It all speaks to scale: the attorney generals of 40 states within the US clubbing together to charge Google for misleading users. On this occasion, the conduct focused on making users assume they had turned off the location tracking function on their accounts even as the company continued harvesting data about them. The $391.5 billion settlement was spearheaded by Oregon[Read More…]
“We are anonymous because we fear retaliation.” This sentence was part of a letter signed by 500 Google employees last October, in which they decried their company’s direct support for the Israeli government and military. In their letter, the signatories protested a $1.2 billion contract between Google, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the Israeli government which provides cloud services for[Read More…]
A French privacy watchdog accused the tech giants Google and Facebook of making it difficult for users to opt out of tracking their activity. France’s online privacy regulator has ordered Google and Facebook to cough up some €210 million ($237 million) between them, fining the firms for their questionable use of data-tracking ‘cookies’ on their sites. A report by The[Read More…]
Read my letter to Sundar Pichai, go to Google Scholar, and raise your voice against Google’s unscrupulous and unscholarly ride on all of us for commerce and greed. Dear Sundar, I have been getting emails from Google reminding me “Time to update your articles”. Least said, such emails with no provision for replying are scandalous (scholarcitations-noreply@google.com), and against professional civility[Read More…]
In Feb this year, the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Govt. of India issued guidelines for acquiring and producing geospatial data and geospatial data services including maps. It is said that through this, the government has significantly liberalised the erstwhile licensing policy to boost self-reliance on mapping technologies amid growing competence and in view of ‘Aatmnirbhar Bharat’. Under the[Read More…]
It’s looking a touch quixotic, but the News Media Bargaining Code has become Australia’s weapon of choice in attempting to redistribute proceeds from big tech into the coffers of a withering fourth estate. It has now reached a point of sufficient concern for Google as to become threatening, winding its way to a Senate Committee Inquiry before going to Parliament[Read More…]
“Ambition is the subtlest Beast of the Intellectual and Moral Field,” wrote John Adams to his son, John Quincy Adams, in January, 1794. “It is wonderfully adroit in concealing itself from its owner.” Father Adams was thinking of Thomas Jefferson in penning these words, that sly devil of a man who sought to gain power while falsely claiming to eschew[Read More…]
Tech giants tend to cast thin veils over threats regarding government regulations. They are also particularly concerned by those more public spirited ones, the sort supposedly made for the broader interest. Google has given us an example of this in an open letter published on August 17 to all Australians – the generosity that comes with transparency – that does[Read More…]
Silicon Valley continues to sprawl in influence, and its modern robber barons bestride the globe with a confidence verging on contempt. The technology giants that mark that region of California are praised as “virtuosos of ingenuity,” to use Steve Forbes’ words, “creating and supplying products and services that were once unimaginable and that have been enabling us to survive the[Read More…]
Belief in Google’s promises is much like believing in virgin births. For a company so proud of its pursuit of a transparent information environment, it has remained committedly opaque about informing customers on the way it gathers user data. Statements from the company over the years have not been reassuring, and should foster prolonged scepticism and dread. “Google policy,” former[Read More…]
“Eventually you’ll have the implant, where if you think about a fact, it will just tell you an answer.” Larry Page, co-founder of Google The Verge starts with a statement that has become commonplace, the compulsory nod to power one has come to expect when engaged with that whole mammoth enterprise known as Google. “No technology company is arguably[Read More…]
“Google’s practices have deprived millions of European consumers of the full benefits of competition, genuine choice and innovation.” Margrethe Vestager, June 28, 2017 Google, for some time, has been the leviathan of the tech world. A KQED radio discussion on a Tuesday morning treats the company as a creator and dispenser: creator of transport infrastructure, funnelling employees from the city[Read More…]
France’s Global Warming Predicament 
The Spark 
Vanishing of Many Stretches of Aravalli Hills Will Prove Very Costly 
The End of Title 42 and the Triumph of the Border-Industrial Complex 
A New Direction for the World Bank? 
Conspiracy! Whose Conspiracy? 
Wrestlers’ struggle for justice : Will it endure? 
‘Digital India Bill’: Some things to worry about 
Electricity wasted in Mumbai as energy supply is cut off for hours in towns 
Samalkha Nestle Workers Union stage protest against preventing formation of Union 
Odisha rail accident- BSNL’s commendable performance- Should India diminish its public sector, allow private oligarchs to profiteer? 
Wildfire Smoke Chokes Canada and Eastern US 
Terracidal But Ignored Carbon Debt From Gas Exploitation By The World & Climate Criminal Australia 
China and Palestine: No To ‘Piecemeal Crisis Management’ 
Can China and the United States Establish Mutual Respect to Lessen Tensions? 
How Empire Fabricates Atrocities 
For Balanced Progress, Indian Railways Must Get Their Priorities Right 
Determining Scheduled Area: An Update 
The new Parliament house may be dangerously undemocratic 
Ranajit Guha: A duality of literature and history 
DIPAM’s hasty moves to disinvest the government’s residual share in HZL highly imprudent and against the public interest 
A Climate of Betrayal 
Deserving Each Other: The PGA Tour-LIV Golf Merger 
The World Economy Is Changing—the People Know, but Their Leaders Don’t 
Tribute to Chris Hani on 30th martyrdom Anniversary 
Proper Treatment of Rail Accident Victims Demands Long-term Commitment and Support 
What the Kailasa Con Job Reveals About the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh Release activists incarcerated in Bhima Koregaon Case 
The writing is on the wall: Farmers warn Parliamentarians 
The End Stage of American Empire 
End the culture of impunity and arrest accused Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh now 
Brasilia summit: Lula and Maduro reboot regional integration 
Steaming Ahead: Sikkim’s First Rail Project to Boost Connectivity by 2024 
Five years behind bars for five activists 
Five Years Since The First Arrests In Bhima-Koregaon Case 
Diluted Sovereignty: A Very Australian Example 
Conflict, Migration, and Demography in Russia and Its Border Regions 
Railway Safety Has Been Short of Funds, Needs Early Increase 
Notes on two recent sensations 
A shocking picture of health apathy….. 
Our beloved K.P.Sasi is no more. Filmmaker, cartoonist, writer, mentor, friend and above all tireless activist championing the cause of every underdog, Sasi breathed his last, mid-afternoon this Christmas day – after battling a medical condition for months. I remember the last time I met him, almost exactly a month before he passed away, at the ayurvedic healing center in[Read More…]
