KRMA

How surveillance companies track smartphone users through advertising data Companies are offering law enforcement agencies the ability to track smartphone users through advertising data gathered on their devices. Le Monde attended confidential presentations of these new surv...

whenever there’s an abundance of data, someone will exploit it www.lemonde.fr/en/pixels/ar...

Encrypt It Already End-to-end encryption protects the privacy of your data.

With Encrypt It Already, we’re pushing on tech companies to deliver stronger privacy protections to their users by enabling and expanding the use of end-to-end encryption across their products or services. www.encryptitalready.org

Washington Post Raid Is a Frightening Reminder: Turn Off Your Phone’s Biometrics Now The search warrant to raid a Washington Post reporter’s home shows how authorities can open your phone without your consent.

Biometric locks for phones aren’t just convenient for you, they are convenient for the cops.

“explicitly authorized law enforcement personnel to obtain Natanson’s phone and both hold the device in front of her face and to forcibly use her fingers to unlock it”
theintercept.com/2026/01/30/w...

Google to pay $68 million over allegations its voice assistant eavesdropped on users Class-action lawsuit alleged that Google's voice assistant illegally recorded and shared private conversations with advertisers.

Do you remember when people were saying "I think my phone is listening to me, i'm getting ads for stuff I spoke about" and people said "They arent listening to you, they're just this good at predicting your interests"?

Well, it happens they were doing exactly that.
www.cbsnews.com/news/google-...

good

another example how Europe leads the way

Ruling: Microsoft illegally placed cookies on child's tech Updated: Austrian education ministry unaware of tracking software until campaigners launched case

According to a decision by the Austrian Data Protection Authority, Microsoft installed cookies on a student's device illegally. Both the school and the Austrian Ministry of Education stated that they were unaware of the tracking prior to noyb's complaint.

www.theregister.com/2026/01/27/m...

someone needs to step up. just voicing opposition does not work anymore

ICE Is Going on a Surveillance Shopping Spree U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has a new budget under the current administration, and they are going on a surveillance tech shopping spree. Standing at $28.7 billion dollars for the

With an annual budget that is 10 times the size of the agency’s total surveillance spending for the last 13 years, ICE is going on a shopping spree, creating one of the largest, most comprehensive domestic surveillance machines in history. Here’s what they are buying. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

sharing your surveillance report has been made fun fun fun fun don’t worry about it its all good we’re not using this data against you except we might in the future

Why ‘Surveillance Pricing’ Strikes a Nerve

read more: www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/b...

technically not illegal but morally corrupt

surveillance pricing is another slob-of-a-practice that just shows us when an opportunity rises to optimize for profit it will be taken

chat control is bad news

After Years of Controversy, the EU’s Chat Control Nears Its Final After a years-long battle, the European Commission’s “Chat Control” plan, which would mandate mass scanning and other encryption-breaking measures, at last codifies agreement on a position within the

As we approach the final negotiations of this regulation, we urge lawmakers in the EU to work on a final text that fully protects users’ right to private communication and avoids intrusive age verification mandates. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

‘Pay or Okay’ study: Users prefer a tracking-free “third option” Given the upcoming "Pay or Okay" guidelines by the EDPB, noyb has commissioned a study about user choices

🍪🇪🇺 Pay or Okay systems require payment if you want to reject #cookies, nudging 99.9% of users to consent. Given the upcoming guidelines by the #EDPB on this highly controversial approach, noyb has commissioned a study about user choices.

Read it here 👉 noyb.eu/en/pay-or-ok...

How to Test New York’s Algorithmic Pricing Law | TechPolicy.Press New York’s ADPA exposes algorithmic pricing. Stephanie T. Nguyen discusses how these disclosures could reveal fairness issues and potential consumer impacts.

New York's new algorithmic pricing law does not prohibit surveillance pricing or meaningfully explain how algorithms influence prices. But as Stephanie T. Nguyen outlines, it does offer some new ways for researchers to examine these practices. www.techpolicy.press/how-to-test-...

Why Platforms Don’t Catch Climate Misinformation — and How to Change That | TechPolicy.Press While most Americans believe that climate change is real and human-caused, online misinformation continues to erode public trust in climate science.

Many tech platforms lack specific policies addressing climate disinformation, and even those that have rules struggle to enforce them effectively, write Alice Hunsberger, Pinal Shah and Theodora Skeadas. A recent seminar explored why platforms fail to address the problem, and what could be done.

Slop Evader — Tega Brain A browser extension for avoiding AI slop.  Download it for Chrome or Firefox. This is a search tool that will only return content created before ChatGPT's...

Search tool that only returns content created before ChatGPT's public release
View Article | Join the HN Conversation

Summary of HN discussion 🧵👇 #hacker-news

The Worst Thing About AI Is That People Can’t Shut Up About It A plea from WIRED’s top boss: Say less.

“Generative AI is genuinely useful in some contexts, profoundly useless in others, & decidedly unproven in most,” @katie-drummond.bsky.social writes, offering a reality check on how to think about the technology. “It is situationally dependent. It is not a monolith.” www.wired.com/story/ai-jou...

slopaganda

Show HN: Explore what the browser exposes about you
View Article | Join the HN Conversation

Summary of HN discussion 🧵👇 #hacker-news

a good win for NY #mamdani

The Future of Advertising Is AI Generated Ads That Are Directly Personalized to You "Advertisers are increasingly just going to be able to give us a business objective and give us a credit card or bank account, and have the AI system basically figure out everything else."

The AI Slop Era is here #AISlop #ads www.404media.co/the-future-o...

NYC Privacy Day today at the Bloomberg Center

Backlash as new EU political ad rules kick in Politicians and campaigners fear that an advertising law designed to improve transparency could stifle it.

Important developments

www.politico.eu/article/eu-p...

NY is fun

According to Google:

"Slop" refers to spilled or soft, wet, low-quality materials, such as soft mud, watery liquid food, or animal feed made from kitchen waste. It can also describe low-quality AI-generated content that floods the internet, similar to spam.

Intensification - Kate Crawford - Eating the Future: The Metabolic Logic of AI Slop AI slop isn’t invested in the order of events or even looking like reality. The slop is not the territory: it just smothers it in synthetic goop. It’s flooding the zone with AI shit.

The beginning of the Slope www.e-flux.com/architecture...

We Need an Interventionist Mindset | TechPolicy.Press To stabilize and enhance democratic practices, danah boyd advocates for an interventionist approach to AI regulation.

A great read by @zephoria.bsky.social
techpolicy.press/we-need-an-i...