This a a friendly PSA, if you haven't done so already, or if you want to double check your data privacy setting in Ebay......................................

Link: https ://accountsettings.ebay.com/ai-preferences (or go to: My eBay>Account>Opt-out from training of generative AI models)

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personal data may be used to train our generative artificial intelligence (AI) models for the purposes outlined in our User Privacy Notice, with the exception of those aimed at preventing fraud and abuse on the platform.

The use of personal data for the training of generative AI models is based on our legitimate interest to achieve the objectives outlined under “eBay and AI” in section 9 of our User Privacy Notice.

If you do not want your personal data to be used for generative AI model training, you can opt out of processing for those purposes at any time by setting the toggle below to “Off”.

This setting can be changed at any time by revisiting this page.

Use personal data for training of generative AI models (to opt out toggle left)

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(Bonus): If you want to delete ebay data, here is the link (if you don't have an ebay account, but used their website to purchase, you can also delete that data as well--as "guest"):

https ://www.ebayinc.com/company/privacy-center/privacy-contact/

In testimony before the Commons Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport Committee, Ofcom admitted it knows its jurisdiction ends where a foreign court’s jurisdiction begins.

Because the governments can't fuck off, chatgpt is now censored. They REQUIRE your ID. Any bypasses to this? I've completed the face thing, just gotta ID sorted, but I'm not giving them something that has my fucking house address and personal information on it. I'm aussie, if that helps.

I saw a reddit post about a guy with his motorcycle and backpack and Googled about the backpack brand to see if they still sold that model. After a few minutes, I figured they didn't and left it at that. A few hours later I go on Instagram and one of the first ads I see is about the brand I just looked up. I had never heard or googled about this brand before today and now Instagram is showing me ads for it. How was Instagram able to find out I looked this brand up? Is there any way to prevent this or are we doomed to just be harvested for data?

So I made the switch to Signal from Whatsapp quite some time ago, and I am thinking of donating to support them. But before I do I want to make sure that it is actually as advertised, and that I am not throwing money at a lie. So how private is Signal really?

Rutgers purchased $1.5 million in software capable of recognizing faces, reading license plates and identifying and tracking people across campus. Students, faculty and staff are now pushing back, saying they weren’t informed about the purchase.

The technology can potentially track not only students, but employees, visitors and others who enter a Rutgers campus. The purchase was not publicly announced and did not go before the university’s governing board.

I have location tracking turned off completely on the system and browser level. Yet, DuckDuckGo is still using my IP address to estimate where I live. Even worse, I’ve manually set DuckDuckGo to a completely different country, and I still get localized results.

It’s already annoying enough that the first 6-7 results are ads, but why do they have to aggressively push my location into searches I never asked for?

I find it extremely invasive to have location tailored results forced into my searches. Examples include local stores/restaurants and government websites. These are usually completely irrelevant to my query.

For instance, imagine trying to figure out how to do something complex in Excel. Because of the technical nature of the topic, you usually have to dig a few pages deep to find a real solution. But on page one, you're greeted with results on how to sign up for your local public library. It’s useless and feels creepy.

Here’s a very comment from someone else:

"If I search "rust crate for newspaper scanning" (without quotes), the results I get is a couple of github projects (fine), maybe some dev articles (also fine), some other bad rust link (also fine) and a bunch of "newspaper MYCITYNAME" results (not fine). Maybe the location might just be used to rank up some of the results (e.g. there are a ton of city newspapers), but that's not quite how it feels like. I suspect the ranking logic might be pulling the local results higher due to the extra matching term (i.e. location) even when the location might be irrelevant.

My issue isn't so much about DDG leaking my location, but about stuffing search terms (i.e. my location) in the search query and using those terms to rank up results. Most of the time, if I don't include a location in the search terms, I don't want that location in the search or to bear any weight in the result ranking. If that yields empty or random results, that would be fine. When you see your city name in a series of irrelevant consecutive results, it does get creepy."

My issue isn't just about DDG leaking my location, it's about the search engine implicitly stuffing location terms into my query and using them to boost ranking. If I don't include a location in my search terms, I don't want that location factored into the results. If that yields fewer or broader results, that’s fine. But seeing your city name pop up across a series of irrelevant, consecutive results feels invasive.

There are so many cases like this where I look for something completely generic, like "bread", and the top results dox me, showing ads for local bread places, sometimes even throwing up a map of my exact neighborhood.

Can this be stopped?

Is there a way to completely disable this behavior on DuckDuckGo, or are alternatives like Startpage or Brave Search actually better at respecting privacy and keeping local bias out of technical queries?

Hear me out. I've had ebay for like 2 decades and I'm slightly uncomfortable with it having a massive list of everything I've bought and sold on it (even though obvs it's all legal). Could I simply close it down, wait a short while then sign up again with a different email address to start new?

I don't really care much for all the positive feedback I've built since I only buy now and have no interest in selling anything.

There are people around me who buy phones with AI integrated software, to which they give verbal commands to do actions on their phone. The issue is that their microphone is always on, and they pick everything talked around the phone.

This feels invasive as hell, and it's awkward to tell people to disable these functions, including the fact that they are not tech oriented in the first place. But, even if they disabled it, there is no guarantee that it still isn't using the microphone in some capacity.

Are there any viable methods to mask my voice without actually putting a mask on? I mean more like an app or a device (that is not harmful to the body and/or ears).

