James Mullarkey @jamesmullarkey@w3c.social

Amazon has unsafe products on its digital shelves. That needs to change.

One place to start? Mandate privacy policies for *all* internet-connected devices for sale on the platform.

Sound smart? Sign Mozilla's petition to Amazon: https://t.co/SGlQEjZHvc tweeted by @mozilla

Just to follow up on the recent post about ethical phone makers @Fairphone , a number of people asked if there was a more ethical OS on it too.

Fairphone comes with stock Google Android by default, but
Fairphone also make their own de-googlised version of Android called Fairphone Open:

https://code.fairphone.com

It doesn't come with the Fairphone by default, but because it's provided by Fairphone themselves it's relatively easy to install:

https://code.fairphone.com/projects/fp-osos/user/fairphone-open-source-os-installation-instructions.html

#Fairphone #Android

@Gargron

Startups like Uber etc pretend they are gaining customers through innovation, but all they are really doing is buying market share by providing artificially cheap services, so they can run rivals off the road. When rivals disappear, prices go up.

Stable companies with sustainable business models that treat their employees well are being unfairly squeezed out of the market, unless they too start screwing workers and throwing money away. (See also Amazon and their pee bottles.)

Yikes. "The fingerprints of over 1 million people, as well as facial recognition information... was discovered on a publicly accessible database for a company used by the likes of the UK Metropolitan police, defence contractors and banks." https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/aug/14/major-breach-found-in-biometrics-system-used-by-banks-uk-police-and-defence-firms

📢🎁 Hi /e/ supporters and users!
Today, we announce the first release of /e/OS "Pie" on two smartphones!
- OnePlus 6 "enchilada"
- Google Pixel "sailfish"
Download, test and report your experience!
https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/wiki/en/wikis/devices-list

"These startups aim to smash Apple and Google’s smartphone duopoly"
With /e/OS and Librem ^^
#Android
#ungoogled
#OpenSource
#privacy
https://www.fastcompany.com/90385283/these-startups-aim-to-smash-apple-and-googles-smartphone-duopoly

An official report for the Dutch government concluded:

“(Microsoft Office) systematically collects data on a large scale ... covertly, without informing people. … Microsoft does not offer any choice with regard to the amount of data, or possibility to switch off the collection.”

Don't use Microsoft Office, use LibreOffice instead 👍

It's free, open and you can get it here:

https://libreoffice.org

You can follow them on here:

@libreoffice

#MicrosoftOffice #Alternatives #LibreOffice

All of these are worse than useless because they're glorified #surveillance devices https://www.iottechtrends.com/useless-smart-home-devices/ #surveillancecapitalism preying on gullibility

Data brokers like @Acxiom need to be investigated! That's why we've written to @DamianCollins & the DCMS committee

#TheGreatHack
https://privacyinternational.org/advocacy/3107/letter-dcms-sub-committee-disinformation-data-brokers-need-be-investigated https://twitter.com/privacyint/status/1157358093405171718

Time for #FollowFriday ⌚ 🍩 ☕

🔍 @exodus Exodus Privacy: Analysing privacy of Android apps

📚 @libreture Libreture: Online ecosystem for DRM-free eBooks, incl. storage and bookshop list

📝 @dev Microblog.pub: Lightweight single user ActivityPub blogging system

⛏️ @Minetest Minetest: Free open alternative to Minecraft

🍿 @ScreenTestOfTime Screen Test of Time: Podcast discussing every film nominated for Best Picture Oscar in order

Previous Follow Friday posts:
https://mastodon.at/@switchingsocial/tagged/followfriday

#FF #FFed

Another day, another time that Facebook admits to stealing all your data, even supposed encryption in WhatsApp is worth nothing if they download your chats in an unencrypted fashion back to their servers. Stop using their shit. Please! There are alternatives. Get rid of it. Everything. They'll never learn if people don't make them. Please don't use Instagram, don't use WhatsApp, don't use Facebook. It's much worse for you than you might want to imagine.

@switchingsocial
I would recommand you this, alternatives are mentioned too!
https://kevv.net/you-probably-dont-need-recaptcha/

The Verge wrote a piece about Mastodon and Gab. There’s also a paragraph in there about what I had to say about this whole thing. Give it a read if you’ve got a few minutes to spare.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/12/20691957/mastodon-decentralized-social-network-gab-migration-fediverse-app-blocking

“@DuckDuckGo is a poster child for a future in which companies stand with their users and still make money...They counter the assumption that we’ve all been socialized to accept: that it is normal to hand over all your information." - EFF's @jenuhhveev https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/15/technology/duckduckgo-private-search.html