Tootfinder

How an open-source approach helped DeepSeek and other Chinese AI companies; Hugging Face: Alibaba's Qwen is now the world's largest open-source AI ecosystem (South China Morning Post)
https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article

How open-source AI is helping China win hearts and market share
China’s free-for-all AI models, developed by firms like DeepSeek and Alibaba, present a viable alternative to US closed-source systems.

Investigation: healthcare exchanges in Nevada, Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island share sensitive data with Google, LinkedIn, and Snapchat via web trackers (The Markup)
https://themarkup.org/pixel-hunt/2025/06/17/w…

We caught 4 more states sharing personal health data with Big Tech – The Markup
Healthcare exchanges in Nevada, Maine, Massachusetts and Rhode Island shared users’ sensitive health data with companies like Google and LinkedIn

A human writer reads books to learn how to tell its own human story. AI reads books to tell its own AI story, but Big Tech monetises it and a human claims it as their own, is what the actual double crime is.
Author David Baldacci on Big Tech AI Copyright
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fPUWSv2JCI…

Sky, ITV, and Channel 4 plan to provide streaming ad space in one marketplace, letting advertisers run campaigns simultaneously, to combat Google and Meta (Mark Sweney/The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/jun

Full protest drag. Amazing crowd in Grass Valley, twice as big as April.

Big Tech quietly sponsors Trump’s military parade party
#resist

Big Tech quietly sponsors Trump’s military parade party
Though big tech companies have downplayed their involvement in funding this weekend’s military parade, the event’s organizer, America250, has released statements confirming involvement from Amazon, Palantir and Oracle.

Een interview met Meredith Whittaker, u leze het:
https://www.volkskrant.nl/tech/strijden-tegen-de-giftige-business-van-big-tech-kan-wel-degelijk-aldus-signal-baas-meredith-whittaker~ba79745f/

Strijden tegen de ‘giftige’ business van big tech kan wel degelijk, aldus Signal-baas Meredith Whittaker
Zelfs Meredith Whittaker, de baas van het privacyvriendelijke Signal, gebruikt nog steeds de ‘giftige’ apps van big tech. Krampachtig proberen daaraan te ontsnappen, is volgens haar niet de oplossing. Hoe strijdt ze dan wel tegen wat zij het ‘surveillance-kapitalisme’ noemt?

A look at the lack of consensus in the tech industry on what AGI is, whether LLMs are the best path to it, and what AGI might look like if or when it arrives (Melissa Heikkilä/Financial Times)

Why Big Tech cannot agree on artificial general intelligence
It has been tipped as the next big breakthrough out of Silicon Valley, but is it a scientific goal — or a marketing buzzword?

Under Trump 2.0,
US statecraft is starting to mimic
the worst tendencies of Big Tech.
https://www.wired.com/story/enshittification-of-american-power/

The Enshittification of American Power
First Google and Facebook, then the world. Under Trump 2.0, US statecraft is starting to mimic the worst tendencies of Big Tech.

https://www.theverge.com/policy/685690/big-tech-trump-military-parade-america250

Denmark's Agency for Digital Government has announced plans to phase out Microsoft software across its offices in favour of open source alternatives, joining a growing European movement challenging the dominance of American tech giants.
https://www.co…

Denmark to replace Microsoft Office with open source alternatives
German state of Schleswig-Holstein also turns its back on Microsoft as Europeans fear being ‘blackmailed’ by Big Tech

"KI für Bürger": Mistral AI bezieht Stellung gegen Big Tech
Der französische KI-Hersteller Mistral will KI bürgerfreundlicher machen und sieht gleichzeitig Probleme beim Ansatz großer Tech-Konzerne.

Big Tech stumbles into a big brawl over C-SPAN's streaming future (Paul Kane/Washington Post)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/06/12/big-tech-stumbles-into-big-brawl-over-c-spans-streaming-future/
http://www.memeorandum.com/250612/p9#a250612p9

On Website Technicals (2020-12) - Tech updates: vignette ads, year-end to-dos, Big Sur and FTDI, half traffic, time travel, 20/20. - https://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-site-technicals-43.html

On Website Technicals (2020-12)
Tech updates: vignette ads, year-end to-dos, Big Sur and FTDI, half traffic, time travel, 20/20.

