An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The average toddler is missing out on hearing more than 1,000 words spoken by an adult each day due to screen time, setting back their language skills, a first-of-its kind study has found. The research, published on Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Jama) Pediatrics, tracked 220 Australian families over two years to measure the relationship between family screen use and children's language environment. Families recorded all the audio around their child using advanced speech recognition technology over a 16-hour period on an average day at home. They repeated this process every six months between the ages of 12 and 36 months. The lead researcher, Dr Mary Brushe from the Telethon Kids Institute, said: "The technology we use is essentially like a Fitbit, but instead of counting the number of steps, this device counts the number of words spoken by, to and around the child." The device also picked up electronic noise, which the researchers analyzed to calculate screen time.

The researchers found young children's exposure to screens including TVs and phones was interfering with their language opportunities, with the association most pronounced at three years of age. For every extra minute of screen time, the three-year-olds in the study were hearing seven fewer words, speaking five fewer words themselves and engaging in one less conversation. The study found the average three-year-old in the study was exposed to two hours and 52 minutes of screen time a day. Researchers estimated this led to those children being exposed to 1,139 fewer adult words, 843 fewer child words and 194 fewer conversations. Because the study couldn't capture parents' silent phone use, including reading emails, texting or quietly scrolling through websites or social media, Brushe said they might have underestimated how much screen usage is affecting children.

A language-rich home environment was critical in supporting infants and toddlers' language development, Brushe said. While some educational children's shows were designed to help children's language skills, very young kids in the age group of the study could struggle to translate television shows into their own life, she said. This study did not differentiate between whether children were watching high- or low-quality screen content.

In a first-of-its-kind prosecution, a California man was arrested and charged Monday with allegedly smuggling potent, greenhouse gases from Mexico. From a report: Michael Hart, a 58-year-old man from San Diego, pleaded not guilty to smuggling hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs -- commonly used in air conditioning and refrigeration -- and selling them for profit, in a federal court hearing Monday. According to the indictment, Hart allegedly purchased the HFCs in Mexico and smuggled them into the US in the back of his truck, concealed under a tarp and tools. He is then alleged to have sold them for a profit on sites including Facebook Marketplace and OfferUp. [...] Hart has pleaded not guilty to 13 charges including conspiracy, importation contrary to law and sale of merchandise imported contrary to law. The charges carry potential prison sentences ranging from five to 20 years.

HFCs, which are also used in building insulation, fire extinguishing systems and aerosols, are banned from import into the US without permission from the Environmental Protection Agency. These greenhouse gases are short-lived in the atmosphere," but powerful -- some are thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide in the near-term. "The illegal smuggling of hydrofluorocarbons, a highly potent greenhouse gas, undermines international efforts to combat climate change," said David M. Uhlmann, the assistant administrator for the EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. "Anyone who seeks to profit from illegal actions that worsen climate change must be held accountable," he added. "Today is a significant milestone for our country," said US Attorney Tara McGrath in a statement. "This is the first time the Department of Justice is prosecuting someone for illegally importing greenhouse gases, and it will not be the last."

According to the latest data from StatCounter, Linux's market share has reached 4.03% -- surging by an additional 1% in the last eight months. What's the reason behind this recent growth? "That's a good question," writes ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols. "While Windows is the king of the hill with 72.13% and MacOS comes in a distant second at 15.46%, it's clear that Linux is making progress." An anonymous Slashdot reader shares the five reasons why Vaughan-Nichols thinks it's growing: 1. Microsoft isn't that interested in Windows
If you think Microsoft is all about the desktop and Windows, think again. Microsoft's profits these days come from its Azure cloud and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Microsoft 365 in particular. Microsoft doesn't want you to buy Windows; the Redmond powerhouse wants you to subscribe to Windows 365 Cloud PC. And, by the way, you can run Windows 365 Cloud PC on Macs, Chromebooks, Android tablets, iPads, and, oh yes, Linux desktops.

