D'agosto privacy mia non ti conosco

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Content index

In August my privacy I don't know you: TikTok and WeChat
In August my privacy I don't know you: Instagram
Mozilla leaves 250 people at home
Tutanota under attack
Fortnite and Apple
In August my privacy I don't know you

It was decided that in August there would be no updates other than occasional and only games Open source. To take a bit of a break and not to pay too much attention to summer news which is often just clickbait to talk about something under the umbrella. However, the important news began to add up and become increasingly pressing. So we decided to publish a summary by paraphrasing a famous proverb: in August my privacy I don't know you!

In August my privacy I don't know you: TikTok and WeChat

Let's start with some news on everyone's lips: Trump decided that the American activities of TikTok and of WeChat they must be sold to an American company, otherwise they will no longer be able to be used on US soil ¹. To date they have presented themselves for possible purchase Microsoft ², Twitter, Netflix ³ and recently too Oracle ⁴.

Not only TikTok And WeChat in the sights of the president of the United States. In fact, he seems determined to sanction too Alibaba. ⁵
Leaving aside the follies and decidedly questionable actions of the American president, this trade war against China is at least understandable and not entirely unrealistic.

Although, knowing his character, the reasons that drive him Trump they are certainly not noble to start a war, China is truly a danger to freedom on the internet and beyond. We invite you to read some insights from friends of Digital Ethics about: Who watches the Chinese? The party, When video games become a political choice And Xinjiang and Tibet: digital and prisons. Over the years we have let China become an economic empire without caring about how it treats its citizens: pretending nothing has happened just because it is convenient for us is not at all ethical.

In August my privacy I don't know you: Instagram

A security researcher, Saugat Pokharel, found that Instagram it kept all deleted messages on its servers for more than a year. In fact, he requested a copy of his data and found it inside photos and direct messages which in reality he had deleted and which therefore absolutely should not appear. Instagram defended itself by saying it was a bug and Pokharel was rewarded with 6000$ from Instagram for finding it. ⁶

Mozilla leaves 250 people at home

He's not doing too well either Mozilla which in recent days has decided to cut staff, leaving Ben at home 250 people ⁷. It is the second time that Mozilla has found itself laying off employees this year, in fact it had already happened in January when it laid off 70 ⁸. Fingers always itch when engineers and programmers are fired and not as many cuts to managers are declared. Mitchell Baker for example, current CEO of Mozilla Corporation, will she still be paid $2.5 million? ⁹

Mozilla's problem is finding a way to make money with its products ¹⁰. He has had ambitious plans in the past, like when he tried to produce Firefox OS, but currently its earnings depend almost exclusively on… Google ¹¹ and this certainly doesn't help since in reality it wants to be a competitor. In all of this Tutanota (private German email that we talked about in the alternatives to Gmail) intervenes by saying that if Mozilla reduces its staff by a third they aim to increase it by a third. This is why they appeal to (now former) Mozilla employees to work with them. ¹²

Tutanota under attack

Speaking of Tutanota, on the day of August 15th has been under attack DDoS ¹³ (a particular attack by a third party to make a service unusable). The attack lasted a very long time, almost a whole day and then recurred for a few hours too August 17th. Tutanota has always been very active on Twitter to answer questions from its members. ¹⁴
A curiosity: in this ProtonMail should be more resistant as it controls much of their infrastructure and is one of the reasons why it costs so much compared to other companies. ¹⁵

Fortnite and Apple

The last news we want to talk about is what happened between Fortnite and Apple ¹⁶. Quick summary: Apple holds back the 30% on transitions within its App Store. This is no longer okay with Fortnite and invites its players to buy through its private store. Apple, in response, removed it from the store for breach of contract.

Epic Games (developer and publisher of Fortnite) files a civil antitrust lawsuit against Apple and Google ¹⁷. There are also many companies that disagree with the monopoly and anti-competitive practices of Apple and Google. As Telegram ¹⁸ And ProtonMail ¹⁹. In addition to this there is also the risk that the problem will spread like wildfire to other games as well. ²⁰

On Android (Fortnite has also been banned from the Google Play Store) it is still possible to use the Epic Games store and play Fortnite legally. On Apple, however, this is not possible (we deliberately leave out the tricks to do this, because that's not what we're talking about).

If it is legitimate for those who manage an app store to ask for commissions towards the "maintenance" costs of the "store", it is equally true that when the intermediary or platform produces its own content and services it implements anti-competitive practices.
Luca Tremolada on The sun 24 hours

The antitrust response is therefore not at all obvious because there are rules that Apple and Google must respect they might have broken. The match has just started and we will certainly see some good ones.

In August my privacy I don't know you

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By skariko

Author and administrator of the web project The Alternatives

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