Investors are divided about whether technology companies are set for a deep retrenchment or if growth is simply slowing from pandemic highs. From a report: The technology industry, which powered the U.S. economy during the pandemic and grew at tremendous scale during a decade of ultralow interest rates, is confronting one of the most punishing stretches in years. Global powerhouses and fledgling startups are feeling pain from a variety of economic, industry and market factors, spawning postpandemic turbulence in e-commerce, digital advertising, electric vehicles, ride-hailing and other segments. Companies that emerged as job-creating juggernauts in the past two years -- collectively adding hundreds of thousands of workers to their payrolls in engineering, warehouse and delivery jobs -- have begun to freeze hiring or even lay off employees.

Concerned that some of the forces that have propelled tech ever upward have begun to fade, investors have sent share prices for a number of companies, including Lyft and Peloton plunging on disappointing financial results or other news. The stocks of Netflix, Facebook parent Meta Platforms and Amazon.com all are down more than 30% this year, exceeding the more-than-13% drop in the S&P 500. Investors are divided on the question of whether the slowdown is temporary -- as well-positioned companies work through a period of stagnation after expanding ultrafast in recent years -- or if these are the early signs of a deeper retrenchment for the industry and its investors.

Last week California's Attorney General accused the fossil fuel/petrochemical industries of "perpetuating a myth that recycling can solve the plastics crisis," Reuters reports, and even launched an investigation into their role in "causing and exacerbating the global plastics pollution crisis."

And meanwhile, "The rate of plastic waste recycling in the United States fell to between 5%-6% in 2021, as some countries stopped accepting U.S. waste exports and as plastic waste generation surged to new highs, according to a report released on Wednesday." The report by environmental groups Last Beach Clean Up and Beyond Plastics shows the recycling rate has dropped from 8.7% in 2018, the last time the Environmental Protection Agency published recycling figures. The decline coincides with a sharp drop in plastic waste exports, which had counted as recycled plastic.... "The U.S. must take responsibility for managing its own plastic waste," said the report, which used 2018 EPA, 2021 export and recent industry data to estimate the 2021 recycling rate.....

"Recycling does not work, it never will work, and no amount of false advertising will change that," said report author Judith Enck [a former regional administrator at America's Environmental Protection Agency].
One sustainability site now even calls plastic recycling "a diversionary tactic preventing us from finding real solutions to our waste crisis," agreeing that it's being pushed by the plastics industry in "a clever, yet green-washed, ploy to maintain production by perpetuating a myth that all this plastic is destroyed. The sad truth is that it's not...."

"[T]he real problem is the ever-increasing amount of STUFF, particularly single-use plastic stuff, that's produced, consumed briefly, and then added to existing colossal piles of trash. Recycling can't solve this problem."

Or, as Cory Doctorow put it recently, "Recycling is puffery. Which is to say, recyling is bullshit...." In 1973, Exxon researchers told the company that there was no feasible way to recycle plastics, and that there likely never would be. Exxon sprang into action! They created a puffery campaign! They lobbied state legislatures to mandate the use of the recycling logo, three arrows pointing at each other, telling us that plastic was part of a new, "circular" economy. Oil is made into plastic, plastic is used, plastic is recycled. Everybody wins!

We — the "consumers" (ugh) — bought it. We bought the plastic, sure, but we bought the puffery, too. We sorted our plastic, washed it, set it out on the curb. 90% of it was never recycled. 90% of it never will be.
Thanks to Slashdot reader joshuark for sharing the link...

TikTok is launching a new way for the top creators on its billion-user app make money -- and for advertisers to reach the cream of the short-form video crop. Variety reports: The company announced TikTok Pulse, an advertising program to let marketers buy inventory in the top 4% of all videos on the platform in a dozen different categories (including beauty, fashion, cooking and gaming). Creators and publishers with at least 100,000 followers will be eligible to participate in the initial stage of TikTok Pulse. The company said that with the launch of Pulse, it will "begin exploring" its first advertising-revenue share program with creators, public figures and media publishers.

