. However, the transition to the new specification also means that some extensions will struggle due to limitations in the new API.

In September 2024, the team behind uBlock Origin noted that one of the most significant changes was around the webRequest API, used to intercept and modify network requests. Extensions such as uBlock Origin extensively use the API to block unwanted content before it loads.

[…]

Ad-blockers and privacy tools are the worst hit by the changes, and affected users – because let’s face it, most Chrome users won’t be using an ad-blocker – can switch to an alternative browser for something like the original experience, or they can switch to a different extension which is unlikely to have the same capabilities.

In its post, uBlock recommends a move to Firefox and use of the extension uBlock Origin, a switch to a browser that will support Manifest v2

[…]

Source: Google continues pulling the plug on Manifest v2 • The Register

Gravy Analytics sued for data breach containing location data of millions of smartphones

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Gravy Analytics has been sued yet again for allegedly failing to safeguard its vast stores of personal data, which are now feared stolen. And by personal data we mean information including the locations of tens of millions of smartphones, coordinates of which were ultimately harvested from installed apps.

A complaint [PDF], filed in federal court in northern California yesterday, is at least the fourth such lawsuit against Gravy since January, when an unidentified criminal posted screenshots to XSS, a Russian cybercrime forum, to support claims that 17 TB of records had been pilfered from the American analytics outfit’s AWS S3 storage buckets.

The suit this week alleges that massive archive contains the geo-locations of people’s phones.

Gravy Analytics subsequently confirmed it suffered some kind of data security breach, which was discovered on January 4, 2025, in a non-compliance report [PDF] filed with the Norwegian Data Protection Authority and obtained by Norwegian broadcaster NRK.

Three earlier lawsuits – filed in New Jersey on January 14 and 30, and in Virginia on January 31 in the US – make similar allegations.

Gravy Analytics and its subsidiary Venntel were banned from selling sensitive location data by the FTC in December 2024, under a proposed order [PDF] to resolve the agency’s complaint against the companies that was finalized on January 15, 2025.

The FTC complaint alleged the firms “used geofencing, which creates a virtual geographical boundary, to identify and sell lists of consumers who attended certain events related to medical conditions and places of worship and sold additional lists that associate individual consumers to other sensitive characteristics.”

[…]

Source: Gravy Analytics soaks up another sueball over data breach • The Register

U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted Data in Secret Order – guess they didn’t learn from the Chinese hack of the US telco system then

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Security officials in the United Kingdom have demanded that Apple create a back door allowing them to retrieve all the content any Apple user worldwide has uploaded to the cloud, people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post.
The British government’s undisclosed order, issued last month, requires blanket capability to view fully encrypted material, not merely assistance in cracking a specific account, and has no known precedent in major democracies.
[…]
Rather than break the security promises it made to its users everywhere, Apple is likely to stop offering encrypted storage in the U.K., the people said. Yet that concession would not fulfill the U.K. demand for backdoor access to the service in other countries, including the United States.
The office of the Home Secretary has served Apple with a document called a technical capability notice, ordering it to provide access under the sweeping U.K. Investigatory Powers Act of 2016, which authorizes law enforcement to compel assistance from companies when needed to collect evidence, the people said.
The law, known by critics as the Snoopers’ Charter, makes it a criminal offense to reveal that the government has even made such a demand. An Apple spokesman declined to comment.
Apple can appeal the U.K. capability notice to a secret technical panel, which would consider arguments about the expense of the requirement, and to a judge who would weigh whether the request was in proportion to the government’s needs. But the law does not permit Apple to delay complying during an appeal.
In March, when the company was on notice that such a requirement might be coming, it told Parliament: “There is no reason why the U.K. [government] should have the authority to decide for citizens of the world whether they can avail themselves of the proven security benefits that flow from end-to-end encryption.”
The Home Office said Thursday that its policy was not to discuss any technical demands. “We do not comment on operational matters, including for example confirming or denying the existence of any such notices,” a spokesman said.
[…]
At issue is cloud storage that only the user, not Apple, can unlock. Apple started rolling out the option, which it calls Advanced Data Protection, in 2022. It had sought to offer it several years earlier but backed off after objections from the FBI during the first term of President Donald Trump, who pilloried the company for not aiding in the arrest of “killers, drug dealers and other violent criminal elements.” The service is an available security option for Apple users in the United States and elsewhere.
While most iPhone and Mac computer users do not go through the steps to enable it, the service offers enhanced protection from hacking and shuts down a routine method law enforcement uses to access photos, messages and other material. iCloud storage and backups are favored targets for U.S. search warrants, which can be served on Apple without the user knowing.
[…]
Google would be a bigger target for U.K. officials, because it has made the backups for Android phones encrypted by default since 2018. Google spokesman Ed Fernandez declined to say whether any government had sought a back door, but implied none have been implemented. “Google can’t access Android end-to-end encrypted backup data, even with a legal order,” he said.
Meta also offers encrypted backups for WhatsApp. A spokesperson declined to comment on government requests but pointed to a transparency statement on its website saying that no back doors or weakened architecture would be implemented.
If the U.K. secures access to the encrypted data, other countries that have allowed the encrypted storage, such as China, might be prompted to demand equal backdoor access, potentially prompting Apple to withdraw the service rather than comply.
[…]

Source: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts – The Washington Post

See also: Phone Metadata Suddenly Not So ‘Harmless’ When It’s The FBI’s Data Being Harvested

and In massive U-turn, FBI Warns Americans to Start Using Encrypted Messaging Apps, after discovering the problem with backdoors

Unions Sue to Block Elon Musk’s Access to Americans’ Tax and Benefits Records

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A coalition of labor organizations representing federal workers and retirees has sued the Department of the Treasury to block it from giving the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, controlled by Elon Musk, access to the federal government’s sensitive payment systems.

After forcing out a security official who opposed the move, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent granted DOGE workers access to the system last week, according to The New York Times. Despite its name, DOGE is not a government department but rather an ad-hoc group formed by President Trump purportedly tasked with cutting government spending.

