Plus: A novel way to beat tech surveillance with decoy browsing ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

March 05, 2026 | Read online
# .au turns 40, Google Play Store fees slashed and Apple's Chromebook killer Plus: A novel way to beat tech surveillance with decoy browsing
Edition 2515
"Oil Painting of a Gamer" by AstraxVZ is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
Mentioned in today’s edition: auDA, OpenAI, New Apple displays, Google Play Store, Meta, Chrome, Samsung and Tesla. Plus, deals on LG OLED TVs, Dell monitors and Lebara prepaid SIMs.
# The News
### .au is 40 years old and don't she look great
Today marks 40 years since the creation of the .au domain (auDA)! We've gone from having our first registration by Melbourne University’s IT department — 3 years before Australia was permanently connected to the internet! — to 4,000 registrations in the mid-90s to 4.3 million .au domains today. .au's the 7th most popular country-code top-level domain which, as auDA notes, is pretty good considering our relatively small population.
The Sizzle: For all of the cultural cringe that afflicts Australians, I usually find myself looking to see if something has a .au domain as one quick signal of legitimacy. That's not unique; 3/4 of Australians surveyed by auDA say they trust Australian businesses more if they have a .au domain. It's a shame we didn't hit the jackpot of Tuvalu or Anguilla whose .tv and .ai domains have become quite lucrative for reasons other than their country's name, but I guess that would be a lot to ask for. I will add that I still find myself balking at the recent-ish release of "direct" .au domains, i.e. thesizzle.au rather than .com.au. But I'm just being a curmudgeon.
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
### Google's Play Store cut is officially being slashed in Australia
Google will give up its 30% Play Store cut in Australia by the end of September this year (Engadget). Prompted by its settlement with Epic, Google is ripping off the bandaid on the mobile maker's big profit centres (Android Developers Blog). Now, it will charge at most 20% for Play Store purchases, 10% for subscriptions, and even less to use its billing system (at the same time as developers can also offer other billing systems). There'll be more to write about this later but this is going to have some massive flow-on effects for the mobile app ecosystem, and Google broadly.
Also in Google news: this new lawsuit claiming that Google's Gemini fuelled someone's psychotic break and contributed to their suicide has some just incredibly devastating details
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
### Apple's MacBook Neo is going to do good business, I reckon
The leak was right! Apple has launched its version of a Chromebook killer, the MacBook Neo (EFTM). Starting at a reasonable (for Apple) $900, this 13-inch new laptop line is made for casual computing needs, particularly students (Apple). It's powered by the A18 Pro chip found in the iPhone 16 Pro/Max, comes in some fun colours, has just 8GB of RAM, starts at 256GB of storage, thicker and heavier than the Air, and doesn't have a few other MacBook bells and whistles. But above all, it just looks solid. I reckon this will FLY off the shelves.
Apple also refreshed its 5K studio displays including its drool-inspiring Studio Display XR which will set you back $5,500 (Information Age). Also, I forgot to say yesterday that the new MacBook Pros will start at a higher $2699 (Pickr)
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
# Leftovers
Australia:
Stripe, Starlink and Telstra have all added new federal lobbyists 👀
ASD has updated its AI/ML supply chain risks and mitigations with some new details on testing, assessments etc (Cyber.gov.au) Two updates on Australia's teen social media ban three months in from the Guardian and Pedestrian dot tv Shutterstock-owned Envato lay off 200 employees (SmartCompany) AI firms should face digital duty of care, senator says (InnovationAus, $) News Corp is essentially an AI 'input company', chief executive says, after US$150m deal with Meta (The Guardian) EV sales bounce back to nearly 12 pct of Australia market, led by Tesla, BYD and Zeekr (The Driven) Five iPhone safety features sex workers should know about (Tryst.link)
Rest of World:
Plenty of more Anthropic/DoD/war AI news: Anthropic’s AI tool Claude central to U.S. campaign in Iran, amid a bitter feud and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei calls OpenAI's messaging around military deal 'straight up lies,'. Also, - OpenAI is developing GitHub alternative (Reuters) Polymarket shelves nuclear detonation markets after outcry (CoinDesk) FBI seizes LeakBase cybercrime forum, data of 142,000 members (BleepingComputer) LexisNexis legal professional confirms hack (The Register) Samsung reportedly increases DRAM price over 100% for customers after a 70% rise in January (FRVR) How vulnerable are computers to an 80-year-old spy technique? Congress wants answers (Wired, $) An incredible online museum for Chinese ciggies (Ciggies.app)
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
# Oh, Also
### A novel way to beat tech surveillance with decoy browsing
I've been thinking recently about what I could do to make it harder for tech companies to track me. Things like self-hosting, VPNs, using privacy services help, but, speaking frankly, it's hard to do a lot of things without conceding that you're going to have to deal with the big guys amassing profiles about you.
I'm fascinated by this Chrome extension that takes the opposite approach: instead of trying to leave no trace, what if you try hide in noise. Poisson is a "browsing noise generator" that essentially creates a whole bunch of decoy traffic and web site actions that obscures what you're really doing. I do wonder how well it works, and what the trade-offs are (for example, messing with cookies that are actually useful etc) but, at the very least, it seems more achievable than the myth of trying to be a ghost online.
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
# Bargains
Electronics
Bose SoundLink Plus Portable Speaker - $365 at MYER (Down from $429) LG OLED G5 SERIES at JB Hi-Fi 55" for $2677 65" for $3188 77" for $4988 Sony a7 IV Mirrorless Camera with 28-70mm Lens Kit - $3025 at CCC Warehouse
Computing
Dell Monitors E2425HM for $109 P2425H for $159 MacBook Neo - $719 with Apple's education discount XFX AMD Radeon RX 9070 Swift OC - $799 at Mwave PowerColor Radeon Reaper RX 9070 XT 16GB GDDR6 Graphics Card - $874 at CentreCom Sapphire Radeon RX 9070 XT Pulse Gaming 16G OC Graphics Card - $889 at Umart (Down from $1182) XFX AMD Radeon RX 9070XT Swift Triple Fan Gaming Edition 16GB GDDR6 - $899 at Mwave Gaming PC: AMD 9800X3D, RTX5080, 360 AIO, 32GB DDR5 RAM, B850M, 1TB SSD, 850W PSU, EPOS H3 Headset - $3499 at Evatech
Mobile
Lebara 360-Day Prepaid Starter Pack SIM (260GB in 30-Day Blocks) - $169 at Woolworths (Down from $250)
# The End
😎 The Sizzle is written by Cam Wilson and emailed every weekday. It was created by Anthony “decryption” Agius.
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