So what I learned from the recent Google outage, is how much of a cirklejerk "big tech" actually is.
Google did a fucky wucky... Which caused Cloudflare to go belly up, Shopify to go belly up, Spotify to go belly up...
Imagine having given *one* company having so much power that, if they make a mistake somewhere, half the internet is gone.
So if you self-host, make sure to see how your dependency chain is.
How much places can make a mistake that can knock you …

AI tools are already helping marginalized communities daily - translations, image descriptions, text simplification.
You can/should hate Big Tech while recognizing real impacts - anything else isn't meaningful discourse.
#AI #CCC

Sky, ITV, and Channel 4 plan to provide streaming ad space in one marketplace, letting advertisers run campaigns simultaneously, to combat Google and Meta (Mark Sweney/The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/jun

Weg bij big tech, Volkskrantredacteur poogt een maand te leven zoals ik (poog :blobcateyes: 😂)
https://archive.ph/p6WEN

The US taxpayer is going to be on the hook for all the soldiers, tanks, and planes that appear in Donald Trump’s military parade.
But several major tech companies are paying for the festivities along the parade route.
According to recent statements from America250, #Oracle, #Amazon,

Big Tech quietly sponsors Trump’s military parade party
Though big tech companies have downplayed their involvement in funding this weekend’s military parade, the event’s organizer, America250, has released statements confirming involvement from Amazon, Palantir and Oracle.

Big Tech acquihiring AI startups, like Meta's Scale AI deal, gives VCs only modest returns compared to traditional exits and may entrench Big Tech's dominance (Parmy Olson/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles

Meta, Google AI Talent Grab May Spur a Silicon Valley Rethink
Meta and Google’s AI talent grab may lead to more sustainable tech companies.

Früher stand das Silicon Valley für Innovation und Freiheit, heute zerstören Tech-Giganten die Demokratie. Die ehemalige EU-Abgeordnete Marietje Schaake kämpft gegen den zunehmenden Einfluss der Tech-Konzerne auf Politik. Sie warnt Medien davor, sich von Big Tech abhängig zu machen – und hofft auf einen Journalismus, der nicht länger auf die Narrative der Tech-Giganten hereinfällt.

Marietje Schaake: „Medien machen sich von mächtigen…
Marietje Schaake warnt im journalist-Interview Medien davor, sich von großen Tech Unternehmen abhängig zu machen.

If I were a cynic I'd just start some AI-company with a fancy website and big promises hoping to get bought up in tech's brainless acquisition spree.

Capitalism − Big Tech − single points of failure https://mas.to/@nemo/114676003248609889

Weekend Reads
* PQC for the RPKI https://labs.ripe.net/author/dirk/pqc-for-the-rpki/
* Big tech in Taiwan https://

PQC for the RPKI
Future capabilities of quantum attackers will present a host of new vulnerabilities for RPKI. A research student from SIDN Labs presents the first work on post-quantum cryptography for the RPKI, establishing the foundation for making this critical Internet infrastructure quantum-safe.

Die „One Big Beautiful Bill“ will US-Bundesstaaten zehn Jahre lang jegliche KI-Regulierung verbieten. Laut FAZ ist das ein Freifahrtschein für Big Tech – Verbraucherrechte und Datenschutz bleiben auf der Strecke. Kritiker warnen vor Machtmissbrauch und Kontrollverlust #FAZ (€) #KI

Technologiebranche unter Trump: Zehn Jahre keine KI-Regulierung?
Trumps geplantes Steuergesetz enthält auch ein Moratorium für KI-Vorschriften in den USA. Demnach dürfte es in den USA kaum Regulierung auf dem Gebiet der Künstlichen Intelligenz geben. Doch es bildet sich Widerstand.

Welcome to Berlin Buzzwords 2025! 
Be sure not to miss our keynote speaker, @…, who will be giving a talk on „Unpacking Digital Sovereignty: How to avoid fueling the nationalist rise," which commences at 9:35 am at stage Kesselhaus.
 