The labor organizations behind the lawsuit filed Monday argue that Bessent broke federal privacy and tax confidentiality laws by giving unauthorized DOGE workers, including people like Musk who are not government employees, the ability to view the private information of anyone who pays taxes or receives money from federal agencies.

With access to the Treasury systems, DOGE representatives can potentially view the names, social security numbers, birth dates, mailing addresses, email addresses, and bank information of tens of millions of people who receive tax refunds, social security and disability payments, veterans benefits, or salaries from the federal government, according to the lawsuit.

“The scale of the intrusion into individuals’ privacy is massive and unprecedented,” according to the complaint filed by the Alliance for Retired Americans, the American Federation of Government Employees, and the Service Employees International Union.

[…]

In their lawsuit, the labor organizations argue that federal law prohibits the disclosure of taxpayer information to anyone except Treasury employees who require it for their official duties unless the disclosure is authorized by a specific law, which DOGE’s access to the system is not. DOGE’s access also violates the Privacy Act of 1974, which prohibits disclosure of personal information to unauthorized people and lays out strict procedures for changing those authorizations, which the Trump administration has not followed, according to the suit.

The plaintiffs have asked the Washington, D.C. district court to grant an injunction preventing unauthorized people from accessing the payment systems and to rule the Treasury’s actions unlawful.

Source: Unions Sue to Block Elon Musk’s Access to Americans’ Tax and Benefits Records

AI-assisted works can get finally copyright with enough human creativity, says US copyright office

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Artists can copyright works they made with the help of artificial intelligence, according to a new report by the U.S. Copyright Office that could further clear the way for the use of AI tools in Hollywood, the music industry and other creative fields.

The nation’s copyright office, which sits in the Library of Congress and is not part of the executive branch, receives about half a million copyright applications per year covering millions of individual works. It has increasingly been asked to register works that are AI-generated.

And while many of those decisions are made on a case-by-case basis, the report issued Wednesday clarifies the office’s approach as one based on what the top U.S. copyright official describes as the “centrality of human creativity” in authoring a work that warrants copyright protections.

“Where that creativity is expressed through the use of AI systems, it continues to enjoy protection,” said a statement from Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter, who directs the office.

An AI-assisted work could be copyrightable if an artist’s handiwork is perceptible. A human adapting an AI-generated output with “creative arrangements or modifications” could also make it fall under copyright protections.

[…]

Source: AI-assisted works can get copyright with enough human creativity, says US copyright office | AP News

Astronomers Call for Global Ban on Space Advertising Before It’s Too Late

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In a statement adopted in October 2024, the American Astronomical Society declared that humankind’s scientific understanding of the universe is under threat from space activities, including the proliferation of satellite constellations, space debris, and radio- and electromagnetic interference. Of note is the potential for a space-based eyesore: giant billboards hanging out in low Earth orbit.

“It is the position of the American Astronomical Society that obtrusive space advertising should be prohibited by appropriate international convention, treaty, or law,” the statement read.

Congress already prohibits domestic launches of any “payload containing any material to be used for the purposes of obtrusive space advertising,” in which obtrusive space advertising is defined as “advertising in outer space that is capable of being recognized by a human being on the surface of the Earth without the aid of a telescope or other technological device.”

“The US federal ban on obtrusive space advertising is a critical bulwark against an insidious fouling of the natural sky by private interests,” said James Lowenthal, an astronomer at Smith College and member of the AAS’ Committee for the Protection of Astronomy and the Space Environment (COMPASSE), in an email to Gizmodo. “That ban recognizes that the sky belongs to everyone, and must be protected for all humans now and in the future.”

“But the ban applies only to US launches; other countries could approve launches of ‘space billboards’ from their soil that would be visible from around the world,” Lowenthal added. “That’s why an international ban is critical.”

[…]

Source: Astronomers Call for Global Ban on Space Advertising Before It’s Too Late

Phone Metadata Suddenly Not So ‘Harmless’ When It’s The FBI’s Data Being Harvested

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[…] While trying to fend off attacks on Section 215 collections (most of which are governed [in the loosest sense of the word] by the Third Party Doctrine), the NSA and its domestic-facing remora, the FBI, insisted collecting and storing massive amounts of phone metadata was no more a constitutional violation than it was a privacy violation.

Suddenly — thanks to the ongoing, massive compromising of major US telecom firms by Chinese state-sanctioned hackers — the FBI is getting hot and bothered about the bulk collection of its own phone metadata by (gasp!) a government agency. (h/t Kevin Collier on Bluesky)

FBI leaders have warned that they believe hackers who broke into AT&T Inc.’s system last year stole months of their agents’ call and text logs, setting off a race within the bureau to protect the identities of confidential informants, a document reviewed by Bloomberg News shows.

[…]

The data was believed to include agents’ mobile phone numbers and the numbers with which they called and texted, the document shows. Records for calls and texts that weren’t on the AT&T network, such as through encrypted messaging apps, weren’t part of the stolen data.

The agency (quite correctly!) believes the metadata could be used to identify agents, as well as their contacts and confidential sources. Of course it can.

[…]

The issue, of course, is that the Intelligence Community consistently downplayed this exact aspect of the bulk collection, claiming it was no more intrusive than scanning every piece of domestic mail (!) or harvesting millions of credit card records just because the Fourth Amendment (as interpreted by the Supreme Court) doesn’t say the government can’t.

There are real risks to real people who are affected by hacks like these. The same thing applies when the US government does it. It’s not just a bunch of data that’s mostly useless. Harvesting metadata in bulk allows the US government to do the same thing Chinese hackers are doing with it: identifying individuals, sussing out their personal networks, and building from that to turn numbers into adversarial actions — whether it’s the arrest of suspected terrorists or the further compromising of US government agents by hostile foreign forces.

The takeaway isn’t the inherent irony. It’s that the FBI and NSA spent years pretending the fears expressed by activists and legislators were overblown. Officials repeatedly claimed the information was of almost zero utility, despite mounting several efforts to protect this collection from being shut down by the federal government. In the end, the phone metadata program (at least as it applies to landlines) was terminated. But there’s more than a hint of egregious hypocrisy in the FBI’s sudden concern about how much can be revealed by “just” metadata.