2. Linux gaming, thanks to Steam, is also growing
Gaming has never been a strong suit for Linux, but Linux gamers are also a slowly growing group. I suspect that's because Steam, the most popular Linux gaming platform, also has the lion's share of the gaming distribution market

3. Users are finally figuring out that some Linux distros are easy to use
Even now, you'll find people who insist that Linux is hard to master. True, if you want to be a Linux power user, Linux will challenge you. But, if all you want to do is work and play, many Linux distributions are suitable for beginners. For example, Linux Mint is simple to use, and it's a great end-user operating system for everyone and anyone.

4. Finding and installing Linux desktop software is easier than ever
While some Linux purists dislike containerized application installation programs such as Flatpak, Snap, and AppImage, developers love them. Why? They make it simple to write applications for Linux that don't need to be tuned just right for all the numerous Linux distributions. For users, that means they get more programs to choose from, and they don't need to worry about finicky installation details.

5. The Linux desktop is growing in popularity in India
India is now the world's fifth-largest economy, and it's still growing. Do you know what else is growing in India? Desktop Linux. In India, Windows is still the number one operating system with 70.37%, but number two is Linux, with 15.23%. MacOS is way back in fourth place with 3.11%. I suspect this is the case because India's economy is largely based on technology. Where you find serious programmers, you find Linux users.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Oregon has joined the small but growing list of states that have passed right-to-repair legislation. Oregon's bill stands out for a provision that would prevent companies from requiring that official parts be unlocked with encrypted software checks before they will fully function. Bill SB 1596 passed Oregon's House by a 42 to 13 margin. Gov. Tina Kotek has five days to sign the bill into law. Consumer groups and right-to-repair advocates praised the bill as "the best bill yet," while the bill's chief sponsor, state Sen. Janeen Sollman (D), pointed to potential waste reductions and an improved second-hand market for closing a digital divide.

"Oregon improves on Right to Repair laws in California, Minnesota and New York by making sure that consumers have the choice of buying new parts, used parts, or third-party parts for the gadgets and gizmos," said Gay Gordon-Byrne, executive director of Repair.org, in a statement. Like bills passed in New York, California, and Minnesota, Oregon's bill requires companies to offer the same parts, tools, and documentation to individual and independent repair shops that are already offered to authorized repair technicians. Unlike other states' bills, however, Oregon's bill doesn't demand a set number of years after device manufacture for such repair implements to be produced. That suggests companies could effectively close their repair channels entirely rather than comply with the new requirements. California's bill mandated seven years of availability.

If signed, the law's requirements for parts, tools, and documentation would apply to devices sold after 2015, except for phones, which are covered after July 2021. The prohibition against parts pairing only covers devices sold in 2025 and later. Like other repair bills, a number of device categories are exempted, including video game consoles, HVAC and medical gear, solar systems, vehicles, and, very specifically, "Electric toothbrushes."

The loss of Arctic sea ice has long been a graphic measure of human-caused climate change, with wrenching images of suffering polar bears illustrating a worsening planetary crisis. Now, new research has found that Arctic Ocean sea ice is shrinking even faster than previously thought -- and that the Arctic may start to see its first "ice-free" days within the current decade. From a report: That troubling milestone could occur before the end of the decade or sometime in the 2030s -- as many as 10 years earlier than previous projections, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Reviews Earth and Environment. The study defines "ice-free" as when the Arctic Ocean has less than 1 million square kilometers, or 386,000 square miles, of ice.

By midcentury -- 2035 to 2067 -- the Arctic could see consistent ice-free conditions in September, the month when sea ice concentrations are typically at their minimum, the study found. The precise timing of such losses depends on how soon humanity is able to reduce fossil fuel emissions that are contributing to global warming. Under a high-emission scenario in which fossil fuel use continues unabated, the Arctic would be ice-free between the months of May and January by 2100, the study says. Even under a low-emission scenario, the Arctic would still be ice-free between August and October by that same year.

The SAT, a college admissions exam that for nearly a century was completed using paper and pencil, is now officially all-digital. From a report: This week, students in the U.S. will begin taking the new SAT on their own devices -- including a tablet or a laptop -- or on school devices. The test is also one hour shorter (down from three hours), has shorter reading passages and uses digital tools, like a highlighter, a graphing calculator and a bookmark to go back to skipped questions. The revamped test, which ditches the paper and pencil, aims to make cheating harder and grading easier.

