FIRST THINGS FIRST: Not one, but two diplomats from EU countries reached out to ask us to please remind everyone that today is Saint Valentine’s Day — to prevent potential divorces. (And they were not Dutch officials trying to give a boost to their country’s flower industry!)
Also spare a thought for same-sex couples in the various EU countries where the state considers them good enough to pay taxes together but not to get married in 2023, including Italy, Hungary, Croatia, the Czech Republic and Greece. On that note … share the love!
True Spies: Espionage …
Annenberg School for Communications, University of Pennsylvania: A new survey of 2,000 Americans finds that people don’t understand what marketers are learning about them online and don’t want their data collected, but feel powerless to stop it…In a new report, “Americans Can’t Consent to Companies’ Use of Their Data,” researchers asked a nationally representative group of more than 2,000 Americans to answer a set of questions about digital marketing policies and how companies can and should use their personal data. Their aim was to determine if current “informed consent” practices are working online. They found that the great majority of Americans don’t understand the fundamentals of internet marketing practices and policies, and that many feel incapable of consenting to how companies use their data. As a result, the researchers say, Americans can’t truly give informed consent to digital data collection. The survey revealed that 56% of American adults don’t understand the term “privacy policy,” often believing it means that a company won’t share their data with third parties without permission. In actual fact, many of these policies state that a company can share or sell any data it gathers about site visitors with other websites or companies. Perhaps because so many Americans feel that internet privacy feels impossible to comprehend — with “opting-out” or “opting-in,” biometrics, and VPNs — they don’t trust what is being done with their digital data. Eighty percent of Americans believe that what companies know about them can cause them harm.
- “People don’t feel that they have the ability to protect their data online — even if they want to,” says lead researcher Joseph Turow, Robert Lewis Shayon Professor of Media Systems & Industries at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania…”
Japan rolls out ‘humble and lovable’ delivery robots Bangkok Post Every time I see the dorbs-inducing rounded edges of one of those lozenge-like bots creeping about I want to beat it into shards with bat.
Killer robot swarms, an update Politico
After a row with his wife, Stolz made a tough decision
The anti-gambling campaigner took a deal to end long-running legal action this week. But even a good deal is not necessarily a win.