TikTok Pulse will roll out first in the U.S. in June, with additional markets to follow in the fall, according to Sofia Hernandez, TikTok's global head of business marketing. "This finally offers marketers something they have been asking for for years -- to be part of a community," she said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Just ahead of its presentation to media ad buyers later this week at the 2022 NewFronts, Twitter acknowledged in a new SEC filing that its core advertising business could now be at risk as a result of the Elon Musk takeover, in addition to employee hiring and retention efforts and other factors. While Musk's vision for Twitter is one of a more free speech-focused platform, he hasn't offered assurances to Twitter's advertiser base that Twitter will remain "brand safe," post-acquisition. To the extent that he's clarified his vision, Musk said only that he believes any speech not deemed illegal by a government will soon be permitted on Twitter. Of course, Twitter today already moderates a wide range of prohibited types of content beyond what's considered illegal. [...] They may just decide that reaching Twitter's small-ish user base -- at least in comparison with the larger social giants like Meta and TikTok -- is not worth the risk. [...]

Among the many new risks related to the transactional nature of the Musk deal -- like if the merger is delayed or doesn't close (the latter which comes with a billion-dollar financial hit to Twitter, for instance) -- the company said it's exposed to new risks related to its "business relationships, financial condition, operating results, cash flows, and business," including "whether advertisers continue their spending on our platform." As the company explains further in the filing, amid its ongoing risk factors, it continues to generate the "substantial majority of our revenue from advertising" and its loss could harm the business. It notes as well that if its reputation among advertisers declined, it may be less competitive.

[T]he company also acknowledged a more immediate threat of employee departures and an inability to effectively recruit as other potential ramifications of the merge, and noted that "current employees could be distracted, and their productivity decline as a result, due to uncertainty regarding the merger." Musk downplayed any worries over employee departures when speaking to reporters on the red carpet at the annual Met Gala in New York, Reuters noted, saying that "it's a free country," and that: "Certainly if anyone doesn't feel comfortable with that, they will on their own accord go somewhere else. That's fine."

Paramount Plus' subscriber count has ballooned to almost 40 million with the service gaining 6.8 million subscribers in the first quarter of 2022 alone, Paramount announced in its earnings report on Tuesday. The Verge reports: An increase in subscriber count led to more money for the company as well — its direct-to-consumer revenue, which includes Paramount Plus and its free TV streaming service, Pluto TV, increased 82 percent year over year. While revenue from subscriptions for both Pluto TV and Paramount Plus grew 95 percent year over year, advertising revenue increased 59 percent. The company says Paramount Plus subscribers watched more shows for longer periods of time as well. This, along with a higher subscriber count, was mostly driven by the service strengthening its roster of shows.

According to The Wall Street Journal, a digital advertising network was selling precise movements of millions of users of the gay-dating app Grindr. The locations were available for purchase since "at least 2017," according to the report. Gizmodo reports: According to the Journal's sources, one of the company's old ad partners, MoPub (which was sold off by Twitter earlier this year), was freely passing off location data from the tens of thousands of apps that use place-based information to monetize. At one time, this included Grindr. Once in MoPub's hands, the Journal alleges that this data was sold off, in bulk, to other partners, like Near (formerly known as UM, and formerly formerly known as UberMedia). And Near offered up that data to just about anyone. Because data privacy laws in the U.S. are vague and chaotic where they exist at all, Near can pawn off data from its upstream partners out in the open. You, dear reader, could buy it yourself.

"Grindr has shared less information with ad partners than any of the big tech platforms and most of our competitors, restricting the information we share to IP address, advertising ID, and the basic information necessary to support ad delivery," Grindr spokesperson Patrick Lenihan noted in a public statement. With all respect to Lenihan, that bar is extremely low. So-called "anonymous" data points like an ad ID or IP address can easily be tied back to a specific device, and the person who owns that device. By using "anonymous" data like this, advertisers can accurately surmise your workout routine, your favorite tunes, your immigration status and much, much more. "[A]bout one year ago, reports emerged that location data gleaned from the app was used to out a Catholic priest," adds Gizmodo. "The priest resigned, and Catholic news writers wrung their hands over the ill-gotten data source."