Students will still take the exam at a test center or at a high school. "Today's students, they do a lot of their living digitally, they do a lot of their learning digitally and they do a lot of their test taking digitally," says Priscilla Rodriguez, who oversees the SAT for the College Board, the organization behind the test. Throughout March and April, the College Board expects more than 1 million students to take the new digital SAT. Students can take the exam on Saturday test dates or during SAT School Days, where participating high schools offer the test to upperclassmen free of charge during the school day.

The U.S. government announced Tuesday sanctions against the founder of the notorious spyware company Intellexa and one of his business partners. From a report: This is the first time the U.S. government has targeted specific people, in addition to companies, with sanctions related to the misuse of commercial spyware. And it signifies an escalation of the White House and U.S. government's efforts to curb the spyware industry. "Today's actions represent a tangible step forward in discouraging the misuse of commercial surveillance tools, which increasingly present a security risk to the United States and our citizens," said Brian E. Nelson, U.S Treasury's under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, was quoted as saying in a press release.

"The United States remains focused on establishing clear guardrails for the responsible development and use of these technologies while also ensuring the protection of human rights and civil liberties of individuals around the world." The U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on Tal Dilian, the founder of Intellexa and a veteran of the spyware industry; and Sara Aleksandra Fayssal Hamou, who is not as well-known as Dilian. Hamou, according to the Treasury, has a leadership role in Intellexa, is an expert in off-shoring, and provided the company managerial services, such as renting office space in Greece.

The Federal Communications Commission is considering a proposal to bar landlords from charging tenants in bulk for cable, internet, and satellite services, offering them more choice in the kinds of services they need. From a report: The agency is circulating a proposed rule to ban the practice of "bulk billing," the White House announced in a press release ahead of President Joe Biden's meeting with his Competition Council on Tuesday.

It's part of a broader effort to promote policies that will lower costs for Americans, as Biden is trying to appeal to voters focused on the economy as he seeks reelection later this year. That theme of lowering costs will resurface in Biden's State of the Union address on Thursday, National Economic Advisor Lael Brainard told reporters on a call Monday. Bulk billing restricts consumers' choices by limiting the prices and levels of cable and internet service available to them, the White House said in the press release. The new proposal will also target other "exclusive arrangements" between landlords and service providers like exclusive wiring and marketing arrangements or revenue sharing agreements, the White House said.

"Linux gained from 3% to 4% in 8 months," writes longtime Slashdot reader bobdevine. Linuxiac reports: According to the latest data from StatCounter, a leading web traffic analysis tool, Linux's market share has reached 4.03%. At first glance, the number might seem modest, but it represents a significant leap. Let's break it down. It took Linux 30 years to secure a 3% share of desktop operating systems, a milestone reached last June. Impressively, the open-source operating system has surged by an additional 1% in the last eight months.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Jack Teixeira, the National Guard airman who leaked confidential military documents on Discord, agreed Monday to plead guilty, promising to cooperate with officials attempting to trace the full extent of government secrets leaked. Under the plea deal, Teixeira will serve a much-reduced sentence, The Boston Globe reported, recommended between 11 years and 16 years and eight months. Previously, Teixeira had pleaded not guilty to six counts of "willful retention and transmission of national defense information," potentially facing up to 10 years per count. During a pretrial hearing, prosecutors suggested he could face up to 25 years, The Globe reported.

By taking the deal, Teixeira will also avoid being charged with violations of the Espionage Act, The New York Times reported, including allegations of unlawful gathering and unauthorized removal of top-secret military documents. According to prosecutors, it was clear that Teixeira, 22, was leaking sensitive documents -- including national security secrets tied to US foreign adversaries and allies, including Russia, China, Ukraine, and South Korea -- just to impress his friends on Discord -- some of them teenage boys. Investigators found no evidence of espionage. US District Judge Indira Talwani will decide whether or not to sign off on the deal at a hearing scheduled for September 27.