Learn more:

Unpacking Digital Sovereignty: How to avoid fueling the nationalist rise
With the new ruling coalition of Trump, Musk and Big Tech, European digital sovereignty seems to be the widely accepted solution to break free from US companies that are used to threaten European governments. The EU is reviving industrial policy and is willing to invest a lot of money into digital sovereignty - but which problems exactly should it address, and what should be part of the solution? This talk shows that digital sovereignty is prone to open the door to a nationalist agenda which fa…

Spouse (a psychotherapist) was forwarded this paper
https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.18412
> Expressing stigma and inappropriate responses prevents LLMs from safely replacing mental health providers
which has caused us to spend a big chunk of after dinner lounging alternating among incredulous…

Expressing stigma and inappropriate responses prevents LLMs from safely replacing mental health providers
Should a large language model (LLM) be used as a therapist? In this paper, we investigate the use of LLMs to *replace* mental health providers, a use case promoted in the tech startup and research space. We conduct a mapping review of therapy guides used by major medical institutions to identify crucial aspects of therapeutic relationships, such as the importance of a therapeutic alliance between therapist and client. We then assess the ability of LLMs to reproduce and adhere to these aspects o…

Sources: lobbyists for Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta back a campaign for a 10-year US state AI regulation ban, a move dividing the AI industry and the GOP (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/52ae52f1-531e-462f-898f-e9f86b3b1869

Big Tech pushes for 10-year ban on US states regulating AI
Call by Amazon, Google and Microsoft lobbyists for a ‘moratorium’ has split industry and the Republican party

The Enshittification of American Power
First Google and Facebook, then the world. Under Trump 2.0, US statecraft is starting to mimic the worst tendencies of Big Tech.
https://www.wired.com/story/enshittification-of-american-power/

The Enshittification of American Power
First Google and Facebook, then the world. Under Trump 2.0, US statecraft is starting to mimic the worst tendencies of Big Tech.

Why Big Tech Turned Against Democrats — and Democracy https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/why-big-tech-turned-against-democrats

Digital sovereignty can’t be bargained away. The European Commission has tools, public support and a mandate to act on Big Tech. Trading that away for short-term calm would be a costly mistake.
https://www.politico.eu/article/digital-sovereignty-us-br…

Digital sovereignty can’t be bargained away
The European Commission has tools, public support and a mandate to act on Big Tech. Trading that away for short-term calm would be a costly mistake.

This is the Rock House on the Obey River at Camp Country Lad in Tennessee. I learned some courage there as a boy, getting up the nerve to jump off the Big Rock on the left.

Dass die Kantone und der Bund danach lechzen, unsere Daten zu ausländischen Cloudprovidern zu schicken, das ist ja schon länger ein Thema, nicht nur bei DNIP.
https://dnip.ch/2025/05/21/der-microso

https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1116327/ai-energy-usage-climate-footprint-big-tech/

We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard.
The emissions from individual AI text, image, and video queries seem small—until you add up what the industry isn’t tracking and consider where it’s heading next.

Attorney General Bailey Fights To Expose Big Tech Censorship Of President Trump As AI Chatbots Produce Fake News (AG Bailey/Attorney General Office of Missouri)
https://ago.mo.gov/attorney-general-bailey-fights-to-expose-big-tech-censorship-of-president-trump-as-ai-chatbots-produce-fake-news/
http://www.memeorandum.com/250709/p153#a250709p153

Tips til at undgå amerikansk big-tech. #UnplugTrump #DKIT #BigTech

#UnplugTrump: Free Yourself Digitally from Trump and Big Tech
#UnplugTrump shows how to digitally disconnect from Trump and tech oligarchs – for privacy, democracy, and a fairer digital future.

Reading an article about big tech being “customer zero” for AI, I can’t help but think of this Simpsons episode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CXhRjkgLUQ

EU-Datenmaut: Gegenwind für geplantes Streitbeilegungsverfahren für Peering
Statt einer offenen Big-Tech-Kostenbeteiligung am Netzausbau schwebt der EU-Kommission die Einführung eines Schiedsverfahrens für "IP-Zusammenschaltungen" vor.

Meta’s banning of two anti-Zionist comedians from Instagram is the latest example of Big Tech’s deep anti-Palestinian bias
#meta #facebook #instagram

UK Technology Secretary Peter Kyle addressed his critics head-on at Google Cloud London today.
https://www.computing.co.uk/news/2025/peter-kyle-addresses-big-tech-criticisms

Peter Kyle addresses Big Tech criticisms at Google Cloud London
UK Technology Secretary Peter Kyle addressed his critics head-on at Google Cloud London today.

