Had enough of big tech browser corpos like Google (Chrome) or Mozilla (Firefox) collecting your data and selling them to Advertisers?

Then it is time to uninstall them and get yourself a Norwegian browser Vivaldi with 0 external investors!

https://vivaldi.com/

@pluralistic I’m reading chapter 12 of Chokepoint Capitalism and it’s really sad to see how we are very far away from fair antitrust policies, especially now with an oligarchical government run by the Big Tech. It’s somehow disheartening.

#bigtech #monopoly #uspol #ChokepointCapitalism #books #reading @bookstodon

One of the things I've been advocating for years - and where I want to raise my voice even louder - is the importance of owning your data. #OwnYourData

Over the past few days, I’ve come across two examples of how misinformation is causing immense damage, leading people to believe that there's no alternative but to hand over their data to big corporations, putting themselves entirely in their hands.

- A well-known lawyer, just before a meeting, warned about using Teams and its new "virtual assistant," which joins conferences before anyone else and transcribes everything. When I pointed out that it would be wise to use alternative tools (like Jitsi, for example, but there are others), he abruptly ended the conversation, saying, "We've lost this war. There's no alternative anymore."
That wasn’t the right moment for a detailed discussion, so I just noted that alternatives do exist - but if no one starts using them, and if we passively accept certain behaviors from certain companies, things will never improve for us.

- Just now, I received another one of those emails that hurt more in the heart than in the wallet: "Our e-commerce is taking off, so we’re moving it to Shopify to better manage our growth."
I replied, trying to explain that handing over a growing e-commerce business to a third-party company (right now, they have full access to their own server - meaning all their databases, data, etc., are under their control) means losing ownership of it. Prices could change at any moment, contract terms could shift negatively, and, worst case scenario, if Shopify itself faced issues (which seems impossible today, but think of giants like Kodak), they could lose everything. Of course, they’ll do what they think is best, but I feel obligated to warn them.

Luckily, others are making the opposite choice. But I keep wondering: since these big platforms aren’t exactly cheap, rather than "selling themselves" to them just for (potentially) fewer headaches, wouldn’t it be worth paying someone (not me, of course, but someone working exclusively for them) to handle these things - ensuring they retain full ownership of their business and their data?

#DiscoElysium Litigator Launches $500 'Creative Immunity' Certs
https://isglitch.com/article/2025-03-12-disco-elysuim-litigator

"Staatssecretaris Szabó meent dat de huidige geopolitieke ontwikkelingen geen specifieke impact hebben op de SIDN-situatie nu."

https://ibestuur.nl/artikel/convenant-moet-veiligheid-cloudverhuizing-sidn-waarborgen/

Opmerkelijk, maar niet verbazend.

In de periode 1930-1939 dacht de Nederlandse regering ook nog gewoon wapens te kunnen bestellen van de firma Krupp in Duitsland.....

Mal eine Nachricht aus den USA, die nicht schlecht ist: Das US-Justizministerium strebt weiter eine Aufspaltung von Google an. Im August hatte ein US-Gericht Googles Monopol in der Internet-Suche als illegal eingestuft. Das Justizministerium forderte darauf hin u.a. die Abspaltung des Chrome-Browsers.

Ein neues Gerichtsdokument zeigt, dass das Justizministerium unter Trump weiter den Verkauf von Chrome fordert und weite Teile der Forderungen aus der Biden-Zeit übernommen hat. An einigen Stellen gibt es Präzisierungen und einzelne Änderungen: so soll das Gericht Google nicht mehr generell Investitionen in AI-Firmen wie Anthropic verbieten. Diese müssen aber angemeldet werden, so dass sie geprüft werden können.

https://www.handelsblatt.com/technik/it-internet/tech-konzern-trump-regierung-haelt-an-google-aufspaltung-fest/100112215.html

Hier das Originaldokument: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.223205/gov.uscourts.dcd.223205.1184.0_1.pdf

Tech bros are living, breathing embodiments of the false authority fallacy; claiming that their professed understanding of basic logic qualifies them to reason expertly upon every conceivable topic while conveniently ignoring a fundamental maxim of their purported core area of expertise: garbage in, garbage out.

Hi, I’m Ellie.

I’ve jumped to Mastodon after realising (again) how toxic big tech is. Trump and Musk’s obsession with controlling social media sealed it—I miss when it was about connecting, not just a tool for the rich to twist public opinion.

I’ll post a little bit about politics (Carol Cadwalladr fan!) but also pretty pictures, my pet, and travel snaps. Looking forward to actual conversations—not just whatever the algorithm wants me to see.