Longtime Slashdot reader jmv writes: After more than two years of work, Opus 1.5 is out. It brings many new features that can improve quality and the general audio experience through machine learning, while maintaining fully-compatibility with previous releases. See this release page demonstrating all the new features, including:

• Significant improvement to packet loss robustness using Deep Redundancy (DRED)
• Improved packet loss concealment through Deep PLC
• Low-bitrate speech quality enhancement down to 6 kb/s wideband
• Improved x86 (AVX2) and Arm (Neon) optimizations
• Support for 4th and 5th order ambisonics

JetBlue Airways and Spirit Airlines announced on Monday that they would walk away from their planned $3.8 billion merger after federal antitrust regulators successfully challenged the deal in court. JetBlue said it would pay Spirit $69 million to exit the deal. From a report: A federal judge in Boston blocked the proposed merger on Jan. 16, siding with the Justice Department in determining that the merger would reduce competition in the industry and give airlines more leeway to raise ticket prices. The judge, William G. Young of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, noted that Spirit played a vital role in the market as a low-cost carrier and that travelers would have fewer options if JetBlue absorbed it.

"We are proud of the work we did with Spirit to lay out a vision to challenge the status quo, but given the hurdles to closing that remain, we decided together that both airlines' interests are better served by moving forward independently," JetBlue's chief executive, Joanna Geraghty, said in a statement on Monday. "We wish the very best going forward to the entire Spirit team." JetBlue and Spirit appealed Judge Young's decision. JetBlue filed an appellate brief last week arguing that the deal should be allowed to go through. But in a regulatory filing on Jan. 26, JetBlue said it might terminate the deal. Spirit said in its own filing the same day that it believed "there is no basis for terminating" the agreement.

The Washington Post shares some surprising news from the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, a 44-year-old nonprofit which works on government energy policies and produces its own research and analysis.

The group "has rated the pollution from vehicles for decades," according to the article — but "says the winning car this year is the Toyota Prius Prime SE, a plug-in hybrid that can go 44 miles on electricity before switching to hybrid." "It's the shape of the body, the technology within it, and the overall weight," said Peter Huether, senior research associate for transportation at ACEEE. "And all different types of Priuses are very efficient...." [T]he Prius Prime also won out in 2020 and 2022. But with more and more electric vehicles on the market, the staying power of the plug-in hybrid is surprising.

The analysis shows that simply running on electricity is not enough to guarantee that a car is "green" — its weight, battery size and overall efficiency matter, too. While a gigantic electric truck weighing thousands of pounds might be better than a gas truck of the same size, both will be outmatched by a smaller, efficient gas vehicle. And the more huge vehicles there are on the road, the harder it will be for the United States to meet its goal of zeroing out emissions by 2050.

The GreenerCars report analyzes 1,200 cars available in 2024, assessing both the carbon dioxide emissions of the vehicle while it's on the road and the emissions of manufacturing the car and battery. It also assesses the impact of pollutants beyond carbon dioxide, including nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and particulate matter — all of which can harm human health. The Toyota Prius Prime received a score of 71, followed by several all-electric cars such as the Nissan Leaf and Mini Cooper SE with scores in the high 60s. The Toyota RAV4 Prime, a plug-in hybrid SUV with 42 miles in range, got a score of 64. One gas hybrid, the Hyundai Elantra Blue, made the list as well — thanks to an efficient design and good mileage.

At the bottom of the list were large gas-guzzling trucks such as the Ford F-150 Raptor R, with scores in the 20s. So was one electric car: the Hummer EV, which weighs 9,000 pounds and scored a 29... The Prius Prime outranked its competitors, Huether said, because of its small battery — which lowers the emissions and pollution associated with manufacturing — and its high efficiency. The vehicle's battery is less than one-tenth the size of the battery on the monstrous Hummer EV.

Microsoft built two datacenters west of Phoenix, with plans for seven more (serving, among other companies, OpenAI). "Microsoft has been adding data centers at a stupendous rate, spending more than $10 billion on cloud-computing capacity in every quarter of late," writes the Atlantic. "One semiconductor analyst called this "the largest infrastructure buildout that humanity has ever seen."