«As a result, there’s been some speculation that the [Waymo] cars were burned to destroy evidence. There’s likely more to it than that—and that the cars weren’t torched to destroy evidence as much to punish collaborators.»
Speaking of the Zeitgeist about working with big tech. 😁
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-weaponization-of-waymo

@… the hype is I guess so big because one tech has so many different applications. Sometimes it's great ("is this sentence grammatically correct?"), sometimes it's ok ("write me that code") and sometimes it's as awful as google search nowadays due to SEO spam.
For any kind of medical question, even in research mode, in…

'Sovereign AI' is just political branding, signaling to nationalist impulses while continuing to pour money into big tech firms. It's a mask for a sucker's game.
"This reveals a new kind of digital colonialism. Not one where countries are denied access, but one where they are structurally bound into dependencies across every layer of the AI stack. A European lab may host its own weights on a data center in France, but that center runs on American hardware, software…

‘Sovereign AI’ is political branding. The reality is closer to digital colonialism
The harder nations push for AI independence, the deeper their dependencies become.

A look at how Big Tech is faring in the Trump administration in terms of their executives' ties with Trump, contracts, antitrust cases, tariffs, and more (Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/tech/trump-tech-executives…

"These meetings are distracting me from the work."
The meetings are the work. Sorry.
The fact that your org doesn't value meetings and doesn't put any effort into making them more effective is a symptom of a broader pattern of ignoring feminized "glue work" in favor of Big Masculine Outputs.
Making the work visible is the first step towards making it valued.

The glue is the work
Tech orgs only function thanks to people who volunteer for thankless "glue work." This is the space where UX lives; for the field to get respect we need to make this work visible.

🎶 I hate Big Tech and I cannot lie… 🎶

Even if “AI” worked (it doesn’t), there’s many reasons why you shouldn’t use it:
1. It’s destroying Internet sites that you love as you use chat bots instead of actually going to sources of information—this will cause them to be less active and eventually shut down.
2. Pollution and water use from server farms cause immediate harm; often—just like other heavy industry—these are built in underprivileged communities and harming poor people. Without any benefits as the big tech companies get tax breaks and don’t pay for power, while workers aren’t from the community but commute in.
3. The basic underlying models of any LLM rely on stolen data, even when specific extra data is obtained legally. Chatbots can’t learn to speak English just by reading open source code.
4. You’re fueling a speculation bubble that is costing many people their jobs—because the illusion of “efficiency” is kept up by firing people and counting that as profit.
5. Whenever you use the great cheat machine in the cloud you’re robbing yourself from doing real research, writing or coding—literally atrophying your brain and making you stupider.
It’s a grift, through and through.

Techno-Fascism: It's Bigger Than Elon Musk – Big-Tech Is Watching You!
📺 #fashism

Solid advice for everyone, especially in the age of Big Tech. https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/15218642

It bothers me that so many LLM/genAI applications seem to be all about "now that we have new tool X, what can we do with it" while completely ignoring the question "for problem Y, what is the best tool for the job?"
Perhaps unsurprisingly for developers where we have strong evidence of poor ethics (e.g., uncritically using big-brand LLMs), I suspect that many of the people behind these systems care more about the exhiliration of using new tech and the prestige it might bring them than any of the problems they might claim to solve (if they even bother to identify such things at all). Turns out that's a great way to cause a lot of harm in the world, since you likely won't do a good job of measuring outcomes (if you even bother to do so) and you especially won't carefully look for systemic biases or ways your system might unintentionally hurt/exclude people. You also won't be concerned about whether your system ends up displacing efforts that would have led to better solutions.
#AI #GenerativeAI #GenAI #LLM

With Google, Meta, and Amazon developing AI tools for ad campaigns, agencies are under threat, but large brands may still rely on agencies for unique concepts (Patrick Coffee/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/articles…

#unplugtrump
https://kaffeeringe.de/2025/06/23/so-gelingt-die-unabhaengigkeit-von-den-big-tech-plattformen/

Instagram & Co: So gelingt die Unabhängigkeit von den Big-Tech-Plattformen
Das ungute Gefühl bei den großen Plattformen wie TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn & Co. haben viele: Wenn meine Inhalte denen nicht genug Geld bringen, werde ich meine Publikum verlieren. Doch wie entkommt man dieser Abhängigkeit?