Source: Phone Metadata Suddenly Not So ‘Harmless’ When It’s The FBI’s Data Being Harvested | Techdirt

Inheritance, “cronyism and corruption” or monopoly power grows billionaire wealth in 2024 in second-largest annual increase since records began

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The wealth of the world’s billionaires grew by $2tn (£1.64tn) last year, three times faster than in 2023, amounting to $5.7bn (£4.7bn) a day, according to a report by Oxfam.

The latest inequality report from the charity reveals that the world is now on track to have five trillionaires within a decade, a change from last year’s forecast of one trillionaire within 10 years.

[…]

At the same time, the number of people living under the World Bank poverty line of $6.85 a day has barely changed since 1990, and is close to 3.6 billion – equivalent to 44% of the world’s population today, the charity said. One in 10 women lives in extreme poverty (below $2.15 a day), which means 24.3 million more women than men endure extreme poverty.

Oxfam warned that progress on reducing poverty has ground to a halt and that extreme poverty could be ended three times faster if inequality were to be reduced.

[…]

Rising share values on global stock exchanges account for most of the increase in billionaire wealth, though higher property values also played a role. Residential property accounts for about 80% of worldwide investments.

Globally, the number of billionaires rose by 204 last year to 2,769. Their combined wealth jumped from $13tn to $15tn in just 12 months – the second-largest annual increase since records began. The wealth of the world’s 10 richest men grew on average by almost $100m a day and even if they lost 99% of their wealth overnight, they would remain billionaires.

[…]

The report argues that most of the wealth is taken, not earned, as 60% comes from either inheritance, “cronyism and corruption” or monopoly power. It calculates that 18% of the wealth arises from monopoly power.

[…]

Anna Marriott, Oxfam’s inequality policy lead, said: “Last year we predicted the first trillionaire could emerge within a decade, but this shocking acceleration of wealth means that the world is now on course for at least five. The global economic system is broken, wholly unfit for purpose as it enables and perpetuates this explosion of riches, while nearly half of humanity continues to live in poverty.”

She called on the UK government to prioritise economic policies that bring down inequality, including higher taxation of the super-rich.

[…]

Source: Wealth of world’s billionaires grew by $2tn in 2024, report finds | The super-rich | The Guardian

As Zuckerberg Goes Around Whining About Biden, He Made Sure To First Get His New Approach Approved By Trump

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Remember how Zuckerberg was “done with politics”? Remember how he promised that he was going to stop doing what politicians demanded he do?

Now it turns out that he not only did his big set of moderation changes to please Trump, but did so only after he was told by the incoming administration to act. Even worse, he reportedly made sure to share his plans with top Trump aides to get their approval first.

That’s a key takeaway from a new New York Times piece that is ostensibly a profile of the relentlessly awful Stephen Miller. However, it also has a few revealing details about the whole Zuckerberg saga buried within. First, Miller reportedly demanded that Zuckerberg make changes at Facebook “on Trump’s terms.”

Mr. Miller told Mr. Zuckerberg that he had an opportunity to help reform America, but it would be on President-elect Donald J. Trump’s terms. He made clear that Mr. Trump would crack down on immigration and go to war against the diversity, equity and inclusion, or D.E.I., culture that had been embraced by Meta and much of corporate America in recent years.

Mr. Zuckerberg was amenable. He signaled to Mr. Miller and his colleagues, including other senior Trump advisers, that he would do nothing to obstruct the Trump agenda, according to three people with knowledge of the meeting, who asked for anonymity to discuss a private conversation. Mr. Zuckerberg said he would instead focus solely on building tech products.

Even if you argue that this was more about DEI programs at Meta rather than about content moderation, it’s still the incoming administration reportedly making actual demands of Zuckerberg, and Zuckerberg not just saying “fine” but actually previewing the details to Miller to make sure they got Trump’s blessing.

Earlier this month, Mr. Zuckerberg’s political lieutenants previewed the changes to Mr. Miller in a private briefing. And on Jan. 10, Mr. Zuckerberg made them official….

This is especially galling given that it was just days ago when Zuckerberg was whining about how unfair it was that Biden officials were demanding stuff from him (even though he had no trouble saying no to them) and it was big news! The headlines made a huge deal of how unfair Biden was to Zuckerberg. Here’s just a sampling.

Image

Notably absent from this breathless coverage was any mention that Trump was the one who actually threatened to imprison Zuckerberg for life. Or that his incoming FCC chair threatened to remove Section 230 if Meta didn’t stop fact-checking.

Also conveniently omitted was the fact that the Supreme Court found no evidence of the Biden administration going over the line in its conversations with Meta. Indeed, a Supreme Court Justice noted that conversations like those that the Biden admin had with Meta happened “thousands of times a day,” and weren’t problematic because there was no inherent threat or direct coordination.

Yet, here, we have reports of both threats and now evidence of direct coordination, including Zuckerberg asking for and getting direct approval from a top Trump official before rolling out the policy.

And where is this bombshell revelation? It’s buried in a random profile piece puffing up Stephen Miller.

It’s almost as if everyone now takes it for granted that any made-up story about Biden will be treated as fact, and everyone just takes it as expected when Trump actually does the thing that Biden gets falsely accused of.

With this new story, don’t hold your breath waiting for the same outlets to give this anywhere near the same level of coverage and outrage they directed at the Biden administration.

It’s almost as if there’s a massive double standard here: everything is okay if Trump does it, but we can blame the Biden admin for things we only pretend they did.

[…]

Source: As Zuckerberg Goes Around Whining About Biden, He Made Sure To First Get His New Approach Approved By Trump | Techdirt

The US press walks in lockstep with the Trump Fascist movement.