Meta and Sierra are backing something called the Personal Agent Protocol (Poppy). It's supposed to create a standard for how personal AI agents interact with websites and businesses.

Sounds reasonable at first. But I was reading through the specification and some of the details seem pretty concerning from a privacy standpoint.

1. Websites can block AI agents they don't like

Section 4.1 allows companies to maintain lists of approved and blocked agents.

Sure there's a security argument for this. Nobody wants malicious bots accessing their systems.

But what happens when someone builds an independent AI agent that helps users find better deals or cancel subscriptions? A company could decide that agent isn't welcome.

It's a bit strange that something designed to represent the user could end up needing permission from the very company it's dealing with.

2. Your AI agent could be handling your actual passwords

Section 4.7 includes an optional sign in process where users give their credentials to an AI agent which then passes them to the company.

There are safeguards described in the protocol. Still seems like a weird direction to take when we've spent years telling people not to share their passwords.

Giving an AI agent limited account permissions makes much more sense than teaching people to hand over their login details.

3. Persistent tracking could become part of the system

The protocol supports stable identifiers that allow businesses to recognize returning users even before a normal login. It also supports access that can remain active over time.

That's convenient for certain tasks. It's also the sort of thing that could make tracking people across interactions much easier.

We've already seen how cookies and advertising IDs turned seemingly harmless features into massive tracking systems.

I'd rather see clear limits on what gets stored and how long access lasts before this becomes widely adopted.

4. The people writing the rules matter too

Meta and Sierra are involved in developing the protocol. The public feedback process even directs people to a Sierra email address.

I'm not saying that automatically makes the standard bad. But if this becomes a major part of how people interact with the internet then independent developers and privacy researchers should have a meaningful say in how it works.

Especially when the whole point of a personal AI agent is that it should work for the person using it.

The bigger issue for me is who actually has control.

If I choose an AI agent to help manage my accounts or deal with businesses then I should have the final say over what it can do and what information it shares.

Companies need ways to protect their systems. That shouldn't automatically mean they get to decide which tools consumers are allowed to use.

And any system that makes it easier to identify users across interactions deserves scrutiny before it becomes an internet standard.

I'm not suggesting the protocol is intentionally designed for surveillance. There are legitimate reasons for some of these features. But we've seen enough supposedly convenient technology turn into tracking infrastructure to know that privacy protections shouldn't be an afterthought.

I'd be interested to hear what people working on open source or locally hosted AI agents think about this. The technical tradeoffs matter but so does making sure users don't lose control of their own tools.

Full specification: https://personalagentprotocol.org/docs/spec

I ask this cause currently Norway is planning on drafting a social media ban legislation bill.

Which won't be finalized until the end of this year before we know what the bill name and it's bill numbers are.

Obviously it's concerning that it's happening in general.

But hopefully others are aware of what's going on here.

Edit:Just want to clarify here a little bit what I mean when I said what I said above here.

I said the "but hopefully others are aware of what's going on here" comment because I wanted to bring this situation and question up regarding Norway's social media ban. And to discuss the negatives about it has on privacy here too. That's all.

Just want to clarify that point here.

Edit#2: Just to also clarify my angle here. want to look at this strictly through a privacy lens. Norway is forcing platforms to enforce an under-16 ban. From a data-tracking perspective, how dangerous is it to let tech giants dictate the age-verification standard? Is there any way for a state to mandate this without creating a massive biometrics or digital ID surveillance honeypot for everyone?

Edit#3: Just want to add this link to a source that will help provide further informations about Norway's social media ban draft plan here:

Link to source here.

Always has been.

But for real, this month alone i got two emails from two different services saying their third-party service got unauthorized access to the customer database and all the info related got extracted.

First was a recent hotel booking i made, where scammers got info on name, address, contact number and BOOKING DATES, where scammers could make less tech-savvy clients get phished if they did it clean. They didn’t get me because their WhatsApp profile was botched.

Second was a freaking motorcycle rental company which I used a year ago. Most likely they leaked my driver’s license info plus all the usual data you provide.

Multiply every service you use throughout the whole holidays for 5 years (under GDPR law) that they can mantain data about you and how they can get phished any second of any day and you might aswell just expose your personal data yourself and save the hassle.

I just installed both of them, and was using NewPipe before. I'd like to ask you guys which do you prefer!

I got this idea. I think I have sort of hairy hands, and I was about to take a picture of my hand and ask on reddit. Then it got me thinking, do I immediately get doxed if I do that? Like is it very easy right now to use it to cross check images from insta etc?

You may have heard about the recent change to Google search results page where actual result URLs are replaced with encrypted strings. Those need to go through a Google server to resolve to the actual URL.

This means that:

1. Google now tracks all the links you click on search results page and there's no way around it,

2. Google also tracks you cross-site if you copy a result link and someone clicks on it, thus being able to associate your social connections with other people outside of Google services

3. You can no longer see the actual URL of a search result, which means spoofing legitimate websites has become very easy.

If the EU chooses to fully embrace digital sovereignty, it will result in a financial drain ranging from 35 billion to 233 billion euros. At least, that is what a report by the Brussels-based think tank ECIPE—funded by CCIA Europe—claims. The CCIA is a lobbying group comprising American cloud giants, including Amazon, Meta, and Google.