Silicon Valley's not crying for Musk (Scott Rosenberg/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2025/06/09/musk-trump-fallout-big-tech
http://www.memeorandum.com/250609/p15#a250609p15

Not to mention that many folks who are regular contributors to #inaturalist are deeply invested into the environment and aren't fans of destroying it using 'GenAI - or that partnering with big-tech that destroys society in addition to nature might be 'a bit' tone-deaf in 2025…

Meituan says daily orders on its instant delivery service surpassed 120M on July 5, setting an all-time high, with food orders accounting for 100M of them (Ann Cao/South China Morning Post)
https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/artic…

Meituan captures record orders as e-commerce war fuels demand for delivery
Daily orders surpassed 120 million on Meituan’s instant delivery service platform on Saturday; Taobao and JD.com also reported good volume.

Denemarken geeft steeds meer tegengas aan Amerikaanse Big Tech. Onlangs hebben zowel het ministerie van Digitalisering als de gemeenten Aarhus en Kopenhagen besloten te stoppen met Microsoft.
https://eerlijkdigitaalonderwijs.nl/deense-scholen-zitten-goed/

Branchenstudie: Pay-TV-Services im "industriellen Maßstab" illegal kopiert
Die Untätigkeit von Big-Tech-Konzernen unterstütze den "Diebstahl" von Premium-Videodiensten wie Live-Sportstreams im großen Stil, heißt es in einer Analyse.

"According to recent statements from #America250, #Oracle, #Amazon, #Coinbase,

“I’m usually fine with surveillance capitalism but this is too much, even for me.”
#surveillance #capitalism #BigTech

Filippo Valsorda :go: (@filippo@abyssdomain.expert)
Attached: 1 image I usually get where big tech is coming from, but this is just malicious tracking. If you're an engineer and you're asked to implement something like this, it's time to whistleblow. I hope the IE DPA will look into it. Anyway, Local Network Access (https://github.com/explainers-by-googlers/local-network-access) can't come soon enough. https://localmess.github.io

Interesting interview re #AI:
https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/technology/how-openai-earl…

How OpenAI’s development changed AI’s course
New book: Early decisions had big consequences.

Interesting interview re #AI:
https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/technology/how-openai-earl…

How OpenAI’s development changed AI’s course
New book: Early decisions had big consequences.

Sources: Google told publishers it is hiring new staff to market its ad tech to big advertisers and ad agencies, signaling a renewed focus on publisher ad tech (Catherine Perloff/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/go

Google Tries to Win Over Publishers Amid AI Search Tensions
Google’s relations with publishers have suffered lately, as its shift to AI-powered searches has hurt traffic being sent to publishers’ web sites. But Google is now taking steps to curry favor with publishers. In recent weeks, Google staffers on its ad tech unit that helps publishers sell ad ...

On Website Technicals (2017-12) - Tech updates: allegedly too little markup, bad traffic, big hero, base download ms, service worker no rel, jump-to. - https://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-site-technicals-7.html

On Website Technicals (2017-12)
Tech updates: allegedly too little markup, bad traffic, big hero, base download ms, service worker no rel, jump-to.

@… setzt auf einen stufenweisen Ausbau öffentlich-rechtlicher Accounts – am besten ins Fediverse integriert. Das ist mehr als eine Nische: Es schafft einen digitalen Gemeinschaftsraum, der nicht von Big Tech dominiert wird und als Blaupause für private Anbieter dienen kann. Die Öffentlich-Rechtlichen könnten so das Fundament für eine offene, demokratische Netzinfras…

An Indicator analysis of 85 AI "nudify" websites: the sites averaged 18.5M monthly visitors, may generate up to $36M annually, and rely on Big Tech services (Matt Burgess/Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/ai-nudify-websites-are-raking-in-millions-…

AI 'Nudify' Websites Are Raking in Millions of Dollars
Millions of people are accessing harmful AI “nudify” websites. New analysis says the sites are making millions and rely on tech from US companies.

