### Issue 1293 - Friday 29th January, 2021

## In Today's Issue

- Wallstreetbets continues to piss off Wall Street
- Apple sinks the boot into Facebook on Data Privacy Day
- ACCC's latest report highlights Google's dominance of digital advertising
- Emptying my bookmarks, enjoy the content
- Cheap Okami & Katamari Damacy PS4 games, Cyberpunk 2077 for PC, refurb Epson Ecotank printers, Vodafone 500GB/m data plan

## The News

### Wallstreetbets continues to piss off Wall Street

Shit has gotten so out of control thanks to /r/wallstreetbets that Robinhood stopped trading shares not just in GameStop, but also in AMC (a movie threatre chain), Blackberry (yeah, that Blackberry), Nokia and a few other companies WSB was hyping up. Thousands of pissed off Redditors left complaints and 1-star reviews on the Google Play Store for the Robinhood app about the trading ban, which Google swiftly deleted under its policy to stop the manipulation of an app's rating. Various hedge funds that bet Gamestop would shit the bed, have in fact, shit the bed themselves. This financial tug of war has attracted the attention of politicans, with the US Senate Committee on Banking to discuss how the "SEC and Congress to make the economy work for everyone not just Wall Street". Fuck yeah, burn it all down!!!

### Apple sinks the boot into Facebook on Data Privacy Day

Apple has celebrated Data Privacy Day by releasing a consumer focused whitepaper called "A Day in the Life of Your Data" to explain how various companies use your smartphone to track you and all the ways Apple tries to stop it. They also confirmed that the App Tracking Transparency feature promised last year will be made available in the next update to iOS. The icing on the cake however is the big dog Tim Cook giving a speech at a virtual "Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection" conference, blasting Facebook. He didn't mention Facebook by name but we all knew who he was talking about. He said that "at a moment of rampant disinformation and conspiracy theories juiced by algorithms, we can no longer turn a blind eye to a theory of technology that says all engagement is good engagement" and that "it is long past time to stop pretending that this approach doesn't come with a cost - of polarisation, of lost trust and, yes, of violence".

### ACCC's latest report highlights Google's dominance of digital advertising

The ACCC has handed in its Digital Advertising Services Inquiry report and it's pretty much 200+ pages calling Google an anti-competitive sack of shit. The ACCC found that "Google likely engages in anti-competitive behaviour in the ad tech services sector, facilitated by its 'unparalleled' access to user data, and often favours its own products", "that Google enjoys about 70% of the total revenue from ad tech services in Australia and has 70% of impressions across users and businesses" and that "Google's significant presence across the whole ad tech supply chain, combined with its significant data advantage, means Google is likely to have the ability and the incentive to preference its own ad tech businesses in ways that affect competition". Sounds like a perfect reason to regulate the hell out of Google's Australian operations. Maybe some competition in the digital advertising market would allow less creepy tracking and data harvesting options to emerge and be viable?

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Emptying my bookmarks, enjoy the content

- Ashley Blewer made an awesome 15 class curriculum for the massively excellent TV show Halt and Catch Fire. It's got links to heaps of background info on the topics and themes the show brings up about the tech industry during the 80s and 90s.
- The Economist has a great summary of what's going on in the cutting edge semiconductor industry. TSMC and Samsung are on top of the world right now and spending more than ever to keep up with demand from customers like Nvidia, AMD and Apple.
- Safari lovers finally have a decent ad-blocker they can use on macOS and iOS. Hush takes the popular blocklists used by many plugins on other broswers and packages it up in a way that passes Apple's grip on Safari plugins.
- Letterboxd got a tidy little writeup in the New York Times. It's a social network of sorts, dedicated to movie fans, that I've been a member of for years but never bothered to use properly until 2021. You can follow me on Letterboxd if you give a rats arse about the movies I watch.
- On the topic of movies, if you're the kinda person that runs a Plex server all your friends and family leech off, check out Overseerr as a much nicer alternative to Ombi for people to request content they want added to your server.

## Bargains

- Okami HD or Katamari Damacy REROLL - $12.47/$31.46 on the Playstation Store
- Cyberpunk 2077 for PC - $36.52 on GOG
- Refurb Epson ET-2700/ET-2750/ET-M1100 Ecotank printers - $179.60/$249.50/$89 from Epson
- Vodafone SIM only plan, 500GB/m data at up to 25mbit - $60/m

## The End

📻 Oblivious - Jessica Lea Mayfield

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