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Category Archives: E-Commerce

Greedflation Report

“U.S. Sen. Bob Casey released his latest “greedflation” report on Wednesday, and this time it takes aim at popular streaming platforms such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and more. This time, Casey is highlighting what he calls “streamflation,” which happens when streaming platforms hike their profits by charging higher prices, despite offering less content and… Continue Reading

How to Find the Source of a Video on the Web

MakeUseOf: “If you’ve ever wanted to find the source of a video you’ve watched online, you’ll know it’s no easy feat. Even after a lot of searching, you may not turn up results. Here’s how to search for the full video from a clip you’ve seen online. There are many reasons you might want to… Continue Reading

Consent in Crisis: The Rapid Decline of the AI Data Commons

Consent in Crisis: The Rapid Decline of the AI Data Commons. July 2024. Data ProvenanceL General-purpose artificial intelligence (AI) systems are built on massive swathes of public web data, assembled into corpora such as C4, RefinedWeb, and Dolma. “To our knowledge, we conduct the first, large-scale, longitudinal audit of the consent protocols for the web… Continue Reading

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, August 2, 2024

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, August 2, 2024 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, 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

Laid-off California tech workers are sick to death of LinkedIn

SFGate – Tech workers hate the Bay Area company’s site. But more than ever, they need it: “…Over the past few years, folks online have repeatedly called the platform a “cesspool,” whether in a viral TikTok video’s caption, a popular Reddit post or even on LinkedIn itself. (In fact, “cesspool” has swung into fashion as… Continue Reading

An open copyright casebook, featuring AI, Warhol and more

Pluralistic: “Few debates invite more uninformed commentary than “IP” – a loosely defined grab bag that regulates an ever-expaning sphere of our daily activities, despite the fact that almost no one, including senior executives in the entertainment industry, understands how it works. Take reading a book. If the book arrives between two covers in the… Continue Reading

The AI Search War Has Begun

Follow up to Perplexity is cutting checks to publishers following plagiarism accusations See also The Atlantic [unpaywalled] – And tech companies might not be the winners. “Every second of every day, people across the world type tens of thousands of queries into Google, adding up to trillions of searches a year. Google and a few… Continue Reading

How To Check Whether You’re Chatting With a Real Person or AI

Make Use Of – Quick Links The Conversation Style Is Overly Formal Refusal to Answer Phone Calls or Video Chats They’re Unable to Answer Complex or Probing Questions Attempts to Gain Access to Your Personal Data They Try to Redirect You to External Links Lack of Humor in Responses Key Takeaways You can tell you’re… Continue Reading

How data brokers sell our location data and jeopardise national security

Netzpolitic.org: “The AdTech industry is torpedoing the privacy of millions of people in Germany and is a threat to national security. But the underlying problem is global: databrokers sell location data without sufficient control. This is the summary of a joint research by netzpolitik.org and BR. Our investigation with BR (Bayerischer Rundfunk) shows for the… Continue Reading

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, July 20, 2024

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, July 20, 2024 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, 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

USPS shared customer postal addresses with Meta, LinkedIn and Snap

“The U.S. Postal Service was sharing the postal addresses of its online customers with advertising and tech giants Meta, LinkedIn and Snap, TechCrunch has found. On Wednesday, the USPS said it addressed the issue and stopped the practice, claiming that it was “unaware” of it. TechCrunch found USPS was sharing customers’ information by way of… Continue Reading