Nach King Trump lügen die KI zu sehr über seine Person #trump #ki #ai #dknp

Was haben Chatbots gegen Donald Trump? Staatsanwalt ermittelt gegen Big Tech | t3n
Missouri’s Generalstaatsanwalt Andrew Bailey wirft Google, Microsoft, OpenAI und Meta vor, mittels KI‑Chatbots parteiisch gegen Donald Trump zu agieren – und startet eine Untersuchung wegen angeblicher “irreführender Geschäftspraktiken”. Missouri‑Generalstaatsanwalt Andrew Bailey hat eine formelle Untersuchung eingeleitet, weil KI‑Chatbots von Google (Gemini), OpenAI (ChatGPT), Meta AI und Microsoft (Copilot) im Ranking der letzten fünf US‑Präsidenten hinsichtlich An…

A look at Apple's vision for Apple TV and its film business, as Tim Cook says the company's $200M bet on the F1 movie is about more than selling iPhones (Cynthia Littleton/Variety)
https://variety.com/2025/film/news/f1-apple…

'F1' and Apple's Movie Strategy: Inside Tim Cook, Lewis Hamilton's Big Bet
Apple CEO Tim Cook pulls back the curtain on the tech giant's film and television strategy, including spending millions on 'F1.

TikTok launches its e-commerce platform, TikTok Shop, in Japan, marking its 17th market, following launches in the US, the UK, Malaysia, Thailand, and others (Danielle Popov/South China Morning Post)
https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article

TikTok Shop launches in Japan as app faces uncertainty in US
The popular short-video app is seeking to diversify its global footprint while reducing its reliance on the US market.

I'm making my SmartHome dumb again.
I got rid of my Google Assistants, smart lights, and plugs, and switched to LED bulbs to save energy. On top of this, I got a portable solar panel to charge my small devices.
For the evening, I now have a USB rechargeable LED light.
I’m doing this to reduce the cost of my electricity bill. Plus, it’s a good way to get rid of big tech products.
#SmartHome

A beautiful set of events:
- @… hosts a podcast on the CBC about big tech and #enshittification (it's called Understood; very good)
- the most recent episode is on antitrust and is mostly a takedown of Amazon's bad behaviour (with Lina Khan)

Why Big Tech Turned Against Democrats -- and Democracy (Paul Krugman)
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/why-big-tech-turned-against-democrats
http://www.memeorandum.com/250624/p31#a250624p31

Since migrating away from big tech platforms (including Google Drive) I have been using Libreoffice for my writing and presentations.
I often get asked why I do not use OnlyOffice since it looks so much better (especially the web client). Two answers:
- The presentation tools of OnlyOffice are too barebones
But more importantly:
OnlyOffice is a company that seems to be controlled by a Russian guy who invests a lot of time to hide the fact that OnlyOffice is Russian (see…

Comparing Collabora with OnlyOffice
Collabora Online provides excellent interoperabilty, efficient backend for scalability, best privacy, and a rich interface for cooperation and editing docx, xlsx, pptx and odf

Spread the word Canada and #Fediverse citizens everywhere! One of Trump's power grabs is through social media and big tech. The best way to take that power away is to take away power from the likes of Meta, Google and Apple who have far too much control and far too little social responsibility.
The Fediverse is the antidote to some of this. Talk to your MLA, MP, Representative, local politicians, and media. Get them talking about the alternative to platforms run by multinational corporations and foreign entities
#Mastodon #BCPoli #BC
https://socialbc.ca/@chris/114835376077242544

Markus Beckedahl kritisiert scharf: Die EU-Kommission knickt vor Trumps Drohkulisse ein und verschiebt die Durchsetzung des Digital Markets Act. Demokratie und Wettbewerb werden geopfert, um mögliche Autozölle zu vermeiden. Ein Armutszeugnis für Europas digitale Souveränität
Big Tech-Regulierung: EU-Kommission beugt sich Druck von #Trump

Paul Krugman's critique of Elon Musk at #DOGE:
"[A] zillionaire who knew nothing about government marched in claiming that he could cut $2 trillion from the $6 trillion federal budget by eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse. This was obvious nonsense […]."
"Seriously, would any of Musk’s tech-bro friends have invested in a venture run by someone with such a record of …

Mailbag: Mazi affected by 3rd different DC? https://www.dallascowboys.com/news/mailbag-mazi-affected-by-3rd-different-dc

