I hope you don’t use Google. I especially hope you don’t use Google Family. And I especially really much so hope you don’t use Google Family Link.

But if you do…

https://techwolf12.nl/blog/google-family-link-exploit/

#Privacy #InfoSec #OpSec #Google #GoogleFamily #GoogleFamilyLink

Google has put Canonical in charge of maintaining and developing the roadmap for Flutter Desktop.

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/05/flutter-desktop-canonical-maintained?v1

#ubuntu #flutter #google

Google is cannibalizing the web to feed AI

And being remarkably candid about it. The article both amused and horrified me - and no I do not use Google or any other AI search.

https://www.theregister.com/ai-ml/2026/05/25/google-is-cannibalizing-the-web-to-feed-ai/5244641

#AI #Google #Enshitification #Search

Alt...

From the article, Googlws AI mode was used to ask a question - the text from the article reads The Chocolate Factory's AI search substitute offered this completely trustworthy reply: "You are definitely not imagining it. Users, tech critics, and researchers have documented a measurable decline in Google Search quality. The core issue is that the search engine no longer feels like a tool designed to find the best corner of the web; instead, it feels like a vehicle designed to keep you on Google-owned properties or clicking on monetized links. "The degradation of Google Search stems from a mix of aggressive monetization, an ongoing arms race with web spammers, and the disruptive introduction of AI features."

@openrightsgroup please let people know that Wes Streeting has come out strongly in favour of the ban, and he is very tight with #bigtech leaders including #Palantir, #Google, #Meta, #Microsoft.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2026/may/26/wes-streeting-keir-starmer-social-media-ban-labour-uk-politics-live

#ukpolitics

#Billionaire ex-CEO of #Google #EricSchmidt fails to read the room, championing AI’s restructuring of #society at the U.of Arizona graduation ceremony Friday night in his speech as commencement speaker. Schmidt was met with merciless boos & jeers from the graduating #students at every mention of #AI

AI is expected to replace around 15 million #US.#jobs by 2030

@workersrights #usa #canada #eu #news #health #labour #union #resistance #protest #culture #mastodon #fediverse @politics #socialmedia

‘F*** this guy’: #Graduation speakers keep getting booed for talking about #ArtificialIntelligence

Commencement speakers want new graduates to feel optimistic about artificial intelligence — instead students are booing. New grads tell Josh Marcus that their fury about doddering policymakers and looming layoffs should be listened to

Saturday 23 May 2026 13:54 BST

"From coast to coast, commencement speakers have faced an audience of booing graduates each time they bring up artificial intelligence.

"The boos came when music executive #ScottBorchetta told the grads at Middle Tennessee State University, 'It’s a tool. Make it work for you.' The capped-and-gowned University of Central Florida crowd jeered when real estate executive #GloriaCaulfield called #AI the 'next industrial revolution.'

"But no one got it worse than former #Google CEO #EricSchmidt, whose May 15 speech at the University of Arizona was booed, nearly without interruption, for minutes on end.

" 'It was honestly one of the most surreal experiences,' Bailey Ekstrom, 21, an economics and political science graduate who was in the crowd, told The Independent. She had never seen campus opinion so unified, a mini-referendum suggesting the generation inheriting the post-AI world isn’t all that thrilled about it."

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/ai-college-graduation-eric-schmidt-google-b2981383.html

#ClassOf2026 #AISucks #DatacentersSuck

@mle @zackwhittaker One thing you can do is trusting the vendor, the other thing you can do is: claim your posession. Neither #Apple nor #Google allow that - at least you can try to cut the wire for garmin devices through #gadgetbridge (also then you nee to trust the vendor to a certain degree).
#wearables

#Google bought out the firm that made my pedometer, and the updated data privacy statement is like: "We take your PRIVACY SERIOUSLY and GUARANTEE that we will NOT use ANY of your data for purposes that we have not yet thought of.
Please note that there may be data privacy amendments in the future."

@EUCommission
Would be nice if the EU commission acted like it. Meaning:
- ditching #chatcontrol for good, along with all other ways of mass surveillance, like (european versions of) #Palantir.
- actually enforcing fines against #BigTech instead of halting it like von der Leyen did with #Google
- not selling our data to usa by #omnibus
- list goes on

Does anyone have a guide to interacting with a bluetooth-connected #fitbit device? To be clear I don't want to use the web app, now transferred to #Google or to use the new Google Health app,, just to get the data from the device directly. The projects I've seen are outdated and mostly belong to the pre-bluetooth generation of devices (mine is about five years old).

With Google choosing ensloppification, here's a recommendation for an independent search engine to try.

Mojeek (on the Fedi at @Mojeek ) is an independent search engine based out if the UK. Unlike the various front ends to Bing, it runs its own web crawler.

The most impressive feature is you enter the thing you want to search for, and it returns a list of website links.

https://www.mojeek.com/

#deGoogled #degoogle #enshittification #google #mojeek

@kagihq Recent news: #Google Search has never been more #enshittified !
Google: Hold my beer!