NY Post: Fact Checking Is Now Censorship

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This was inevitable, ever since Donald Trump and the MAGA world freaked out when social media’s attempts to fact-check the President were deemed “censorship.” The reaction was both swift and entirely predictable. After all, how dare anyone question Dear Leader’s proclamations, even if they are demonstrably false? It wasn’t long before we started to see opinion pieces from MAGA folks breathlessly declaring that “fact-checking private speech is outrageous.” There were even politicians proposing laws to ban fact-checking.

In their view, the best way to protect free speech is apparently (?!?) to outlaw speech you don’t like.

This trend has only accelerated in recent years. Last year, Congress got in on the game, arguing that fact-checking is a form of censorship that needs to be investigated. Not to be outdone, incoming FCC chair Brendan Carr has made the same argument.

With last week’s announcement by Mark Zuckerberg that Meta was ending its fact-checking program, the anti-fact-checking rhetoric hasn’t slowed down one bit.

The NY Post now has an article with the hilarious headline: “The incredible, blind arrogance of the ‘fact-checking’ censors.”

So let’s be clear here: fact-checking is speech. Fact-checking is not censorship. It is protected by the First Amendment. Indeed, in olden times, when free speech supporters would talk about the “marketplace of ideas” and the “best response to bad speech is more speech,” they meant things like fact-checking. They meant that if someone were blathering on about utter nonsense, then a regime that enabled more speech could come along and fact-check folks.

There is no “censorship” involved in fact-checking. There is only a question of how others respond to the fact checks.

[…]

There’s a really fun game that the Post Editorial Board is playing here, pretending that they’re just fine with fact-checking, unless it leads to “silencing.”

The real issue, that is, isn’t the checking, it’s the silencing.

But what “silencing” ever actually happened due to fact-checking? And when was it caused by the government (which would be necessary for it to violate the First Amendment)? The answer is none.

The piece whines about a few NY Post articles that had limited reach on Facebook, but that’s Facebook’s own free speech as well, not censorship.

[…]

The Post goes on with this fun set of words:

Yes, the internet is packed with lies, misrepresentations and half-truths: So is all human conversation.

The only practical answer to false speech is and always been true speech; it doesn’t stop the liars or protect all the suckers, but most people figure it out well enough.

Shutting down debate in the name of “countering disinformation” only serves the liars with power or prestige or at least the right connections.

First off, the standard saying is that the response to false speech should be “more speech” not necessarily “true speech” but more to the point, uh, how do you get that “true speech”? Isn’t it… fact checking? And, if, as the NY Post suggests, the problem here is false speech in the fact checks, then shouldn’t the response be more speech in response rather than silencing the fact checkers?

I mean, their own argument isn’t even internally consistent.

They’re literally saying that we need more “truthful speech” and less “silencing of speech” while cheering on the silencing of organizations who try to provide more truthful speech.

[…]

Source: NY Post: Fact Checking Is Now Censorship | Techdirt

Hello Fascism in the 4th Reich!

Why Has Zuckerberg stopped Meta Fact Checking? Trump lifetime prison threats and FCC section 230 removal threats?

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If you only remember two things about the government pressure campaign to influence Mark Zuckerberg’s content moderation decisions, make it these: Donald Trump directly threatened to throw Zuck in prison for the rest of his life, and just a couple months ago FCC Commissioner (soon to be FCC chair) Brendan Carr threatened Meta that if it kept on fact-checking stories in a way Carr didn’t like, he would try to remove Meta’s Section 230 protections in response.

Two months later — what do you know? — Zuckerberg ended all fact-checking on Meta. But when he went on Joe Rogan, rather than blaming those actual obvious threats, he instead blamed the Biden administration, because some admin officials sent angry emails… which Zuck repeatedly admits had zero impact on Meta’s actual policies.

[…]

this is a more simplified version of what happened, which can be summarized as: the actual threats came from the GOP, to which Zuckerberg quickly caved. The supposed threats from the Biden admin were overhyped, exaggerated, and misrepresented, and Zuck directly admits he was able to easily refuse those requests.

All the rest is noise.

[Here follows a long detailed unpacking of the Rogan interview]

as mentioned in my opening, Donald Trump directly threatened to throw Zuck in prison for the rest of his life if Facebook didn’t moderate the way he wanted. And just a couple months ago, FCC Commissioner (soon to be FCC chair) Brendan Carr threatened Meta that if it kept on fact-checking stories in a way Carr didn’t like, he would try to remove Meta’s Section 230 protections in response.

None of that came up in this discussion. The only “government pressure” that Zuck talks about is from the Biden admin with “cursing,” which he readily admits they weren’t intimidated by.

So we have Biden officials who were, perhaps, mean, but not so threatening that Meta felt the need to bow down to them. And then we have Trump himself and leading members of his incoming administration who sent direct and obvious threats, which Zuck almost immediately bowed down to and caved.

And yet Rogan (and much of the media covering this podcast) claims he “revealed” how the Biden admin violated the First Amendment. Hell, the NY Post even ran an editorial pretending that Zuck didn’t go far enough because he didn’t reveal all of this in time for the Murthy case. And that’s only because the author doesn’t realize he literally is talking about the documents in the Murthy case.

The real story here is that Zuckerberg caved to Trump’s threats and felt fine pushing back on the Biden admin. Rogan at one point rants about how Trump will now protect Zuck because Trump “uniquely has felt the impact of not being able to have free speech.” That seems particularly ironic given the real story: Zuckerberg caved to Trump’s threats while pushing back on the Biden admin.

[…]

Strip away all the spin and misdirection, and the truth is inescapable: Zuckerberg folded like a cheap suit in the face of direct threats from Trump and his lackeys, while barely batting an eye at some sternly worded emails from Biden officials.

[…]

Source: Rogan Misses The Mark: How Zuck’s Misdirection On Gov’t Pressure Goes Unchallenged | Techdirt

Google won’t add fact-checks despite new EU law

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Google has told the EU it will not add fact checks to search results and YouTube videos or use them in ranking or removing content, despite the requirements of a new EU law, according to a copy of a letter obtained by Axios.

The big picture: Google has never included fact-checking as part of its content moderation practices. The company had signaled privately to EU lawmakers that it didn’t plan to change its practices, but it’s reaffirming its stance ahead of a voluntary code becoming law in the near future.

