Gateklons | perpetually tired

Commission asleep at the wheel if they let this slide

‘Mainly, you fast fooded’: Monzo under fire over ‘shaming’ year-end reviews Bank criticised for tone of spending summaries, with one user complaining to ombudsman over ‘humiliating’ use of data

Reminded of some recent user research where an IF team saw UK adults being far more sensitive to reuse and sharing of financial data than other stuff, it shows more about our lives

Ie a "wrapped" for spending won't feel the same as a "wrapped" for music

www.theguardian.com/money/2026/m...

Spot on. The EU's willingness to accommodate Orbán's sabotage whilst simultaneously pressuring Ukraine to make concessions is morally bankrupt. We're literally asking the victim to pay twice — once in blood defending European values, then again in compromise to appease their betrayer.

The most scathing critics of Silicon Valley circa 2014 barely scratched the surface of the treachery these companies have shown.

Providing your products to criminal regimes planning to use them to violate human rights on a massive scale is a choice!

AI bots crawl retail sites 198x more than Google, new report warns AI bots crawl retail sites 198x more per visit than Google, bot traffic rose 5.4x in 2025, and 80% of websites are exposed to agent spoofing, per new research.

AI bots crawl retail sites 198x more than Google, new report warns #AI #Retail #Ecommerce #DigitalMarketing #WebTraffic

People Are Calling Meta Ray-Bans "Pervert Glasses" On Bluesky, users quickly embraced the term "pervert glasses" to refer to Meta's Ray Ban smart glasses, following a shocking investigation.

Make it stick.

It would really be something for China to release these files in the middle of our "Does the United States do mass surveillance" conversation

EU agrees to chop meaty names from vegetarian and vegan food products Lawmakers will ban use of 31 meat-related names as part of efforts to help livestock farmers in food supply markets

Simplification (deregulation) for thee, regulatory capture for farmers.

I like how they're at least explicit that this exists to protect farmers (the most powerful lobby?) and not consumers.

I hope this is challenged before the CJEU.

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

AG finds that a requirement for surveillance cameras monitoring areas where fishing boats handle/discard fish is a proportionate restriction of rights to privacy and data protection. Interesting discussion of standard of review, privacy issues in workplace, and safeguards (especially anonymisation).

Oh, also, I forgot, this is also maybe kinda illegal under Article 5(6) DMA? (I don't care to read the whole agreement though to see if they give an out for this.)

Google isn’t waiting for a settlement — the 30 percent Android app store fee is dead Epic Games is celebrating.

Developers and consumers will remain subject to fee-fucking just the same. Still illegal under the DMA but then again so are many other things Google does.

www.theverge.com/policy/88925...

dying wasn't bad enough, permissionless sideloading on Android will die in 6 months. And regulators haven't even flinched.

Meamwhile, EC responded immediately with *interim measures* to ensure Meta AI isn't the only slop game in town on WhatsApp 🙃😭

But at least we have DMA private enforcement.

The other (especially indie and FOSS) developers and communities? Good luck if you're not a tech tycoon. Or don't write software for the money. Amazing how much regulators will care to help you only if profit is your motive (the more the better).

As if OEM unlocking / custom ROMs slowly

Thank you, Daphne!

It's only appropriate given how brazen the tech authoritarians (no longer authoritarian just in business) have become. I guess that's the real reason Google gave him what he wanted: they get to muzzle a loud and influential critic (before regulators). Sweeny gets what he wants.

Tim Sweeney signed away his right to criticize Google until 2032 Epic CEO is muzzled.

Amazing. This is why you need the DMA. App developers shouldn't have to make deals written by Rumpelstiltskin to be able to effectively distribute on Big Tech platforms.

www.theverge.com/news/889595/...

Apple's new AI transparency tags rely entirely on labels self-reporting, whilst Deezer detects 60,000 AI tracks daily through technical analysis. The contrast is stark: Apple trusts the supply chain, Deezer catches what they miss - and finds 85% of music streams are AI.

Can't read the FT piece behind the paywall, but this Anthropic-Pentagon story is fascinating. After negotiations broke down last week, Dario Amodei is personally trying to salvage a defence deal. Being frozen out of military contracts could be existential for AI companies competing with OpenAI.

Indeed - this is more than a geopolitical power play, and it won't go away even if Trump loses in 2028.

It's the billionaire's effect vs the Brussels effect: an attempted fundamental power shift away from (democratic) state actors to tech oligarchs.

These Official ChromeOS Flex USB Sticks Can Give Your Old Mac or Windows PC a Second Life Google is partnering with Back Market to sell USB sticks that let you install ChromeOS Flex on older Windows and Intel-powered Macs collecting dust.

Google is partnering with Back Market to sell USB sticks that let you install ChromeOS Flex on older Windows and Intel-powered Macs collecting dust. www.wired.com/story/back-m...

US AI giants seem fine with their tech being used to spy on Europeans | Euractiv AI spying on allies wasn’t a deal-breaker for OpenAI, Anthropic in Pentagon talks

Both Anthropic and OpenAI said they were defending Americans from the dangers of AI-powered mass surveillance last week.

Europeans, of course, are not Americans.

Read my article at @euractiv.com:

www.euractiv.com/news/us-ai-g...

I've made an effort in the last couple of years to clean my various timelines of negativity. It’s easy to doom-scroll and be severely affected by it. Yes, that means looking at social media with rose-tinted glasses, but I was finding that my habits were having a seriously negative effect on me.

No, BBC, end-to-end encryption isn’t ’controversial privacy tech’, it’s industry standard protection

Coruna: The Mysterious Journey of a Powerful iOS Exploit Kit | Google Cloud Blog Coruna is a powerful iOS exploit kit leveraging 23 vulnerabilities across multiple threat actors and global campaigns.

“The core technical value of this exploit kit lies in its comprehensive collection of iOS exploits, with the most advanced ones using non-public exploitation techniques and mitigation bypasses.”

cloud.google.com/blog/topics/...

AKA mindless corporate consolidation (pushed by those very same lobbies) that rarely ever deliver the promised gains?

threats threats threats - it's all #murica the bully has got

. @signal.org is hiring for a major gifts fundraiser role and this may well be one of the most important jobs in the world. Pass it on to the right person.
(Don’t ask me, I’m just passing this along)

jobs.lever.co/signal/68f75...

TikTok incapable of delivering both user privacy *and* user safety, retains capability to surveil user communications Nothing to do with it being Chinese, then? “TikTok told the BBC it believed end-to-end encryption prevented police and safety teams from being able to read direct messages if they needed to. …

TikTok incapable of delivering both user privacy *and* user safety, retains capability to surveil user communications
https://alecmuffett.com/article/148043
#EndToEndEncryption #censorship #china #surveillance #tiktok

1908: the Lancet, one of the most respected scientific journals, calls for 18 age limit on reading in bed amidst a moral panic surrounding children becoming "addicted" to novels, which were "designed to keep kids hooked" and destroy their attention/mental health

mass user uninstalls have a way of concentrating the mind