Look at what Google's AI just did to a Japanese artist...

It permanently banned their entire Google account, simply for uploading their own old manga files to Drive.

The artist's appeal was rejected. An algorithm decided that an artist's work was a violation.

And they didn't just lose Drive. Gmail, YouTube, every service.. gone!

Artists must take care. Never rely solely on the cloud for irreplaceable items like your own copyrighted data. Physical storage is the best approach.

#Google #GoogleDrive #GoogleAI #AI #Artist #Manga

Alt...

糸杉柾宏＠『寝取り魔法使いの冒険』第１第３ 月曜更新 @masahiroitosugi Translated from Japanese By the way, I hate to admit this with all the embarrassment it brings, but I got my Google account banned. It happened when I was uploading data from an old comic I drew to Drive, and a warning popped up. Even my appeal for re-review got rejected, and boom—account banned, just like that. Seriously, it’s a real hassle. I was using that Google account for all sorts of sites and services.

Alt...

Manga image featuring elf mage character Frieren from the anime and manga series Frieren: Beyond Journey's End (Sousou no Frieren). The image shows the character looking up into the sky while holding their hands over their mouth and nose.

The author of @allaboutberlin on how Google AI Overviews are killing independent web publishing, citing a 70% drop in traffic after seven years of steady growth. His work trains the model. The model is replacing his site. There is no credit, clicks, or revenue. This is what the "enshittification" of the open web looks like in practice.

Hard to imagine moving to Berlin without stumbling upon his guides at some point.

https://allaboutberlin.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nicolasbouliane_ai-is-killing-all-about-berlin-when-you-share-7463188284924616705-I3Mn

#AI #OpenKnowledge #Berlin #Google #Enshittification #OpenWeb #IndieWeb

Alt...

AI is killing All About Berlin. When you Googled something, you used to get a link to my website. Now you get an AI-generated answer trained on my work. This has a devastating impact on traffic. It's hard to fund my work with 70% fewer visitors. In another year, it will be impossible. Instead of writing new guides, I spend my days preparing for that future. Yesterday, Google announced two things: AI-generated answers will completely replace search results, and AI-generated answers will soon contain ads. This is the future of the web. I don't know where All About Berlin fits in that future.

Abschluss der I/O: Der kleine Fauxpas des Google-Chefs

In der Abschlussrunde der Google I/O ging es noch einmal um KI, um die Kooperation mit Apple – und wie Google zum Erstarken chinesischer KI-Modelle steht.

https://www.heise.de/news/Abschluss-der-I-O-Der-kleine-Fauxpas-des-Google-Chefs-11301550.html?wt_mc=sm.red.ho.mastodon.mastodon.md_beitraege.md_beitraege&utm_source=mastodon

#Android #Apple #Google #GoogleIO #iOS #IT #KünstlicheIntelligenz #news

RE: https://mastodon.de/@ErikUden/116612379708940802

I don’t understand why one of the largest factory farms for human beings is acting this way.

#google #peopleFarming #surveillance #capitalism #BigTech

Erik Uden 🚩 » 🌐 2026-05-21
@ErikUden@mastodon.de

Google's proposed workaround for sideloading unverified apps requires 9 steps, a mandatory 24-hour waiting period, and is delivered through Google Play Services, not the Android OS. Google can modify or remove it at any time without user consent. It hasn't shipped in any beta. @keepandroidopen #KeepAndroidOpen https://keepandroidopen.org

RE: https://mastodon.social/@iamgerardthomas/116611134507388605

No one?

https://ar.al/talks/#free-is-a-lie

#google #surveillance #capitalism #peopleFarming

It's not a secret that Google isn't the apple of our eye (there's a reason why we don't make any money from search deals with them) but yesterday's announcement about the changes coming to Google Search are plain depressing for the web as we know it. What started as a joke (the famous "It's not AI" video with @jon), is starting to feel dystopian at this point.

Anyway. Swimming against the current is exhausting, but the fight for a better web is more important than ever. And as long as there’s people willing to take the fight, there’s hope. 🔥 So we'll keep resisting: no opt-in, no opt-out, no nonsense. ✊

#AI #Google

I wrote about Apple's privacy promise yesterday — then Google held I/O and made the whole thing worse. They didn't build a better search, they built a cage out of the old one funneling you right into their AI and likely away from the actual sources of what you searched for.

https://blog.ppb1701.com/every-road-leads-to-google

#google #apple #ai #privacy #gemini #search #googleio #bigtech #userhostile #agentic #blog

Plenty of news of #Google enshittification in my timeline today.

Use @kagihq. Kagi Good.

People have spent years talking about leaving Google, but at some point the talk has to give way to action

This company believes it has people locked in. If anyone wants to challenge that belief, now would be an excellent time.

There are a lot of alternatives that can help you disentangle yourself, from Google and the rest of the usual suspects.

And if you think it can’t be done, trust me, it can. I’ve done it.