Zoom in: In a letter written to Renate Nikolay, the deputy director general under the content and technology arm at the European Commission, Google’s global affairs president Kent Walker said the fact-checking integration required by the Commission’s new Disinformation Code of Practice “simply isn’t appropriate or effective for our services” and said Google won’t commit to it.

  • The code would require Google to incorporate fact-check results alongside Google’s search results and YouTube videos. It would also force Google to build fact-checking into its ranking systems and algorithms.
  • Walker said Google’s current approach to content moderation works and pointed to successful content moderation during last year’s “unprecedented cycle of global elections” as proof.
  • He said a new feature added to YouTube last year that enables some users to add contextual notes to videos “has significant potential.” (That program is similar to X’s Community Notes feature, as well as new program announced by Meta last week.)

Catch up quick: The EU’s Code of Practice on Disinformation, introduced in 2022, includes several voluntary commitments that tech firms and private companies, including fact-checking organizations, are expected to deliver on.

  • The Code, originally created in 2018, predates the EU’s new content moderation law, the Digital Services Act (DSA), which went into effect in 2022.

State of play: The Commission has held private discussions over the past year with tech companies, urging them to convert the voluntary measures into an official code of conduct under the DSA.

  • Walker said in his letter Thursday that Google had already told the Commission that it didn’t plan to comply.
  • Google will “pull out of all fact-checking commitments in the Code before it becomes a DSA Code of Conduct,” he wrote.
  • He said Google will continue to invest in improvements to its current content moderation practices, which focus on providing people with more information about their search results through features like Synth ID watermarking and AI disclosures on YouTube.

Zoom out: The news comes amid a global reckoning about the role tech platforms should play in fact-checking and policing speech.

Source: Google won’t add fact-checks despite new EU law

You don’t need to make up like a clown to defeat AI face detection

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In a pre-print paper titled “Novel AI Camera Camouflage: Face Cloaking Without Full Disguise,” David Noever, chief scientist, and Forrest McKee, data scientist, describe their efforts to baffle face recognition systems through the minimal application of makeup and manipulation of image files.

Noever and McKee recount various defenses that have been proposed against facial recognition systems, including CV Dazzle, which creates asymmetries using high-contrast makeup, adversarial attack graphics that confuse algorithms, and Juggalo makeup, which can be used to obscure jaw and cheek detection.

And of course, there are masks, which have the advantage of simplicity and tend to be reasonably effective regardless of the facial recognition algorithm being used.

But as the authors observe, these techniques draw attention.

“While previous efforts, such as CV Dazzle, adversarial patches, and Juggalo makeup, relied on bold, high-contrast modifications to disrupt facial detection, these approaches often suffer from two critical limitations: their theatrical prominence makes them easily recognizable to human observers, and they fail to address modern face detectors trained on robust key-point models,” they write.

“In contrast, this study demonstrates that effective disruption of facial recognition can be achieved through subtle darkening of high-density key-point regions (e.g., brow lines, nose bridge, and jaw contours) without triggering the visibility issues inherent to overt disguises.”

Image from arXiv:2412.13507 depicting man's face with Darth Maul-style makeup

Image from the pre-print depicting man’s face with Darth Maul-style makeup … Click to enlarge

The research focuses on two areas: applying minimal makeup to fool Haar cascade classifiers – used for object detection in machine learning, and hiding faces in image files by manipulating the alpha transparency layer in a way that keeps faces visible to human observers but conceals them from specific reverse image search systems like BetaFaceAPI and Microsoft Bing Visual Search.

[…]

“Despite a lot of research, masks remain one of the few surefire ways of evading these systems [for now],” she said. “However, gait recognition is becoming quite powerful, and it’s also unclear if this will supplant face recognition. It is harder to imagine practical and effective evasion strategies against this technology.”

Source: Subtle makeup tweaks can outsmart facial recognition • The Register

Meta says it isn’t ending fact-checks outside the US yet

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Social media platform Meta has confirmed that its fact-checking feature on Facebook, Instagram and Threads will only be removed in the US for now, according to a Jan. 13 letter sent to Brazil’s government.

“Meta has already clarified that, at this time, it is terminating its independent Fact-Checking Program only in the United States, where we will test and refine the community notes [feature] before expanding to other countries,” Meta told Brazil’s Attorney General of the Union (AGU) in a Portuguese-translated letter.

Meta’s letter followed a 72-hour deadline Brazil’s AGU set for Meta to clarify to whom the removal of the third-party fact verification feature would apply.

It comes after Meta announced on Jan. 7 that it would remove the feature to ensure more “freedom of expression” on its platforms — as part of a broader effort to comply with corporate human rights policies.

Meta’s fact-checking program will be replaced with a community notes feature — similar to the one on Elon Musk’s X — in the US to strike a better balance between freedom of expression and security, Mark Zuckerberg’s company explained to Brazil’s AGU.

It acknowledged that abusive forms of freedom of expression might ensue and cause harm and already has automated systems in place that will identify and handle high-severity violations on its platforms — from terrorism and child sexual exploitation to fraud, scams and drug matters.

Source: Mike Benz

However, Brazil has expressed dissatisfaction with Meta’s removal of its fact check feature, Brazil Attorney-General Jorge Messias said on Jan. 10.

“Brazil has rigorous legislation to protect children and adolescents, vulnerable populations, and the business environment, and we will not allow these networks to transform the environment into digital carnage or barbarity.”

Related: Death of Meta’s stablecoin project was ‘100% a political kill’ — Ex Diem boss

It comes as Meta’s Zuckerberg said he would work with the incoming Trump administration to push back against foreign governments going after US companies to censor more.

Zuckerberg is expected to attend Republican Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.

Source: Meta says it isn’t ending fact-checks outside the US yet

Does anyone actually believe the shit Zuckerberg is pushing? It’s a great way to save money. Lots of money. And kowtow to the incoming Oligarch in chief.