#ScribesAndMakers for July 3: When (and if) you procrastinate, what do you do? If you don't, what do you do to avoid it?
I'll swap right out of programming to read a book, play a video game, or watch some anime. Often got things open in other windows so it's as simple as alt-tab.
I've noticed recently I tend to do this more often when I have a hard problem to solve that I'm not 100% sure about. I definitely have cycles of better & worse motivation and I've gotten to a place where I'm pretty relaxed about it instead of feeling guilty. I work how I work, and that includes cycles of rest, and that's enough (at least, for me it has been so far, and I'm in a comfortable career, married with 2 kids).
Some projects ultimately lose steam and get abandoned, and I've learned to accept that too. I learn a lot and grow from each project, so nothing is a true waste of time, and there remains plenty of future ahead of me to achieve cool things.
The procrastination does sometimes impact my wife & kids, and that's something I do sometimes feel bad about, but I think I keep that in check well enough, and for things my wife worries about, I usually don't procrastinate those too much (used to be worse about this).
Right now I'm procrastinating a big work project by working on a hobby project instead. The work project probably won't get done by the start of the semester as a result. But as I remind myself, my work doesn't actually pay me to work during the summer, and things will be okay without the work project being finished until later.
When I want to force myself into a more productive cycle, talking to people about project details sometimes helps, as does finding some new tech I can learn about by shoehorning it into a project. Have been thinking about talking to a rubber duck, but haven't motivated myself to try that yet, and I'm not really in doldrums right now.

This is a stark reminder for all of us, whether in tech, consulting, or some other previously promising career path:
✅ No company is too big to pivot.
✅ Operational efficiency doesn't always mean job security.
✅ Skills that once defined careers must now evolve with industry shifts.

In a letter to staff, CEO Eddie Wu says Alibaba is merging its food delivery platform Ele.me and online travel agency Fliggy into its core e-commerce business (Wency Chen/South China Morning Post)
https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-t…

Alibaba folds delivery app and travel agency into e-commerce group
CEO Eddie Wu said the restructuring ‘marks a strategic upgrade from an e-commerce platform to a comprehensive consumer platform’.

Sources: Trump's team seeks a potential consent decree as part of an FTC deal forcing Meta to pay restitution to conservative users harmed by content moderation (Lydia Moynihan/New York Post)
https://nypost.com/2025/06/06/business/bi…

Big Tech's bet on Trump hasn't yielded special favors
Silicon Valley giants spent millions on Inauguration Day seats, but they’ve gotten little in return — save for a front-row view of their own reckoning.

Data marketplaces can increase the willingness to share social media data at low prices
Meysam Alizadeh, Fabrizio Gilardi
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.16618 …

Data marketplaces can increase the willingness to share social media data at low prices
Living in the Post API age, researchers face unprecedented challenges in obtaining social media data, while users are concerned about how big tech companies use their data. Data donation offers a promising alternative, however, its scalability is limited by low participation and high dropout rates. Research suggests that data marketplaces could be a solution, but its realization remains challenging due to theoretical gaps in treating data as an asset. This paper examines whether data marketplac…

At its core, #CCSignals is an attempt by Creative Commons, a Silicon Valley-based organisation, to legitimise the AI grifts of its donors – Google, Microsoft, and Meta (Zuckerberg).
Creative Commons was always a thinly-veiled attempt at enabling Big Tech data farmers to get more data (that’s why the whole “open data” realm is so well funded/popular – open as in “open for business” not fre…

"Meta signs deal with nuclear plant to power AI and datacenters for 20 years"
#Meta #Facebook #AI #ArtificialIntelligence

Sources: Google told publishers it is hiring new staff to market its ad tech to big advertisers and ad agencies, signaling a renewed focus on publisher ad tech (Catherine Perloff/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/go

Google Tries to Win Over Publishers Amid AI Search Tensions
Google’s relations with publishers have suffered lately, as its shift to AI-powered searches has hurt traffic being sent to publishers’ web sites. But Google is now taking steps to curry favor with publishers. In recent weeks, Google staffers on its ad tech unit that helps publishers sell ad ...