"[T]he data used to out the priest was anonymized, legally speaking, but the middlemen were able to tie the Grindr-using device to a certain Grindr-using priest because the device was seen frequenting the priest's residence and lake house."

Alphabet's Google will provide any U.S. business over $100,000 worth of online courses in data analytics, design and other tech skills for their workers free of charge, the search company said on Monday. Reuters reports: The offer marks a big expansion of Google's Career Certificates, a program the company launched in 2018 to help people globally boost their resumes by learning new tools at their own pace. Over 70,000 people in the United States and 205,000 globally have earned at least one certificate, and 75% receive a benefit such as a new job or higher pay within six months, according to Google.

The courses, designed by Google and sold through online education service Coursera, each typically cost students about $39 a month and take three to six months to finish. Google will now cover costs for up to 500 workers at any U.S. business, and it valued the grants at $100,000 because people usually take up to six months to finish. Lisa Gevelber, founder of Grow with Google, the company unit overseeing certificates, said course completion rates are higher when people pay out of pocket but that the new offer was still worthwhile if it could help some businesses gain digital savvy. Certificates also are available in IT support, project management, e-commerce and digital marketing. They cover popular software in each of the fields, including Google advertising services.

Alphabet's Google lashed out at the European Union for doling out a "quasi criminal fine of very large proportions" for allegedly thwarting advertising rivals on websites. From a report: At a hearing at the bloc's General Court on Monday, the search giant said the 2019 decision by the EU's antitrust arm to issue the 1.49 billion-euro ($1.6 billion) fine was riddled with errors and should be struck down. The case is the last of a trilogy of EU court fights over cases that set the course for antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager's bid to rein in Silicon Valley. It focuses on Google's role as an ad broker for websites, targeting exclusivity agreements for online ads with its AdSense for Search product. In its decision, the EU accused the company of imposing a number of restrictive clauses in contracts with third-party websites which prevented Google's rivals from placing their search adverts on these websites. The European Commission analysis includes "errors of characterization" that led it "to proceed on a false basis in its assessment of the clauses and they have resulted in material errors of analysis," said Josh Holmes, one of the lawyers for Google appearing in court.

A report released last week contends that Amazon uses voice data from its Echo devices to serve targeted ads on its own platforms and the web. The Verge reports: he report, produced by researchers affiliated with the University of Washington, UC Davis, UC Irvine, and Northeastern University, said the ways Amazon does this is inconsistent with its privacy policies. Titled, "Your Echos are Heard: Tracking, Profiling, and Ad Targeting in the Amazon Smart Speaker Ecosystem," the report concludes that Amazon and third parties (including advertising and tracking services) collect data from your interactions with Alexa through Echo smart speakers and share it with as many as 41 advertising partners. That data is then used to "infer user interests" and "serve targeted ads on-platform (Echo devices) as well as off-platform (web)." It also concludes that this type of data is in hot demand, leading to "30X higher ad bids from advertisers."

Amazon confirmed to The Verge that it does use voice data from Alexa interactions to inform relevant ads shown on Amazon or other sites where Amazon places ads. "Similar to what you'd experience if you made a purchase on Amazon.com or requested a song through Amazon Music, if you ask Alexa to order paper towels or to play a song on Amazon Music, the record of that purchase or song play may inform relevant ads shown on Amazon or other sites where Amazon places ads." Amazon spokesperson Lauren Raemhild said in an email.

The company also confirmed there are targeted ads on its smart speakers. "Customers may receive interest-based ads when they use ad-supported premium content -- like music, radio or news streams," said Raemhild, pointing out that this is the same experience if they engaged with that content on other channels. She went on to say that Amazon does not share voice recordings with developers. "Developers get the information necessary to fulfill your requests within their skills, such as answers when you play a trivia skill, or the name of the song you want to play," she said. "We do not share our customers' personal information to third-party skills without the customer's consent." Amazon allows Alexa users to opt out of ad targeting as well (see sidebar). "Many of the conclusions in this research are based on inaccurate inferences or speculation by the authors, and do not accurately reflect how Alexa works," added Raemhild. "We are not in the business of selling our customers' personal information and we do not share Alexa requests with advertising networks."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The EU has agreed on another ambitious piece of legislation to police the online world. Early Saturday morning, after hours of negotiations, the bloc agreed on the broad terms of the Digital Services Act, or DSA, which will force tech companies to take greater responsibility for content that appears on their platforms. New obligations include removing illegal content and goods more quickly, explaining to users and researchers how their algorithms work, and taking stricter action on the spread of misinformation. Companies face fines of up to 6 percent of their annual turnover for noncompliance.