Venezuela’s Internet Censorship Sparks Surge in VPN Demand

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What’s Important to Know:

  • Venezuela’s Supreme Court fined TikTok USD$10 million for failing to prevent viral video challenges that resulted in the deaths of three Venezuelan children.
  • TikTok faced temporary blockades by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Venezuela for not paying the fine.
  • ISPs used IP, HTTP, and DNS blocks to restrict access to TikTok and other platforms in early January 2025.
  • While this latest round of blockades was taking place, protests against Nicolás Maduro’s attempt to retain the presidency of Venezuela were happening across the country. The riot police were deployed in all major cities, looking to quell any protesters.
  • A significant surge in demand for VPN services has been observed in Venezuela since the beginning of 2025. Access to some VPN providers’ websites has also been restricted in the country.

In November 2024, Nicolás Maduro announced that two children had died after participating in challenges on TikTok. After a third death was announced by Education Minister Héctor Rodriguez, Venezuela’s Supreme Court issued a $10 million fine against the social media platform for failing to implement measures to prevent such incidents.

The court also ordered TikTok to open an office in Venezuela to oversee content compliance with local laws, giving the platform eight days to comply and pay the fine. TikTok failed to meet the court’s deadline to pay the fine or open an office in the country. As a result, ISPs in Venezuela, including CANTV — the state’s internet provider — temporarily blocked access to TikTok.

The blockades happened on January 7 and later on January 8, lasting several hours each. According to Netblocks.org, various methods were used to restrict access to TikTok, including IP, HTTP, and DNS blocks.

This screenshot shows Netblocks.org report, indicating zero reachability on TikTok using different Venezuelan ISPs.

On January 9, under orders of CONATEL (Venezuela’s telecommunications regulator), CANTV and other private ISPs in the country implemented further blockades to restrict access to TikTok. For instance, they blocked 21 VPN providers along with 33 public DNS services as reported by VeSinFiltro.org.

[…]

vpnMentor’s Research Team first observed a significant surge in the demand for VPN services in the country back in 2024, when X was first blocked. Since then, VPN usage has continued to rise in Venezuela, reaching another remarkable surge in the beginning of 2025. VPN demand grew over 200% only from January 7th to the 8th, totaling a 328% growth from January 1st to January 8th. This upward trend shows signs of further growth according to partial data from January 9th.

The increased demand for VPN services indicates a growing interest in circumventing censorship and accessing restricted content online. This trend suggests that Venezuelan citizens are actively seeking ways to bypass government-imposed restrictions on social media platforms and maintain access to a free flow of information.

[…]

Other Recent VPN Demand Growths

Online platforms are no strangers to geoblocks in different parts of the world. In fact, there have been cases where platforms themselves impose location-based access restrictions to users. For instance, Aylo/Pornhub previously geo-blocked 17 US states in response to age-verification laws that the adult site deemed unjust.

vpnMentor’s Research Team recently published a report about a staggering 1,150% VPN demand surge in Florida following the IP-block of Pornhub in the state.

Source: Venezuela’s Internet Censorship Sparks Surge in VPN Demand

VPN Demand Surge in Florida after Adult Sites Age Restriction Kicks In

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What’s important to know:

  • On March 25, 2024 Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law requiring age verification for accessing pornographic sites. This law, known as House Bill 3 (HB3), passed with bipartisan support and has caused quite a stir in the online community.
  • HB3 was set to come into effect on January 1, 2025. It allows hefty fines of up to $50,000 for websites that fail to comply with the regulations.
  • In response to this new legislation, Aylo, the parent company of Pornhub confirmed on December 18, 2024 that it will deny access for all users geo-located in the state as a form of protest to the new age verification requirements imposed by a state law.
  • Pornhub, which registered 3 billion visits from the United States in January 2024, had previously imposed access restrictions in Kentucky, Indiana, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, North Carolina, Montana, Mississippi, Virginia, Arkansas, and Utah. This makes Florida the 13th state without access to their website.

The interesting development following Aylo’s geo-block on Florida IP addresses is the dramatic increase in the demand for Virtual Private Network (VPN) services in the state. A VPN allows users to mask their IP addresses and encrypt their internet traffic, providing an added layer of privacy and security while browsing online.

The vpnMentor Research Team observed a significant surge in VPN usage across the state of Florida, with a staggering increase noted in the first hours of January 1st increasing consistently since the last minutes of 2024 and reaching its peak of 1150% only four hours after the HB3 law came into effect.
Additionally, there was a noteworthy 51% spike in demand for VPN services in the state on December 19, 2024, the day after Aylo released their statement of geo-blocking Florida IP addresses to access their website.

Florida’s new law on pornographic websites and the consequent rise of VPN usage emphasize the intricate interplay between technology, privacy, and regulatory frameworks. With laws pertaining to online activities constantly changing, it is imperative for users and website operators alike to remain knowledgeable about regulations and ensure compliance.

Past VPN Demand Growths

Aylo/Pornhub has previously geo-blocked 12 states all of which have enforced age-verification laws that the adult site deemed unjust.

In May 2023, Pornhub’s banning of Utah-based users caused a 967% spike in VPN demand in the state and last year, the passing of adult-site-related age restriction laws in Texas caused a surge in demand of 234.8% in the state.

Source: VPN Demand Surge in Florida after Adult Sites Age Restriction Kicks In

Google brings back digital fingerprinting to track users for advertising

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Google is tracking your online behavior in the name of advertising, reintroducing a data collection process that ingests all of your online signals (from IP address to complex browser information) and pinpoints unique users or devices, also known as “digital fingerprinting.”

The company’s updated platform program policies include relaxed restrictions on advertisers and personalized ad targeting across a range of devices, an outcome of a larger “advertising ecosystem shift” and the advancement of privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) like on-device processing and trusted execution environments, in the words of the company.

A departure from its longstanding pledge to user choice and privacy, Google argues these technologies offer enough protection for users while also creating “new ways for brands to manage and activate their data safely and securely.” The new feature will be available to advertisers beginning Feb. 16, 2025.

