For current political commentary, see the daily political notes.
Around 2011, Google Maps worked without running Javascript code. Then something broke: the page worked fine except that the map did not appear.
Nowadays, nothing whatsoever appears if Javascript is disabled.
For my own freedom's sake, I do not run the nonfree Javascript software sent by Youtube. I advise you to refuse likewise; what's directly at stake is your own freedom.
For the sake of everyone else's freedom, it is my duty not to post anything on Youtube, or refer people to anything on Youtube. Although it is true that they could bypass the problem by running youtube-dl, I expect most users would view the Youtube page in their browsers with nonfree software, and I don't want to send people in that direcion.
You can post an audio or video file on your own web site. Just put up the WebM file and link to it as if it were an ordinary page. All browsers can handle that.
The ad-blocker is proprietary software, just like the program (Google Play) that Google used to deny access to install it. I would refuse to have either of them on my computer. Using a nonfree program gives the owner power over you, and Google has exercised that power.
Google has found a way to track most credit card purchases in the US, even those not done through a phone, and correlate that with people's online actions.
Google can't do either side to me, since I pay cash and don't carry a mobile phone, and it doesn't know what web sites I look at.
Google Play sends app developers the personal details of users that install the app.
Merely asking users' "consent" for this is not enough to legitimize it. We know that most users have given up on reading just what they are "consenting" to, and the reason is that they are accustomed to being told, "If you want to use this service, you must consent to blah blah blah."
To truly protect people's privacy, we must stop Google from getting this personal information in the first place!
Google stores a huge amount of data on each user. This can include, in addition to the user's search history and advertising profile:
Facebook and Google joined with ISPs to defeat a privacy initiative in California.
It should be illegal to put any "terms of service" on a physical product. It should also be illegal to close an account on a service without letting the user download whatever was stored there.
These events provide another reason why schools must never ask a student to use a service account linked to the student's name.
This will help the illiberal Pakistani state suppress dissent.
Google is deleting porn artists' porn videos from their own private accounts, quietly and mysteriously.
Never trust a remote storage company to keep anything but a spare backup copy. When you store that, put your files into an archive and encrypt it so that the company can't tell what's in them -- not even their file names.
Support is growing for reverting US antitrust law to what it was before Reagan weakened it. That is why Google is using its influence to weaken those that campaign against this.
How I Got Fired From a D.C. Think Tank for Fighting Against the Power of Google.
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