"The DSA will upgrade the ground-rules for all online services in the EU," said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a statement. "It gives practical effect to the principle that what is illegal offline, should be illegal online. The greater the size, the greater the responsibilities of online platforms." [...] Although the legislation only applies to EU citizens, the effect of these laws will certainly be felt in other parts of the world, too. Global tech companies may decide it is more cost-effective to implement a single strategy to police content and take the EU's comparatively stringent regulations as their benchmark. Lawmakers in the US keen to rein in Big Tech with their own regulations have already begun looking to the EU's rules for inspiration.

The final text of the DSA has yet to be released, but the European Parliament and European Commission have detailed a number of obligations it will contain [...]. Although the broad terms of the DSA have now been agreed upon by the member states of the EU, the legal language still needs to be finalized and the act officially voted into law. This last step is seen as a formality at this point, though. The rules will apply to all companies 15 months after the act is voted into law, or from January 1st, 2024, whichever is later. "Large online platforms like Facebook will have to make the working of their recommender algorithms (used for sorting content on the News Feed or suggesting TV shows on Netflix) transparent to users," notes The Verge. "Users should also be offered a recommender system 'not based on profiling.' In the case of Instagram, for example, this would mean a chronological feed (as it introduced recently)."

The tech giants will also be prohibited from using "dark patterns" -- confusing or deceptive UIs designed to steer users into making certain choices. A detailed list of obligations contained in the DSA can be found in the article.

Sony is building a program to let advertisers buy ads in PlayStation games. From a report: It's doing testing with adtech partners to place in-game ads, similar to an initiative by rival Microsoft. The program is expected to launch before the end of the year. Sony is working on a plan to put ads inside PlayStation games, sources said, similar to a move by Microsoft to run ads in Xbox. Three people who are involved in the plans said Sony is doing testing with adtech partners to help game developers create in-game ads through a software developer program. The idea is to encourage developers to keep building free-to-play games, which have soared in the pandemic, by giving them a way to monetize them, they said. PlayStation's current ad inventory is limited to in-menu ads like game publishers promoting their own titles in the console's store, the sources said. PlayStation also serves ads on streaming video to people who stream via their consoles through apps like Hulu .

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Netflix said inflation, the war in Ukraine and fierce competition contributed to a loss of subscribers for the first time in more than a decade and predicted more contraction ahead, marking an abrupt shift in fortune for a streaming company that thrived during the pandemic. Netflix's 26% tumble after the bell on Tuesday erased about $40 billion of its stock market value. Since it warned in January of weak subscriber growth, the company has lost nearly half of its value. The lagging subscriber growth prompted Netflix for the first time to say it might offer lower-priced version of the service with advertising. [...] In addition to advertising-supported plans, the company is also looking to generate additional revenue from customers who share their account with friends or family outside their home.

"A new survey claims Windows 11 adoption is so low it's actually less popular than the 20-year-old Windows XP," reports PC Magazine: The survey comes from an IT management provider called Lansweeper. Through its own software products, the company scanned 10 million Windows devices this month to determine which OS they were using. The results found that only 1.44% of the devices had Windows 11 installed, which is lower than the 1.71% for Windows XP. In contrast, Windows 10 maintains a dominant share at 80.34%. Although Windows 11's adoption is low at 1.44%, the number actually went up almost three times from 0.52% back in January.

It's also important to note that other surveys have found much higher Windows 11 adoption numbers. Last month, the app advertising platform AdDuplex found Windows 11 usage was at 19.4%, although this represented a mere 0.1% growth from the previous month. Meanwhile, the Steam hardware survey from Valve estimates Windows 11 usage has reached 16.8%.

