Yeah, I wonder which one I’ll choose.

It’s not just a breach you have to worry about. Credit agencies actively monetize your financial data by selling it to anyone who wants it. You didn’t give it to them, you didn’t authorize it, they collect it and they sell it.

https://www.equifax.com/business/marketing/

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/ios-18-beta-delivers-rcs-messaging-heres-how-to-enable-it/

I think you misread that. This poster’s experience isn’t from 2016. They installed a program called “Outlook 2016” recently.

That happens a lot to Google products.

At which point do we acknowledge the cure is as bad as the problem?

Didn’t we all do that when we stopped using Norton Anti-virus?

SmartTube is back up this morning after an update.

Spreadsheets are life. I think in spreadsheets. I hope it comes soon.

I’m really interested in Graphene and Google privacy, but what does it mean when you say "Sandboxed? Like… I want to use Google Maps, does Google still track me? Maybe only when the app is open, and not when it’s closed?

I work for a company that does marketing, and they are seriously struggling right now because TV and Social media ads are getting more expensive, while at the same time becoming less effective.

Yes. This is true.

Because ads suck and people hate them. Whats the new way? Be good at what you do so people talk about your brand. Show up in searches when I’m looking for you. That’s it.

Oh good. Because if there’s a profile of my advertising preferences out there, it knows that when I am forced to view an ad, I look away from the screen, turn off the volume, sigh dramatically, and say “Fuck <this product> right in the ass.”

Personalize away.

That was my thought. I’m not sure if it’s based in science, but I remember being a huge fan of Windows 2000 back in the day, and Microsoft pushed a final service pack that made it highly unstable in 2005, and refused to update/fix it. My theory was that they were trying to push everyone to Windows XP, but I’m prone to thinking the worst of large corporations.

Holy crap. Other people have heard of Discuit.

This was happening to some extent 10-12 years ago when I first signed up for Facebook. There would be an ad for Target and it would say “Your friend Jimmy Smith likes Target”. And then I’d ask Jimmy if he follows the Target account on Facebook, and he’d say hell no.

This always seemed shady as fuck, and that was before Facebook got much much worse.

You should really learn more about it before deciding that you have an expert opinion on it.

Yeah, don’t do this, and you should be fine.

From the Description:

Jan - Google fired 12,000 staff including their head of health and wellbeing

Feb - Google said employees must come back to the office and share desks. Bard (Chat GPT competitor) launches.

March - Google gave data to the police to help prosecute abortion seekers after Roe vs Wade was overturned. And they fired multiple staff after giving birth.

April - Google announces cost-cutting measures including cutting back on staplers. Google, Meta and X propose an alliance to combat misinformation.

May - South Korea fined Google for anti-competitive practices and Google continued to sell climate disinformation ads (after promising to stop).

June - Google replaces it’s fired workers with “low-paid foreign workers” and donated to an anti-abortion Republican Committee

July - Google uses our data to train Bard and increases the cost of YouTube Premium.

Aug - Google offers staff an on-campus hotel room for $99 a night. And YouTube ads may have led to the online tracking of children.

Sept - Google Pixel Watches have no parts or repair program and Google Maps led a dad to his death over a collapsed bridge.

Oct - Google’s AI consumes as much electricity as Ireland and Alphabet hired an underqualified man (who didn’t even apply for the job) over a woman.

Nov - Google backs out of building affordable housing in the Bay Area and spent $26 billion to be your default search engine.

Dec - Google caught putting ads on adult websites 🌽 and McDonalds is using Google AI to test if your fries are fresh.

I’ve been on an iPhone for about 3.5 weeks now and iMessage is driving me nuts. It might be the reason I go back to Android.

1. You cannot use any other apps for SMS messaging on an iPhone. iMessage is the only option.
2. Unlike Google Messages, it is impossible to use a desktop app to send and receive your text messages… unless you replace all your computers with Macs. Most iPhone users don’t have a Mac, so this is just missing functionality.

This is dumb. I used that feature constantly. It’s the worst thing about the switch.

You joke… but isn’t that what Amazon Sidewalk was invented for? And isn’t it sort of what AirTags do? They don’t connect to the internet… they connect to partner devices in ways that are unseen by the owners to co-opt their internet access.

I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Samsung TVs without internet access are using nearby Samsung phones to connect to the internet. Or maybe they partner with the ISP to use those default guest wifi networks. If news broke tomorrow that this was already a thing, it wouldn’t surprise me at all.

I’ve resisted making an account at Walgreens for years and years. The last time I went in there, the prices for things I wanted were literally double if I didn’t give them a rewards number. Fucking ridiculous.