Happy 10th anniversary to Spyware 2.0 – the video we released at the launch of Ind.ie (what is now Small Technology Foundation¹).

Have we learned any lessons in those ten years, I wonder.

https://vimeo.com/116656700

#spyware #SiliconValley #BigTech #technology #fascism #technoFascism #peopleFarming #surveillance #capitalism #surveillanceCapitalism

¹ https://small-tech.org

#SpeakingOutOfPlace welcomes Sarah T. Roberts

topics
⦁"the hidden humans behind #ArtificialIntelligence" & #AI's dependence on hyperexploited outsourced #labour
⦁#DOGE, "an emblem of how #SiliconValley executives have embraced a brand of #tech rapture that disdains and destroys democracy and attacks the idea that people can take care of each other"

https://speakingoutofplace.buzzsprout.com/2084729/episodes/16761835-the-hidden-humans-behind-artificial-intelligence-and-the-sociopathology-of-elon-musk-a-conversation-with-sarah-t-roberts
#BigTech #techWorkers #Musk #cyberlibertarianism #technosolutionism #USpol #USpolitics #SiliconValleyRight #DOGEbags

The State of Personal Online Security and Confidentiality | SXSW LIVE

By @Mer__edith , President Signal Foundation

A brilliant discussion on Signal, human rights, surveillance, and security.

#FOSS is the great accomplice of #BigTech dominance, by not considering its impact on society and by generally not being produced sustainably. FOSS does not defend its market position, dumping itself on the market and leaving the rest to chance. The vultures know how to make good use of this. FOSS does not worry whether its customer segment - the #Commons - is reached, and evil players are kept out.

Big tech manages to win through ‘free’ in their delivery model, where FOSS sees itself losing.

Pinterest changes TOS to allow AI training on your data

This must be important because notifications were sent on a Saturday morning.

Pinterest pre-checked the selection box to "use your data to train Pinterest Canvas"

This is NOT consent.

Settings > Privacy and Data > GenAI [uncheck]
(you can also delete your account there)

https://futurism.com/pinterest-data-photos-train-ai

Complaining about enshittification does belie a certain lack of awareness of always having been swimming in shit.

Heres why I think #bigtech is so scared. They've given us 20 years of products that simply replaced existing products, and the result is far worse. For the most part, outside the cell phone, they havent actually given us anything new. Their products supposedly were cheaper and faster. The first benefit was an outright lie - always was - and faster is certainly debatable at this point and its only getting worse. They sure as hell arent safer: think about the number of scams we now have to avoid. Add in the minor detail of their supporting the creation of a totalitarian state. But dont worry, their new device is 3% faster and uses 'AI' to generate emojis. Also you have to add 5 new subscriptions to make it functional and they will brick it in four years. 'Check out the new phone: comes with fascism pre-installed'.

BigTech keeps pumping heroin into our veins hoping that we never sober up. But the thing is, their heroin is losing its potency. The public sees straight through 'AI', the ultimate grift. They are in a race against time to replace as many of us with 'AI' before enough of us realize how shit this version of reality is. Once you get used to avoiding netflix, spotify, amazon, google, facebook, apple, microsoft, you lose the drive to try them again because the alternatives are entirely workable and dont come with the massive downsides. These companies have strong armed our entire economy into funneling everything through them. BigTech is scared because alternatives exist, and have always existed, and once the public goes back, its going to be much harder to sell us on technological grift a second time. Our economy is far more vulnerable now with it adoption. Now, whatever benefit we may have had through their advancements has been traded in for the loss of rights and dignity, on top of economic collapse. #SolarPunk #Luddism #uspol

Hello #fediverse :
How about a #fediverse #onlineshop #platform ?
That would, once for all time, make small and medium companies independent from #bigtech .
Let´s that sink in.
#unplugtrump #unitedeurope #freedom

I always love a good initiative that circumvents or limits big-techs' horrible monopolism and arrogance and abuse of patents, copy-rights and whatever laws and rules that are never there to protect YOU, but always to protect capital!

So...

Get honest answers to the questions that have been bugging you about technology. And get to know how the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) fights every day to make sure your rights follow you into the digital world.
Ever wondered...

Why is it so expensive to repair my devices?
Can the government read my text messages?
Is my phone listening to me?
Do I really own the digital media I bought?
Why is printer ink so expensive?

https://www.digitalrightsbytes.org/

#capitalism #monopoly technology #BigTech #copyright #patents #CrashCourse