Microsoft wants to let advertisers place ads inside free-to-play Xbox games. According to Insider, the company "is currently identifying adtech companies who can create the in-game inventory and work with ad agencies to place the ads." From the report: This new program will boost Xbox's limited ad inventory by adding more games that brands can advertise in and by allowing more developers to sell ad space. Those sources said those ads would show up as, for instance, digitally rendered billboards in a car racing game. Insider was unable to learn if Xbox will also offer other types of in-game ad units, like avatar skins or video ads that play in gaming lobbies. Insider was also unable to determine if Microsoft has pitched the Xbox offering to advertisers yet. Insider's sources expect this capability to be live by the third quarter.

The two sources said the tech giant did not seem intent on taking a cut of ad revenue, and that it seemed more interested in building out the Xbox ad network. Ad revenue will be shared by the game developer and the adtech company that places the ad, those sources believe. One of the sources speculated Microsoft isn't currently interested in collecting a cut of ad revenue because it wants to provide more money-making opportunities to developers who make free-to-play games.

Microsoft started talks to build an Xbox in-game ad network around 2018 or 2019, but that process accelerated thanks to the 2020 release of the latest Xbox, and the boom in free-to-play titles, the two sources said. Microsoft is worried inserting ads into Xbox games could irritate people who don't expect to see ads when playing on consoles, so it's moving cautiously and intends to create a "private marketplace," where only select brands can insert ads into games in a way that doesn't disrupt the gameplay experience, the two sources said. They also said Microsoft is concerned about securing its customers' data, so other companies can't use it.

Video-sharing app TikTok's advertisement revenue is likely to triple in 2022 to more than $11 billion, exceeding the combined sales of its rivals Twitter and Snap, according to research firm Insider Intelligence. Reuters reports: TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is one of the world's most popular social media apps, with more than 1 billion active users. "TikTok's user base has exploded in the past couple of years, and the amount of time users spend on the app is extraordinary," said Debra Aho Williamson, analyst at Insider Intelligence.

Twitter and Snapchat are expected to generate $5.58 billion and $4.86 billion, respectively, in advertising revenue for 2022, with the combined value still less than the $11 billion projected for TikTok. Nearly $6 billion, or more than half, of this year's ad revenue is expected to come from the United States, despite regulatory concerns over user data from U.S being passed on to China.

UPDATE: Jeff Bezos and Marc Andreessen have now responded to Elon Musk's suggestion to create a homeless shelter out of Twitter's San Francisco headquarters, "since no one shows up anyway."

And at some point over the weekend, Musk also suggested a new way that Twitter could use Dogecoin...

It all started when the newest member of Twitter's board of directors — Elon Musk — began tweeting new ideas for improving Twitter last night. "Everyone who signs up for Twitter Blue (i.e. pays $3/month) should get an authentication checkmark," Musk suggested, adding later that "It would massively expand the verified pool & make bot armies too expensive to maintain." Musk clarified that this checkmark "should be different from 'public figure' or 'official account' checkmark." And he also noted that Twitter Blue subscribers already get special features like a modifiable 20 second time window in which they can edit their tweets.

"And no ads," Musk suggested in another tweet. "The power of corporations to dictate policy is greatly enhanced if Twitter depends on advertising money to survive." Musk later offered suggestions about how to implement that subscription fee, according to the Associated Press. Musk suggested it "should be proportionate to affordability and in local currency."

And he added, "Maybe even an option to pay in Doge?" referring to Dogecoin cryptocurrency.

But moments later Musk tweeted a poll, asking his followers to vote Yes or No to this idea:

Convert Twitter's San Francisco headquarters to a homeless shelter since no one shows up anyway.

Within 16 hours 1,425,937 people had voted "Yes!" — a whopping 91.3% of all votes cast. (Versus just 135,877 votes for "No.")

Sunday night Bloomberg reported that Jeff Bezos, "a fellow billionaire, responded Sunday with a link to a report about an [8-story] homeless shelter attached to an Amazon office building, noting that a portion of Twitter's space could be converted, making it easier for employees who want to volunteer. Musk called the suggestion a "great idea...."