But is this part of a concerning trend? Microsoft plans to absorb its excess heat with a steady flow of air and, as needed, evaporated drinking water. Use of the latter is projected to reach more than 50 million gallons every year. That might be a burden in the best of times. As of 2023, it seemed absurd. Phoenix had just endured its hottest summer ever, with 55 days of temperatures above 110 degrees. The weather strained electrical grids and compounded the effects of the worst drought the region has faced in more than a millennium. The Colorado River, which provides drinking water and hydropower throughout the region, has been dwindling. Farmers have already had to fallow fields, and a community on the eastern outskirts of Phoenix went without tap water for most of the year... [T]here were dozens of other facilities I could visit in the area, including those run by Apple, Amazon, Meta, and, soon, Google. Not too far from California, and with plenty of cheap land, Greater Phoenix is among the fastest-growing hubs in the U.S. for data centers....

Microsoft, the biggest tech firm on the planet, has made ambitious plans to tackle climate change. In 2020, it pledged to be carbon-negative (removing more carbon than it emits each year) and water-positive (replenishing more clean water than it consumes) by the end of the decade. But the company also made an all-encompassing commitment to OpenAI, the most important maker of large-scale AI models. In so doing, it helped kick off a global race to build and deploy one of the world's most resource-intensive digital technologies. Microsoft operates more than 300 data centers around the world, and in 2021 declared itself "on pace to build between 50 and 100 new datacenters each year for the foreseeable future...."

Researchers at UC Riverside estimated last year... that global AI demand could cause data centers to suck up 1.1 trillion to 1.7 trillion gallons of freshwater by 2027. A separate study from a university in the Netherlands, this one peer-reviewed, found that AI servers' electricity demand could grow, over the same period, to be on the order of 100 terawatt hours per year, about as much as the entire annual consumption of Argentina or Sweden... [T]ensions over data centers' water use are cropping up not just in Arizona but also in Oregon, Uruguay, and England, among other places in the world.
The article points out that Microsoft "is transitioning some data centers, including those in Arizona, to designs that use less or no water, cooling themselves instead with giant fans." And an analysis (commissioned by Microsoft) on the impact of one building said it would use about 56 million gallons of drinking water each year, equivalent to the amount used by 670 families, according to the article. "In other words, a campus of servers pumping out ChatGPT replies from the Arizona desert is not about to make anyone go thirsty."

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: CACM [Communications of the ACM] Is Now Open Access," proclaims the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in its tear-down-this-CACM-paywall announcement. "More than six decades of CACM's renowned research articles, seminal papers, technical reports, commentaries, real-world practice, and news articles are now open to everyone, regardless of whether they are members of ACM or subscribe to the ACM Digital Library."

Ironically, clicking on Google search results for older CACM articles on Aaron Swartz currently returns page-not-found error messages and the CACM's own search can't find Aaron Swarz either, so perhaps there's some work that remains to be done with the transition to CACM's new website. ACM plans to open its entire archive of over 600,000 articles when its five-year transition to full Open Access is complete (January 2026 target date).
"They are right..." the site's editor-in-chief told Slashdot. "We need to get Google to reindex the new site ASAP."

This week Linux Foundation Charities launched "a groundbreaking open source software solution for real-time fraud prevention" named Tazama — "with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation."

They're calling it "the first-ever open source platform dedicated to enhancing fraud management in digital payments." Until now, the financial industry has grappled with proprietary and often costly solutions that have limited access and adaptability for many, especially in developing economies.

This challenge is underscored by the Global Anti-Scam Alliance, which reported that nearly $1 trillion was lost to online fraud in 2022. Tazama challenges this status quo by providing a powerful, scalable, and cost-effective alternative that democratizes access to advanced financial monitoring tools that can help combat fraud... The solution's architecture emphasizes data sovereignty, privacy, and transparency, aligning with the priorities of governments worldwide. Hosted by LF Charities, which will support the operation and function of the project, Tazama showcases the scalability and robustness of open source solutions, particularly in critical infrastructure like national payment switches.
Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, described their reaction as "excited to see an open source solution that not only enhances financial security but also provides a platform for our community to actively contribute to a project with broad societal impacts."