A look at Apple's vision for Apple TV and its film business, as Tim Cook says the company's $200M bet on the F1 movie is about more than selling iPhones (Cynthia Littleton/Variety)
https://variety.com/2025/film/news/f1-apple…

'F1' and Apple's Movie Strategy: Inside Tim Cook, Lewis Hamilton's Big Bet
Apple CEO Tim Cook pulls back the curtain on the tech giant's film and television strategy, including spending millions on 'F1.

Mailbag: Mazi affected by 3rd different DC? https://www.dallascowboys.com/news/mailbag-mazi-affected-by-3rd-different-dc

Xerox is one of the three big players in a shrinking market for print. This uncomfortable position means it is having to reinvent itself, pushing for growth through a new global business services organisation and pursuing novel revenue streams.
https://www.computing.co…

Exclusive: Why Xerox chose SAP over Oracle to support its global reinvention
SVP architecture Warren Birch on what gave SAP the edge over its core tech rival

Silicon Valley is pushing senators to follow the House in reviving a favorable tax benefit that disappeared because of a US tax law Section 174 change in 2017 (Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2025/06/20/silicon-valley-big-tech-tax-benefit

Silicon Valley is pushing revival of game-changing tax benefit for startups
This could change the math for a slew of startups, and even Big Tech.

Weer een hele mooie blog van @… over de "soevereine cloud" , must-read als je geinteresseerd bent in dit onderwerp wat nog veel ter sprake zal komen de rest van dit jaar.
"Is dit een soevereine cloud?"

Is dit een soevereine cloud? - Bert Hubert's writings
Onze maatschappij en overheden draaien in steeds grotere mate op Amerikaanse clouds, en we maken ons hier nu terecht zorgen over. Als we dit op willen lossen zullen er meer en betere Europese producten moeten gaan komen. En vervolgens moeten we die ook nog gaan kopen, en niet makkelijk weer voor dezelfde VS big tech spullen kiezen. Wordt hard werken allemaal. En niemand houdt van hard werken, en dus springt iedereen vol enthousiasme op ieder bericht dat er een makkelijkere oplossing gevonden is.

The UK CMA says it has provisionally found Google meets the legal tests to designate it with "strategic market status" in general search and search advertising (Financial Times)
https://t.co/B2evUJQFta

Google faces UK push to loosen its grip on search
Big Tech giant slams Competition and Markets Authority’s plan as ‘punitive’ and risk to economic growth

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang warns the UK lacks the digital infrastructure needed to capitalize on AI despite "incredible" research talent, as PM Starmer pledges £1B (Tim Bradshaw/Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/cc04adfb-81b2-477f-b85c-ce042e8f83a8…

Nvidia chief says UK lacks digital infrastructure as Keir Starmer pledges £1bn for AI
Jensen Huang seeks ‘sovereign’ artificial intelligence deals that diversify US chip giant’s business away from Big Tech groups

AI researcher salaries are steadily rising, with total pay packages of $500K to $2M at Big Tech for mid to senior level staffers, up from $400K to $900K in 2022 (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/d48e7cfe-7b04-4cdd-8769-c88c83522118

AI talent wars lead to superstar salaries for top tech staff
OpenAI says it will review its compensation to high-profile engineers after being targeted by Meta

After criticism, Senator Marsha Blackburn backs off her own AI provision compromise, saying "we can't block states from making laws that protect their citizens" (Kate Knibbs/Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/ai-moratorium-trump-megabill-blackburn…

Senator Blackburn Pulls Support for AI Moratorium in Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ Amid Backlash
After critics called the bill a “get-out-jail-free-card” for Big Tech that could make it nearly impossible to rein in social media platforms, Senator Marsha Blackburn killed her own compromise.

US senators reintroduce the bipartisan Open App Markets Act to challenge Apple's and Google's grip on app stores; the 2021 version never made it to a floor vote (Amber Neely/AppleInsider)
https://appleinsider.com/articles/25/0

Bipartisan Open App Markets Act revived to challenge Apple's App Store control
Big Tech's grip on the app economy is under fire again as lawmakers reintroduce the bipartisan "Open App Markets Act" aimed at breaking Apple and Google's app store dominance.

EU competition chief Teresa Ribera rejects claims DMA enforcement could be traded to avoid Trump's tariffs, and urges mutual respect for each side's regulations (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20