#google

https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/19/google-search-as-you-know-it-is-over/

@thomasfuchs when manifest v3 first came out that was all anybody needed to know about priorities at #google .
When the news came out that the browser’s engineers were overruled by the advertising team, that was all you needed to know about their vision for executing against those priorities.

The only thing left to wonder about with #chrome is when people will notice how hot the water they are poaching in has gotten and flip to #brave or another user-friendly browser.

I've learn to use a powerful tool which circumvents the invading privacy routines that Google runs on YouTube

That tool is powerful yet simple to use

Sources

https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=dgy1f1l0EBA

Thank you my internet friend @rl_dane

🦋💙❤️💋#Lobi 💙💕🌹💐💙🦋

#Privacy #invading #evasion #YouTube #video #TV #Google #Alphabet #channel #programming #enshittification #cross #platform

Please do take all #Guardian reporting about the new #BBC Director General, Matt Brittin with a large pinch of salt. He’s not just #Google's former vice-president for Northern and Central Europe, he became a non-executive director of the Guardian Media Group in February 2025.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/may/18/bbc-staff-strike-director-general-matt-brittin-first-day

#AI fake videos on #YouTube -- Johnny Carson and Jack Lemmon

Here's an example of the sort of AI garbage flooding YouTube. I stumbled across a fairly recent video claiming to tell the story of actor Jack Lemmon announcing he had colon cancer while a guest on "The Tonight Show". Very dramatic video. Very emotional. TOTALLY FAKE. Most commenters didn't realize this, expressing their thanks for the video and praising it. A scattering of commenters pointed out that it was total garbage.

I am not sharing the URL since I do not want to give that video any juice.

But this is the sort of CRAP flooding YouTube, and #Google just doesn't give a damn, 'cause a click is a click for them. And this one is relatively minor compared to more recent ones as the VIDEO GARBAGE AI SYSTEMS flood our lives.

DISGUSTING.

L

When you can’t find your mouse cursor, you wiggle it about to spot it. On #macOS this causes it to temporarily grow, making it very easy to find. On #Google/#AluminiumOS, the #ChromeBook replacement, wiggling will launch #AI-Mode. One of those solutions is helpful, the other is called #Gemini!

Under the Advanced #Privacy area in the #Fairphone it shows the number of #Trackers found in the installed #Apps along with the number of attempted #leaks from these trackers over 30 days. In this case 11,191 or about 370 per day! A lot are to #Google but many other #tracking companies involved - mostly US based.
If you're using a normal #Android this is the volume of data your device is leaking to US mega corporations.

Alt...

Screenshot from Android phone showing text: Advanced Privacy. Last 30 days. Blocked 11,191 leaks From 29 Apps

I accidentally wrote an article about the mutation of a gesture on a topic that the UX/UI designers among you actually know much more about than I do. Nevertheless, I thought you might like it. 🌻

https://finest.day/posts/arguing-on-interfaces-from-obligation-to-omnipotence

#design #interface #UX #UI #blogging #writing #pikablog #google #googlebook

Thanks, I hate it.

https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/platforms/android/noto-3d-emoji/

#Android #emoji #Google

ZOMG IT'S PATCH TUESDAY! As today's post explains, it's not just Microsoft increasing the volume (and pacing) of patch releases lately as a result of code audits reportedly from Anthropic's much-hyped Glasswing AI offering. Other software giants are getting in on the act now!

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/05/patch-tuesday-may-2026-edition/

#patchtuesday #microsoft #anthropic #google #apple #mozilla #firefox #adobe

Alphabet Enshittification

Open up / create another Google account and  continue storing and your data over there
When a Google account has about 75% of it quota occupied The System already starts to mutter that you need to buy More Space

That is the reason why they do this

You can create infinite amounts of accounts

@rl_dane

🦋💙❤️💋#SwitiLobi 💙💕🌹💐💙🦋

#Enshittification #Google #Meta #deception #Quota #programming #mathematics

@rl_dane I moved my email from #GMail to another provider. I still have 1/2 TB in my #Google Drive. Looking forward to the day when I can move my stuff from Google Drive. It's a quirky and #mediocre service.

<tangent>
I think that's also my biggest gripe with Google's products. They are mediocre and bland compared to other options but they are free and Google's integration makes it too convenient and their "walled garden" makes it difficult to leave.

Plus, it's not like that company has a stellar track record for privacy.
</tangent>

Google Drive: "Your storage is 95+% full!"
Google Drive: "Would you like to empty your trash?"
YES.
Go to Trash
Select all
Google Drive: "There's 3GB of files to delete!"
Delete them!
Google Drive: "You cleaned up 307 MB!!"

WHAT. HOW are you this inept?!?

#Google #GoogleDrive #GDrive #Slop

@thomasfuchs the sheer idea is #cyberfascist and should be outlawed as #blackmail & #extortion.

- #Google needs to be fucking banned and dismantled for good!

EVE Online developer goes independent as Fenris Creations, partners up with Google DeepMind https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/05/eve-online-developer-goes-independent-as-fenris-creations-partners-up-with-google-deepmind/

#EveOnline #Google #AI #GoogleDeepMind