[…]

Contrary to other data collection tools like cookies, digital fingerprinting is difficult to spot, and thus even harder for even privacy-conscious users to erase or block. On Dec. 19, the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) — a data protection and privacy regulator — labeled Google “irresponsible” for the policy change, saying the shift to fingerprinting is an unfair means of tracking users, reducing choice and control over their personal information. The watchdog also warned that the move could encourage riskier advertiser behavior.

“Google itself has previously said that fingerprinting does not meet users’ expectations for privacy, as users cannot easily consent to it as they would cookies. This in turn means they cannot control how their information is collected. To quote Google’s own position on fingerprinting from 2019: ‘We think this subverts user choice and is wrong,'” wrote ICO executive director of regulatory risk Stephen Almond.

The ICO warned that it will intervene if Google cannot demonstrate existing legal requirements for such tech, including options to secure freely-given consent, ensure fair processing, and uphold the right to erasure: “Businesses should not consider fingerprinting a simple solution to the loss of third-party cookies and other cross-site tracking signals.”

Source: Google brings back digital fingerprinting to track users for advertising | Mashable

Telegram hands over data on 2253 users last year (up from 108 in 2023) to US law enforcement alone after arrest of boss

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Telegram reveals that the communications platform has fulfilled 900 U.S. government requests, sharing the phone number or IP address information of 2,253 users with law enforcement.

This number is a steep increase from previous years, with most requests processed after the platform’s policy shift on sharing user data, announced in September 2024.

While Telegram has long been a platform used to communicate with friends and family, talk with like-minded peers, and as a way to bypass government censorship, it is also heavily used for cybercrime.

Threat actors commonly utilize the platform to sell illegal services, conduct attacks, sell stolen data, or as a command and control server for their malware.

As first reported by 404 Media, the new information on fulfilled law enforcement requests comes from the Telegram Transparency Report for the period between 1/1/24 and 12/13/24.

Previously, Telegram would only share users’ IP addresses and phone numbers in cases of terrorism and had only fulfilled 14 requests affecting 108 users until September 30, 2024.

Current numbers (left) and previous period figures (right)
Current numbers (left) and previous period figures (right)
Source: BleepingComputer

Following the change in its privacy policy, Telegram will now share user data with law enforcement in other cases of crime, including cybercrime, the selling of illegal goods, and online fraud.

[…]

This change came in response to pressure from the authorities, culminating in the arrest of Telegram’s founder and CEO, Pavel Durov, in late August in France.

Durov subsequently faced a long list of charges, including complicity in cybercrime, organized fraud, and distribution of illegal material, as well as refusal to facilitate lawful interceptions aimed at aiding crime investigations.

[…]

To access Telegram transparency reports for your country, use the platform’s dedicated bot from here.

Source: Telegram hands over data on thousands of users to US law enforcement

That’s one way to get what you want – make up spurious charges, arrest someone and hold them for as long as it takes for you to get what you want without having to actually prove you can legally get at it. If it wasn’t the government doing it this would be called kidnapping and extortion.

Google goes to court for collecting data on users who opted out… again…

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A federal judge this week rejected Google’s motion to throw out a class-action lawsuit alleging that it invaded the privacy of users who opted out of functionality that records a users’ web and app activities. A jury trial is scheduled for August 2025 in US District Court in San Francisco.

The lawsuit concerns Google’s Web & App Activity (WAA) settings, with the lead plaintiff representing two subclasses of people with Android and non-Android phones who opted out of tracking. “The WAA button is a Google account setting that purports to give users privacy control of Google’s data logging of the user’s web app and activity, such as a user’s searches and activity from other Google services, information associated with the user’s activity, and information about the user’s location and device,” wrote US District Judge Richard Seeborg, the chief judge in the Northern District Of California.

Google says that Web & App Activity “saves your activity on Google sites and apps, including associated info like location, to give you faster searches, better recommendations, and more personalized experiences in Maps, Search, and other Google services.” Google also has a supplemental Web App and Activity setting that the judge’s ruling refers to as “(s)WAA.”

“The (s)WAA button, which can only be switched on if WAA is also switched on, governs information regarding a user’s ‘[Google] Chrome history and activity from sites, apps, and devices that use Google services.’ Disabling WAA also disables the (s)WAA button,” Seeborg wrote.

Google sends data to developers

But data is still sent to third-party app developers through the Google Analytics for Firebase (GA4F), “a free analytical tool that takes user data from the Firebase kit and provides app developers with insight on app usage and user engagement,” the ruling said. GA4F “is integrated in 60 percent of the top apps” and “works by automatically sending to Google a user’s ad interactions and certain identifiers regardless of a user’s (s)WAA settings, and Google will, in turn, provide analysis of that data back to the app developer.”

Plaintiffs have brought claims of privacy invasion under California law. Plaintiffs “present evidence that their data has economic value,” and “a reasonable juror could find that Plaintiffs suffered damage or loss because Google profited from the misappropriation of their data,” Seeborg wrote.

[…]

In a proposed settlement of a different lawsuit, Google last year agreed to delete records reflecting users’ private browsing activities in Chrome’s Incognito mode.

[…]

Google contends that its system is harmless to users. “Google argues that its sole purpose for collecting (s)WAA-off data is to provide these analytic services to app developers. This data, per Google, consists only of non-personally identifiable information and is unrelated (or, at least, not directly related) to any profit-making objectives,” Seeborg wrote.

On the other side, plaintiffs say that Google’s tracking contradicts its “representations to users because it gathers exactly the data Google denies saving and collecting about (s)WAA-off users,” Seeborg wrote. “Moreover, Plaintiffs insist that Google’s practices allow it to personalize ads by linking user ad interactions to any later related behavior—information advertisers are likely to find valuable—leading to Google’s lucrative advertising enterprise built, in part, on (s)WAA-off data unlawfully retrieved.”

[…]

Google, as the judge writes, purports to treat user data as pseudonymous by creating a randomly generated identifier that “permits Google to recognize the particular device and its later ad-related behavior… Google insists that it has created technical barriers to ensure, for (s)WAA-off users, that pseudonymous data is delinked to a user’s identity by first performing a ‘consent check’ to determine a user’s (s)WAA settings.”

