Mozilla Distilled: “When you share your personal phone number with anyone outside your circle of family and friends, it essentially gives them permission to call you anytime of the day. This can mean robocallers at lunch and dinner, not to mention spam text messages throughout the day. …The new Firefox Relay phone number masking feature… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: E-Commerce
Tour Amazon’s dream home, where every appliance is also a spy
Washington Post: “You may not realize all the ways Amazon is watching you. No other Big Tech company reaches deeper into domestic life. Two-thirds of Americans who shop on Amazon own at least one of its smart gadgets, according to Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. Amazon now makes (or has acquired) more than two dozen types… Continue Reading
The Most Visited Website in Every Country (That Isn’t A Search Engine)
Hostinger -“The World Wide Web has connected people and cultures from nearly every part of the globe. It’s given us instant access to news and media from every country and the tools to translate content from one language to another. But while it has introduced new forms and ideas on a global scale, the web… Continue Reading
A new history of YouTube argues that the video-streaming service created the template for the online attention economy
The New Yorker – “…According to the company, the site has more than two billion monthly “logged-in” users. In a given twenty-four-hour period, more than a billion hours of video are streamed, and every minute around five hundred hours of video are uploaded. The torrent of content added to the site has helped establish new… Continue Reading
Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cybersecurity issues – October 2, 2022
Via LLRX – Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cybersecurity issues – October 2, 2022 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex… Continue Reading
The Best VPNs to Protect Yourself Online
Wired: It won’t solve all of your privacy problems, but a virtual private network can make you a less tempting target for hackers. “A virtual private network (VPN) is like a protective tunnel you can use to pass through a public network, protecting your data from outside eyes. Whether you’re worried about hiding your browsing… Continue Reading
FCC Targeting and Eliminating Unlawful Text Messages
“The Federal Communications Commission today proposed new rules to fight back against malicious robotext campaigns. The agency will take public comment on ideas to apply caller ID authentication standards to text messaging and require providers to find and actively block illegal texts before they get to consumers…The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking released today proposes and… Continue Reading
France sets delivery fee for online book sales to help stores compete with Amazon
Reuters: “France plans to impose a minimum delivery fee of 3 euros ($2.93) for online book orders of less than 35 euros to level the playing field for independent bookstores struggling to compete against e-commerce giants, the government said on Friday. A 2014 French law already prohibits free book deliveries, but Amazon and other vendors… Continue Reading
Privacy-Focused Technology Companies Call for a Floor Vote on Antitrust Legislation
Spread Privacy: “On Tuesday September 13th, 13 privacy-focused technology companies representing more than 100 million users in the United States published a letter to U.S. Congressional Leadership imploring them to support the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA) and bring it to a floor vote as soon as possible. Incessant data collection and tech… Continue Reading
A Prehistory of Social Media
Driscoll, Kevin. “A Prehistory of Social Media.” Issues in Science and Technology 38, no. 4 (Summer 2022): 20–23. “The standard account of internet history took shape in the early 1990s, as a mixture of commercial online services, university networks, and local community networks mutated into something bigger, more commercial, and more accessible to the general… Continue Reading
20 SPAM Statistics for 2022
DataProt: What’s On the Other Side of Your Inbox: “Did you check your spam folder lately? It’s like walking into a giant shopping mall where everyone wants you to buy their products, hire their services, or marry a Nigerian prince. Thousands upon thousands of emails, all encompassed under a common denominator. Spam. We’ve compiled 20… Continue Reading
Transacting in Person with Strangers from the Internet
Krebs on Security: “These safe trading places exist because sometimes in-person transactions from the Internet don’t end well for one or more parties involved. The website Craigslistkillers has catalogued news links for at least 132 murders linked to Craigslist transactions since 2015. Many of these killings involved high-priced items like automobiles and consumer electronics, where… Continue Reading