And the announcement also includes a comment from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's deputy director for payment systems. "This pioneering open source platform helps address critical challenges like fraud detection and compliance and paves the way for innovative, inclusive financial solutions that serve everyone, especially those in low-income countries.

"The launch of Tazama signifies another stride towards securing and democratizing digital financial services."

"These days in San Francisco, every major business closure triggers a rush to assign blame," argues the San Francisco Standard: When Macy's announced this week that it would shutter its flagship store in Union Square, it unleashed a wave of mourning and recriminations... Mayor London Breed and other local pols like state Sen. Scott Wiener tried to allay fears that Macy's was leaving because of crime, noting the planned closure is one of 150 nationwide. But in a tough election year, it seems few had the appetite to listen to her call for nuance...

The unavoidable truth is the pandemic hollowed out downtown San Francisco's offices and led to an exodus of tech staffers who preferred remote work. It meant the loss of thousands of people who had reason to regularly stroll by Macy's and so many other corporate retailers. Meanwhile, everybody else had even less reason to go shopping in an urban core. Why bother dressing up and schlepping downtown when you could get the same layaway deals online...? [R]etail has been recovering. But it should be no surprise that the recovery has happened largely in suburban markets, which have not experienced a mass exit of workers... Elsewhere, the reality is simple: Malls and department stores have been dying for the last decade, struggling to attract young people and redevelop growing vacant space into desirable uses.

Although Macy's is a legacy name, industry reports show it has been in a real doom loop of its own making. Everyone is angry about retail "shrinkage," an industry term for losses in inventory due to external theft, employee theft and mismanagement. However, reporting by CNBC and others has demonstrated that while corporate retailers may be seeing a bump in retail shrink, it is a smaller factor than other operational missteps. Industry experts suggest that "shrink" can be an excuse for poor inventory management and staffing issues, and brands like Lowe's, Foot Locker and Walgreens are now downplaying organized theft as a primary cause of revenue loss. The reality is that a swath of American retail chains have needed to downsize to remain profitable... [R]eactionary cries for police crackdowns on petty theft and homelessness miss how similar retail shutdowns are happening in cities with tougher crime laws and less visible poverty. Consider that Macy's has already conducted layoffs and cut employee benefits to remain afloat, triggering a worker strike in 2022. Then there's Macy's faltering credit card revenue, which the company said accounted for nearly triple the revenue loss as retail shrink.

While The Standard has reported on Macy's workers blaming theft for the closure, my own visit to Macy's on Tuesday and conversations with longtime sales associates in multiple departments suggested that low staffing, an aging clientele and dips in seasonal shopping have greatly affected business...

Turns out, "scary people stealing things" is a boogeyman that feels more tangible than the obscure machinations of a faltering corporation.
The San Francsico Standard itself was funded in part by billionaire venture capitalist Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital...

Some news from "Copyleft Currents", the blog of open-source/IP lawyer Heather Meeker: On February 14, 2024, the Court of Appeal of Paris issued an order stating that Orange, a major French telecom provider, had infringed the copyight of Entr'Ouvert's Lasso software and violated the GPL.

They ordered Orange to pay €500,000 in compensatory damages and €150,000 for moral damages.

This case has been ongoing for many years. Entr'ouvert is the publisher of Lasso, a reference library for the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) protocol, an open standard for identity providers to authenticate users and pass authentication tokens to online services. This is the open protocol that enables single sign-on (SSO). The Lasso product is dual licensed by Entr'Ouvert under GPL or commercial licenses.

In 2005, Orange won a contract with the French Agency for the Development of Electronic Administration to develop parts of the service-public.fr portal, which allows users to interact online with the government for administrative procedures. Orange used the Lasso software in the solution, but did not pass on the rights to its modifications free of charge under GPL, or make the source code to its modifications available. Entr'Ouvert sued Orange in 2010, and the case wended its way through the courts, turning on, among other things, issues of proof of Entr'Ouvert 's copyright interest in the software, and whether the case properly sounded in breach of contract or copyright infringement...