Whether this counts as personal information under the law is a question for a jury, the judge wrote. Seeborg pointed to California law that defines personal information to include data that “is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household.” Given the legal definition, “a reasonable juror could view the (s)WAA-off data Google collected via GA4F, including a user’s unique device identifiers, as comprising a user’s personal information,” he wrote.

[…]

Source: Google loses in court, faces trial for collecting data on users who opted out – Ars Technica

Siri “unintentionally” recorded private convos on phone, watch, then sold them to advertisers; yes those ads are very targeted Apple agrees to pay $95M, laughs to the bank

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Apple has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that its voice assistant Siri routinely recorded private conversations that were then shared with third parties and used for targeted ads.

In the proposed class-action settlement—which comes after five years of litigation—Apple admitted to no wrongdoing. Instead, the settlement refers to “unintentional” Siri activations that occurred after the “Hey, Siri” feature was introduced in 2014, where recordings were apparently prompted without users ever saying the trigger words, “Hey, Siri.”

Sometimes Siri would be inadvertently activated, a whistleblower told The Guardian, when an Apple Watch was raised and speech was detected. The only clue that users seemingly had of Siri’s alleged spying was eerily accurate targeted ads that appeared after they had just been talking about specific items like Air Jordans or brands like Olive Garden, Reuters noted (claims which remain disputed).

[…]

It’s currently unknown how many customers were affected, but if the settlement is approved, the tech giant has offered up to $20 per Siri-enabled device for any customers who made purchases between September 17, 2014, and December 31, 2024. That includes iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, MacBooks, HomePods, iPod touches, and Apple TVs, the settlement agreement noted. Each customer can submit claims for up to five devices.

A hearing when the settlement could be approved is currently scheduled for February 14. If the settlement is certified, Apple will send notices to all affected customers. Through the settlement, customers can not only get monetary relief but also ensure that their private phone calls are permanently deleted.

While the settlement appears to be a victory for Apple users after months of mediation, it potentially lets Apple off the hook pretty cheaply. If the court had certified the class action and Apple users had won, Apple could’ve been fined more than $1.5 billion under the Wiretap Act alone, court filings showed.

But lawyers representing Apple users decided to settle, partly because data privacy law is still a “developing area of law imposing inherent risks that a new decision could shift the legal landscape as to the certifiability of a class, liability, and damages,” the motion to approve the settlement agreement said. It was also possible that the class size could be significantly narrowed through ongoing litigation, if the court determined that Apple users had to prove their calls had been recorded through an incidental Siri activation—potentially reducing recoverable damages for everyone.

“The percentage of those who experienced an unintended Siri activation is not known,” the motion said. “Although it is difficult to estimate what a jury would award, and what claims or class(es) would proceed to trial, the Settlement reflects approximately 10–15 percent of Plaintiffs expected recoverable damages.”

Siri’s unintentional recordings were initially exposed by The Guardian in 2019, plaintiffs’ complaint said. That’s when a whistleblower alleged that “there have been countless instances of recordings featuring private discussions between doctors and patients, business deals, seemingly criminal dealings, sexual encounters and so on. These recordings are accompanied by user data showing location, contact details, and app data.”

[…]

Meanwhile, Google faces a similar lawsuit in the same district from plaintiffs represented by the same firms over its voice assistant, Reuters noted. A win in that suit could affect anyone who purchased “Google’s own smart home speakers, Google Home, Home Mini, and Home Max; smart displays, Google Nest Hub, and Nest Hub Max; and its Pixel smartphones” from approximately May 18, 2016 to today, a December court filing noted. That litigation likely won’t be settled until this fall.

Source: Siri “unintentionally” recorded private convos; Apple agrees to pay $95M – Ars Technica

PayPal Honey extension to find deals instead hides discounts and reroutes commissions from promoters

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PayPal-owned browser extension Honey manipulates affiliate marketing systems and withholds discount information from users, according to an investigation by YouTube channel MegaLag.

The extension — which rose in popularity after promising consumers it would find them the best online deals — replaces existing affiliate cookies with its own during checkout, diverting commission payments from content creators who promoted the products to PayPal, MegaLag reported in a 23-minute video [YouTube link].

The investigation revealed that Honey, which PayPal acquired in 2019 for $4 billion, allows merchants in its cashback program to control which coupons appear to users, hiding better publicly available discounts.

Source: PayPal’s Honey Accused of Misleading Users, Hiding Discounts

Hundreds of websites to shut down under UK’s ‘chilling’ internet laws

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Hundreds of websites will be shut down on the day that Britain’s Online Safety Act comes into effect, in what are believed to be the first casualties of the new internet laws.

Microcosm, a web forum hosting service that runs 300 sites including cycling forums and local community hubs, said that the sites would go offline on March 16, the day that Ofcom starts enforcing the Act.

Its owner said they were unable to comply with the lengthy requirements of the Act, which created a “disproportionately high personal liability”.

The new laws, which were designed to crack down on illegal content and protect children, threaten fines of up to £18m or 10pc of revenue for sites that fail to comply with the laws.

On Monday, Ofcom set out more than 40 measures that it expects online services to follow by March, such as carrying out risk assessments about their sites and naming senior people accountable for ensuring safety.

Microcosm, which has hosted websites including cycling forum LFGSS since 2007, is run as a non-profit funded by donations and largely relies on users to follow community guidelines. Its sites attract a combined 250,000 users.

Dee Kitchen, who operates the service and moderates its 300 sites, said: “What this is, is a chilling effect [on small sites].

“For the really small sites and the charitable sites and the local sports club there’s no carve-out for anything.

“It feels like a huge risk, and it feels like it can be so easily weaponised by angry people who are the subject of moderation.

“It’s too vague and too broad and I don’t want to take that personal risk.”

Announcing the shutdown on the LFGSS forum, they said: “It’s devastating to just … turn it off … but this is what the Act forces a sole individual running so many social websites for a public good to do.”

[…]

Source: Hundreds of websites to shut down under UK’s ‘chilling’ internet laws