Homelessness is a particularly visible problem at Twitter's headquarters, located in a part of San Francisco where residents have grappled with urban decay and drug addiction.
Silicon valley entrepreneur/investor Marc Andreessen then posted his own three-word reply. Apparently in response to Bezos's suggestion that employees could volunteer more easily if if a portion of their building were a homeless shelter, Andreessen joked, "Every other desk?"

And five hours after Musk's homeless shelter poll, he'd moved on to yet another question, polling his followers for "Yes" or "No" votes on this idea:

Delete the w in Twitter?

Ben Thompson, making a case for why Netflix should sell ads: Here Netflix's biggest advantage is the sheer size of its subscriber base: Netflix can, on an absolute basis, pay more than its streaming competitors for the content it wants, even as its per-subscriber cost basis is lower. This advantage is only accentuated the larger Netflix's subscriber base gets, and the more revenue it makes per subscriber; the user experience of getting to that unique content doesn't really matter. All of these factors make a compelling case for Netflix to start building an advertising business. First, an advertising-supported or subsidized tier would expand Netflix's subscriber base, which is not only good for the company's long-term growth prospects, but also competitive position when it comes to acquiring content. This also applies to the company's recent attempts to crack down on password sharing, and struggles in the developing world: an advertising-based tier is a much more accessible alternative.

Second, advertising would make it easier for Netflix to continue to raise prices: on one hand, it would provide an alternative for marginal customers who might otherwise churn, and on the other hand, it would create a new benefit for those willing to pay (i.e. no advertising for the highest tiers). Third, advertising is a natural fit for the jobs Netflix does. Sure, customers enjoy watching shows without ads -- and again, they can continue to pay for that -- but filler TV, which Netflix also specializes in, is just as easily filled with ads. Above all, though, is the fact that advertising is a great opportunity that aligns with Netflix's business: while the company once won with a differentiated user experience worth paying for, today Netflix demands scarce attention because of its investment in unique content. That attention can be sold, and should be, particularly as it increases Netflix's ability to invest in more unique content, and/or charge higher prices to its user base.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: What's it like to spend $10,000 for Internet service and wait six months for Comcast to hook it up? Jonathan Rowny knows the answer. Rowny and his wife and child moved from Virginia to Washington state in May 2021. Rowny told Ars that before closing on the house in the city of Buckley, he checked Comcast's website to confirm that he could sign up for broadband. "I went ahead and placed my order and scheduled the install for the day after we moved in or whatever... I think it was about four days before closing [on the house] that Comcast canceled my order," he said. Rowny said that someone from Comcast called him with the message that "your house is not serviceable."

Comcast initially told Rowny that he'd have to pay over $19,000 for a line extension. After spending a couple of months investigating his options, Rowny hired a contractor to do part of the work and paid Comcast to do the rest, for a total of about $10,000. Construction took a bit longer than expected, and there was one final frustration after the line extension was completed: Comcast wouldn't send an installer to Rowny's house because the company's records incorrectly showed the work wouldn't be done until April. Rowny had to contact a senior vice president to get that issue sorted out and finally got service in mid-January.

We confirmed last week that Comcast's online ordering system was still giving false availability information on Rowny's street. At another house about 400 feet further down Rowny's street, the Xfinity.com address checker said that Internet service is available, and the website let us add an Internet plan to the cart for purchase. That was on Tuesday, and we notified Comcast of the likely error. Comcast has since corrected the address checker so that it now says the home is "out of footprint" and "Xfinity service is not available at this address." A Comcast spokesperson told Ars that this address "doesn't have service and is not currently connected to our network, and we have never had a request for service construction to that address... that is an error and our local team is looking into why it is listed on the site." If someone had ordered service for this address before it was corrected, that person would have faced the same problem Rowny encountered in May 2021. We also asked Comcast if it is evaluating the rest of the area for similar mistakes and did not get an answer.

slack_justyb writes: After the failure of the Chrome user-tracking system that was called FLoC, Google's latest try at topic tracking to replace the 3rd party cookie (that Chrome is the only browser to still support) is FLEDGE and the most recent drop of Canary has this on full display for users and privacy advocates to dive deeper into. This recent release shows Google's hand that it views user tracking as a mandatory part of internet usage, especially given this system's eye-rolling name of "Privacy Sandbox" and the tightness in the coupling of this new API to the browser directly.

