That's Slashdode silliness ya doink.

Thanks to quotas, ICE agents are dying to find out how.

DOGE didn't find this.

Why?

Or they're simply lying about it, like they are about it being American-made.

Heck I'm paying like $32/mo which includes tethering and a line for my Apple Watch with Visible. It wasn't even a sale or promotion. I guess MAAAYBE if they included the phone it'd be roughly equivalent? But I'm not interested in reading the article again to find out if that's the case. Frankly it's bad enough that they're making claims of it being American manufactured when there aren't manufacturers in the USA that make some of the components that phone is using.

Security reasons?

Speaking of Google being proactive, they proactively started charging me MORE for Gemini use even though I have it disabled on my account.

I don't want to use this and I don't want to pay for it. Fuck you, Google.

Expecting unpaid people to design it well or fix it for free. ;)

One of the reasons Prime Video Ads hastened my departure from Amazon Prime is that I was having an issue with them ... finding my apartment. I live in a pre-WW2 building and for reasons I still cannot figure out they can get their packages here but not groceries. It is not fun scooping up a bunch of bags of groceries from in front of the wrong apartment and lugging them all the way up to mine. Unfortunately for Amazon a broken foot enflamed it into a big issue.

What's that have to do with ads on Prime? I'm generally okay with paying for ad-free service, and normally I would have with Prime. But imagine a scenario where I'm like "oh.. they made it a hassle to accept the grocery order, but I really love the Boyz, sigh I'll just put up with it..." In short if I were to go that route I'd just be giving them leverage to tolerate shittier service.

I think your prediction is correct, I just hope others will start noticing the problem this sort of thing can cause when bundling is introduced. It's difficult to do these days but I don't have one vendor providing multiple services* anymore in my house.

* Examples: I used to have Spectrum for TV and Internet, one got me a discount on the other. I used to have AT&T for mobile and DirecTV, owned by AT&T for TV. T-Mobile for cellular and they also provided a Netflix account, etc.

Correct. There is no U.S. law which compels the installation of a back door under a gag order. Gag orders are a thing, but they apply to _providing_ information to law enforcement, not collecting it in the first place.

There is something called lawful intercept which requires telecom infrastructure companies to install wiretapping points in their networks. These are openly installed, not under gag order. But it is possible for law enforcement to activate them with a warrant that's under a gag order. And again, these are in telecom infrastructure, not user applications.

The FBI did attempt to compel Apple to implement back doors in iPhones about a decade ago. The attempt ultimately FAILED in court.

Smallpox and polio only infect human beings. They may have seemed ubiquitous but compared to the mosquito they had a relatively small impact on the ecosystem.

Go WoKe gO BrOkE

You've investigated all the possible unintended consequences of eliminating a thoroughly ubiquitous insect from the planet? So you know for sure it's okay? Really?

The 737 MAX was reliable. Until it wasn't. We'll learn the full story in the accident investigation after the Falcon 9 loses its first crew. Until then we're both speculating.