The compensatory damages were based on both lost profits of the plaintiff and disgorgement of profits of Orange. Moral damages compensate the plaintiff for harm to reputation or other non-monetary injury.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the article.

Americans filing their taxes could face privacy threats, reports the Washington Post: "We just need your OK on a couple of things," TurboTax says as you prepare your tax return.

Alarm bells should be ringing in your head at the innocuous tone.

This is where America's most popular tax-prep website asks you to sign away the ironclad privacy protections of your tax return, including the details of your income, home mortgage and student loan payments. With your permission to blab your money secrets, the company earns extra income from showing you advertisements for the next three years for things like credit cards and mortgage offers targeted to your financial situation.

You have the legal right to say no when TurboTax asks for your permission to "share your data" or use your tax information to "improve your experience...."
The article complains that granting permission allows TurboTax to share details with "sibling" companies "such as your salary, the amount of your tax refund, whether you received a tax break for student loans and the day you printed your tax return..."

"You'll see that permission request once near the beginning of the tax prep process. If you skip it then, you'll see the same screen again near the end. You'll have to say yes or no..." This is part of the corporate arms race for your personal data. Everyone including the grocery store, your apps and the manufacturer of your car are gobbling information to profit from details of your life. With TurboTax, though, you have the power to refuse to participate...

TurboTax and the online tax prep service from H&R Block have been asking every year to blab your tax return. We've cautioned you about it for each of the past two tax filing seasons. (I focused only on TurboTax this year.)

An anonymous Slashdot reader shared this report from The Washington Post: A YouTube contractor was addressing the Austin City Council on Thursday, calling on them to urge Google to negotiate with his union, when a colleague interrupted him with jaw-dropping news: His 43-person team of contractors had all been laid off...

The YouTube workers, who work for Google and Cognizant, unanimously voted to unionize under the Alphabet Workers Union-CWA in April 2023. Since then, the workers say that Google has refused to bargain with them. Thursday's layoff signifies continued tensions between Google and its workers, some of whom in 2021 formed a union...

Workers had about 20 minutes to gather their belongings and leave the premises before they were considered trespassing.
Video footage of the moment is embedded at the top of the article. "I was speechless, shocked," said the contractor who'd been speaking. He told the Washington Post "I didn't know what to do. But angered, that was the main feeling." The council meeting was streaming live online and has since spread on social media. The contractors view the layoff as retaliation for unionizing, but Google and information technology subcontractor Cognizant said it was the normal end of a business contract.

The ability for layoffs to spread over social media highlights how the painful experience of a job loss is frequently being made public, from employees sharing recordings of Zoom meetings to posting about their unemployment. The increasing tension between YouTube's contractors and Google comes as massive layoffs continue to hit the tech industry — leaving workers uneasy and companies emboldened. Google already has had rounds of cuts the past two years.

Google has been in a long-running battle with many of its contractors as they seek the perks and high pay that full-time Google workers are accustomed to. The company has tens of thousands of contractors doing everything from food service to sales to writing code... Google maintains that Cognizant is responsible for the contractors' employment and working conditions, and therefore isn't responsible for bargaining with them. Cognizant said it is offering the workers seven weeks of paid time to explore other roles at the company and use its training resources.

Last year, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that Cognizant and Google are joint employers of the contractors. In January, the NLRB sent a cease-and-desist letter to both employers for failing to bargain with the union. Since then the issue of joint employment, which would ultimately determine which company is responsible for bargaining, has landed in an appeals court and has yet to be ruled on.
"Workers say they don't have sick pay, receive minimal benefits and are paid as little as $19 an hour," according to the article, "forcing some to work multiple jobs to make ends meet." Sam Regan, a data analyst contractor for YouTube Music, told the Washington Post that he was one of the last workers to leave the meeting where the layoffs were announced.

"Upon leaving, he heard one of the security guards call the non-emergency police line to report trespassers."