The new API will allow the browser itself to build what it believes to be things that you are interested in, based on broad topics that Google creates. New topics and methods for how you are placed into those topics will be added to the browser's database and indexing software via updates from Google. The main point to take away here though is that the topic database is built using your CPU's time. At this time, opting out of the browser building this interest database is possible thus saving you a few cycles from being used for that purpose. In the future there may not be a way to stop the browser from using cycles to build the database; the only means may be to just constantly remove all interest from your personal database. At this time there doesn't seem to be any way to completely turn off the underlying API. A website that expects this API will always succeed in "some sort of response" so long as you are using Chrome. The response may be that you are interested in nothing, but a response none-the-less. Of course, sending a response of "interested in nothing" would more than likely require someone constantly, and timely, clearing out the interest database, especially if at some later time the option to turn off the building of the database is removed.

With 82% of Google's empire based on ad revenue, this latest development in Chrome shows that Google is not keen on any moves to threaten their main money maker. Google continues to argue that it is mandatory that it builds a user tracking and advertising system into Chrome, and the company says it won't block third-party cookies until it accomplishes that -- no matter what the final solution may ultimately be. The upshot, if it can be called that, of the FLEDGE API over FLoC, is that abuse of FLEDGE looks to yield less valuable results. And attempting to use the API alone to pick out an individual user via fingerprinting or other methods employed elsewhere seems to be rather difficult to do. But only time will tell if that remains true or just Google idealizing this new API. As for the current timeline, here's what the company had to say in the latest Chromium Blog post: "Starting today, developers can begin testing globally the Topics, FLEDGE, and Attribution Reporting APIs in the Canary version of Chrome. We'll progress to a limited number of Chrome Beta users as soon as possible. Once things are working smoothly in Beta, we'll make API testing available in the stable version of Chrome to expand testing to more Chrome users."

Greenpeace and other environmental groups launched a new campaign today to push the Bitcoin network to slash its growing greenhouse gas emissions. The Verge reports: The goal of the campaign, dubbed "Change the code, not the climate," is to switch up the energy-hungry process of verifying transactions and mining new Bitcoins. [...] In order to validate transactions, Bitcoin miners rely on specialized hardware to solve complex puzzles. Their computers gobble up a lot of energy in the process, and the miners get new tokens in return. It's a process called "proof of work," in which the energy used is sort of the price paid to verify transactions. The process is deliberately energy-intensive as a safety measure. The baked-in inefficiency is meant to discourage bad actors from manipulating the data because it would cost a lot of energy to do so.

The new campaign aims to move Bitcoin away from that energy-hungry proof of work process. The most popular alternative is called proof of stake. Cryptocurrencies that use proof of stake use vastly less energy because there are no puzzles to solve. Instead of essentially paying with electricity to participate in the process, you have to offer up some of your own tokens. This is supposed to prove that you have a "stake" in keeping the ledger accurate. If you mess anything up, you lose tokens as a penalty. While proof of stake might make solve a lot of Bitcoin's pollution problems, experts have been skeptical that miners would be willing to make the change. Miners invest a lot in their hardware and would be hard-pressed to abandon it. And some fans of proof of work maintain that it's the most secure way to maintain the ledger. "We know Bitcoin stakeholders are incentivized not to change," the campaign acknowledges on its website. "Changing Bitcoin would render a whole lot of expensive infrastructure worthless, meaning Bitcoin stakeholders will need to walk away from sunk costs -- or find other creative solutions."

As the Guardian notes, the campaign is launching a huge digital advertising push via the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Marketwatch, Politico, Facebook and others. "Organizers are also taking legal action against proposed mining sites and using their large memberships to push bitcoin's biggest investors and influencers to call for a code change." Additionally, the campaign is urging people to tweet at cryptocurrency influencers to support the campaign.