Hans-Christoph Steiner @eighthave@librem.one

It looks like #Apple is using salami tactics with the @EU_Commission on #DMA compliance, giving up tiny slices in hope that might sway (and shut up) the regulator and the public.

I sincerely hope the Commission's enforcement team is not being fooled by this.

#DigitalMarketsAct #competition #appstore #appfreedom #foss
Source: #PoliticoPro newsletter

I'm sitting in the @EU_Commission #DMA compliance workshop for #Apple right now and as much as I appreciate the format, it's frustrating to see that Apple is the only party on the panel and in addition has its proxies like #CCIA and the #AppAssociation #ACT in the audience that are allowed to ask convenient questions and steer the discussion in Apple's interest.

#DigitalMarketsAct #competition #appfreedom #deviceneutrality #foss

We have a new blog post .

@uniqx wrote about how we handle our servers to protect your privacy: https://f-droid.org/2024/03/08/privacy-design-of-fdroid.org-webservers.html #FDroid

With today's votes on #CRA and #PLD on the introduction of liability rules for software, a broad exception for #FreeSoftware was made, so that after long and intense debates individual developers and non for profit work are safeguarded.

https://fsfe.org/news/2024/news-20240312-01.html #SoftwareFreedom

I'd pay good money to read a 2,500-word deep dive comparing voluntary carbon markets with Pope Leo X's pay-for-penance scheme.

#climate #church

Docusign just admitted that they use customer data (i.e., all those contracts, affidavits, and other confidential documents we send them) to train AI:

https://support.docusign.com/s/document-item?language=en_US&bundleId=fzd1707173174972&topicId=uss1707173279973.html

They state that customers "contractually consent" to such use, but good luck finding it in their Terms of Service. There also doesn't appear to be a way to withdraw consent, but I may have missed that.

This week in F-Droid (TWIF) was published again

We try to explain the "app was developed for an older version of android and can not be upgraded automatically" banner for some apps (including F-Droid itself).

Also, we talk a bit about the current localization problems on our website.

On the apps side:

- new Aurora Store version
- Element and SchildiChat were updated to fix two vulnerabilities.
- OpenKeychain was updated
- sing-box was added

https://f-droid.org/2024/02/29/twif.html

#FDroid

Message from our Board of Directors:

Nominations are now open for the F-Droid board of directors!

https://f-droid.org/2024/02/28/help-advance-mobile-device-user-freedom-nominate-candidates-for-the-f-droid-board-of-directors.html

#FDroid

🗓 Leap year. Année bissextile. Schaltjahr.

We mark this rare February 29 by celebrating the unique nature of the EU.

Our Union, with 24 EU official languages, shows what being united in diversity means.

Multilingualism is our greatest strength– It breaks barriers and helps us travel, collaborate, and understand each other.

Let's celebrate it every year, every day.

I have fond memories of degaussing my old CRT monitor for fun and distraction

Degaussing a CRT at 10,000fps #shorts #slowmo
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Fkshp4Ikk6Y?themeRefresh=1

This week on F-Droid (TWIF) was published again.

We talk about:
- F-Droid and F-Droid Basic 1.19.1 are now marked as "suggested" and arrive as update for every user
- a blog post from the Guardian Project regarding repos in F-Droid
- TorServices in our repo
- ZipXtract FD with fewer features
- Jami looks better
- Organic Maps was updated again
- Stitch is back again
- and a note about the boring wall of further app updates

https://f-droid.org/2024/02/22/twif.html

#FDroid

The US data broker Bazze secretly obtains location and identity data about a hundred million people via smartphone apps, digital advertising and consumer records and sells it to the US military.

NSA-like global mass surveillance, but based on commercial data.

Forbes has now a report about it:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahemerson/2024/02/22/bazze-data-broker-is-selling-data-that-can-locate-people-at-military-bases-and-embassies/

#Signal has a beta that makes it possible to chat without sharing your phone number with the others. This is an important development for privacy in use cases like journalists and activists that have to privately interact with people they do not know. Careful about using a public username for Signal, it could open you up to spam and targeted attacks like Pegasus.

https://social.librem.one/web/timelines/home