[1/2] https://www.republicworld.com/business/google-faces-lawsuit-over-alleged-secret-data-tracking-via-gemini-ai

https://stallman.org/archives/2024-nov-feb.html#2_February_2025_(google_gemini_workspace)

A lawsuit accuses Google of activating its bullshit generator, Gemini, by default for various widely used apps, as a way of snooping on what users say in them. It's not impossible to deactivate Gemini, but Google has set up a "dark pattern" to make it so inconvenient that people will give

[2/2] up. Snooping, and dark patterns, are typical ways nonfree programs mistreat users. If you run a nonfree program, yo are helplessly at the mercy of any nonfree program's developer.

#deltachat PSAs regarding the last 24 hours:

1) If you messaged someone about 20-30 hours ago, and did not get an expected response/receipt better "resend" (long-tap or right-click the message to resend). Unfortunately, not all queued messages at the crashing nine.testrun.org server made it to the new one.

2) 2.33+ app releases are rolling out, supporting using "multiple relays" so that failing relays (like happened above) will not cause lost messages anymore. See https://support.delta.chat/t/how-to-migrate-your-profile-to-another-relay-version-2-33/

“Donate to open source projects to support their maintainers!”

[project asks for donations with a notification]

“How dare you?! What’s next, taking my pets hostage?! Shame on you for having the gall of asking me money!”

I always find it odd when people talking about high level policy stuff like EuroStack completely ignore end-user devices - Like, if you have fully sovereign EU AI cloud apps, where are you going to access them from? Your iPhone?

https://ecfr.eu/publication/get-over-your-x-a-european-plan-to-escape-american-technology

Cory Doctorow on why regulation of Big Tech consistently fails to deliver good outcomes.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/12/13/uncle-sucker/#willing-marks

'It's true that technology can give rise to novel regulatory challenges, but it's also true that claiming that a technology is so novel that existing regulation can't resolve its problems is just a way of buying time to commit more crimes before the regulators finally realize that your flashy new technology is just a boring old scam.'

Jesus fucking christ.

https://hey.paris/posts/appleid/

🚨 THE BATTLE BEGINS 🚨

Your favorite year-end contest is back. It’s time to choose who will be this year’s Worst Person In Tech for 2025!

Each day of this week new matchups will drop until we choose the winner on Friday.

🗳️ Cast your ballot: https://twsu.forms.app/worst-person-tech-2025-round-one

GNOME bans AI-generated extensions https://www.theverge.com/news/844655/gnome-linux-ai-shell-extensions-ban

Microsoft Copilot AI arriva sui televisori LG e non può essere eliminato

Secondo l'utente Reddit u/defjam16, il suo LG TV webOS ha ricevuto un aggiornamento che installava l'app #Copilot AI di Microsoft, senza possibilità di rimuoverla. Sebbene gli utenti possano scegliere di ignorarlo, la spinta verso una maggiore integrazione dell'intelligenza artificiale nei prodotti di uso quotidiano sta diventando inevitabile, anche sui televisori.

https://www.techpowerup.com/344075/microsoft-copilot-ai-comes-to-lg-tvs-and-cant-be-deleted

@informatica

My Ubuntu Summit talk is up! Where I talk about:

1. How Desktop UX is effectively dead

2. Why I hate the term UX/UI with the heat of 1000 suns

3. How OSS can actually innovate in #ux

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fZTOjd_bOQ

:uwasa_sana: Rumor has it Senator Sheldon Whitehouse plans to file a bipartisan bill to repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, arguing it shields platforms from liability for harmful content. Critics warn that repealing Section 230 could stifle free speech and innovation online, while Whitehouse believes it allows platforms to evade long-standing legal responsibilities.

Merriam-Webster choose "slop" as the word of the year. Very good choice, accurately describes what the tech industry is doing now.

Meanwhile Van Dale choose "hallucineren (hallucinate)" as the Dutch word of the year. This is a bad choice. This word enables a common misconception that a lot of normies think that an LLM is actually thinking.

An LLM does not hallucinate, it is literally text prediction aka "bullshit generator". It does not know anything at all.

Let's have a serious discussion. Yesterday I mentioned Framework, and somebody claimed that they have financially supported neo-nazi DHH.

To the best of my knowledge, this is misinformation. They *never* did that. And I think that falsely accusing a company of financially supporting neo-nazis is bad.

When I asked for a source, many chimed in, providing information about Framework's financial support to other projects or other kinds of support to DHH, thus missing the point entirely. [1/2]

When I pushed back, I think many felt attacked and felt the need to state their disgust and unwillingness to buy from Frameworks. None of which was the topic of the discussion.

The point is, again: falsely claiming that a company financially supports a neo-nazi is, IMO, really bad behavior, regardless of what other bad things the company is doing.

Since we're not on Twitter, can we please have an adult conversation that's able to discuss things in their merit without feeling attacked? [2/2]

>Be a sucker.
>Make my entire infrastructure dependent on a proprietary SaaSS implementation of Git.
>The proprietary SaaSS suddenly wants money from me? How could this happen?

The only thing that surprised me is that Microsoft didn't start doing this sooner.

Mozilla has a new CEO who:

- Has been at Mozilla for less than a year

- Has no prior open source experience (but well in "fintech" and "real estate")

- Has a MBA (aka "brainworm diploma")

- Is all-in on AI

That’s exactly the kind of bingo profile the whole community has been waiting for.