#list of email ids of companies

[salezshark]

Beat your competitors with SalezShark Connect+ - Get a complete list of email ids of companies with a reliable, accurate, and consistent database. Fetch the data you need to succeed.

[avaantares]

Fanfiction Authors: HEADS UP

(Non-authors, please RB to signal boost to your author friends!)

An astute reader informed me this morning that one of my fics (Children of the Future Age) had been pirated and was being sold as a novel on Amazon:

(And they weren't even creative with their cover design. If you're going to pirate something that I spent a full year of my life writing, at least give me a pretty screenshot to brag about later. Seriously.)

I promptly filed a DMCA complaint to have it removed, but I checked out the company that put it up -- Plush Books -- and it looks like A LOT of their books are pirated fic. They are by no means the only ones doing this, either -- the fact that """publishers""" can download stories from AO3 in ebook format and then reupload them to Amazon in just a few clicks makes fic piracy a common problem. There are a whole host of reasons why letting this continue is bad -- including actual legal risk to fanfiction archives -- but basically:

IF YOU ARE A FANFIC AUTHOR WITH LONG AND/OR POPULAR WORKS, PLEASE CHECK AMAZON TO SEE IF YOUR STORIES HAVE BEEN PIRATED.

You can search for your fics by title, or by text from the description (which is often just copied wholesale from AO3 as well). If you find that someone has stolen your work and is selling it as their own, you can lodge a DMCA complaint (Amazon.com/USA site; other countries have different systems). If you haven't done this before, it's easy! Here's a tutorial:

HOW TO FILE A COPYRIGHT COMPLAINT FOR STOLEN WORK ON AMAZON.COM:

First, go to this form. You'll need to be signed into your Amazon account.

Select the radio buttons/dropdown options (shown below) to indicate that you are the legal Rights Owner, you have a copyright concern, and it is about a pirated product.

Enter the name of your story in the Name of Brand field.

In the Link to the Copyrighted Work box, enter a link to the story on AO3 or whatever site your work is posted on.

In the Additional Information box, explain that you are the author of the work and it is being sold without your permission. That's all you really need. If you want, you can include additional information that might be helpful in establishing the validity of your claim, but you don't have to go into great detail. You can simply write something like this:

I am the author of this work, which is being sold by [publisher] without my permission. I originally published this story in [date/year] on [name of site], and have provided a link to the original above. On request, I can provide documentation proving that I am the owner of the account that originally posted this story.

In the ASIN/ISBN-10 field, copy and paste the ID number from the pirated copy's URL. You'll find this ten-digit number in the Amazon URL after the word "product," as in the screenshot below. (If the URL extends beyond this number, you can ignore everything from the question mark on.) Once this number has been added, Amazon will pull the product information automatically and add it to the complaint form, so you can check the listing title and make sure it's correct.

Finally, add your contact information to the relevant fields, check the "I have read and accept the statements" box, and then click Submit. You should receive an email confirmation that Amazon has received the form.

Please share this information with your writer friends, keep an eye out for/report pirated works, and help us keep fanfiction free and legally protected!

NOTE: All of the above also applies to Amazon products featuring stolen artwork, etc., so fan artists should check too!

[bengesko]

AI Sellout

Used an email mask to read the whole article, pasting it below the cut.

Quick important points:

The tweet content is a list of things that are currently included, but were not SUPPOSED TO BE, and engineers are working to scrub it.

Automattic is supposedly going to add an opt out option.

Automattic did not respond to a question from 404 Media about whether it could guarantee that people who opt out will have their data deleted retroactively.

Tumblr and Wordpress are preparing to sell user data to Midjourney and OpenAI, according to a source with internal knowledge about the deals and internal documentation referring to the deals. 

The exact types of data from each platform going to each company are not spelled out in documentation we’ve reviewed, but internal communications reviewed by 404 Media make clear that deals between Automattic, the platforms’ parent company, and OpenAI and Midjourney are imminent.

The internal documentation details a messy and controversial process within Tumblr itself. One internal post made by Cyle Gage, a product manager at Tumblr, states that a query made to prepare data for OpenAI and Midjourney compiled a huge number of user posts that it wasn’t supposed to. It is not clear from Gage’s post whether this data has already been sent to OpenAI and Midjourney, or whether Gage was detailing a process for scrubbing the data before it was to be sent. 

Gage wrote:

“the way the data was queried for the initial data dump to Midjourney/OpenAI means we compiled a list of all tumblr’s public post content between 2014 and 2023, but also unfortunately it included, and should not have included:

private posts on public blogs

posts on deleted or suspended blogs

unanswered asks (normally these are not public until they’re answered)

private answers (these only show up to the receiver and are not public)

posts that are marked ‘explicit’ / NSFW / ‘mature’ by our more modern standards (this may not be a big deal, I don’t know)

content from premium partner blogs (special brand blogs like Apple’s former music blog, for example, who spent money with us on an ad campaign) that may have creative that doesn’t belong to us, and we don’t have the rights to share with this-parties; this one is kinda unknown to me, what deals are in place historically and what they should prevent us from doing.”

Gage’s post makes clear that engineers are working on compiling a list of post IDs that should not have been included, and that password-protected posts, DMs, and media flagged as CSAM and other community guidelines violations were not included.

Automattic plans to launch a new setting on Wednesday that will allow users to opt-out of data sharing with third parties, including AI companies, according to the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, and internal documents. A new FAQ section we reviewed is titled “What happens when you opt out?” states that “If you opt out from the start, we will block crawlers from accessing your content by adding your site on a disallowed list. If you change your mind later, we also plan to update any partners about people who newly opt-out and ask that their content be removed from past sources and future training.” 

404 Media has asked Automattic how it accidentally compiled data that it shouldn’t share, and whether any of that content was shared with OpenAI, but did not immediately hear back from the company. 404 Media asked Automattic about an imminent deal with Midjourney last week but did not hear back then, either.

Another internal document shows that, on February 23, an employee asked in a staff-only thread, “Do we have assurances that if a user opts out of their data being shared with third parties that our existing data partners will be notified of such a change and remove their data?”

Andrew Spittle, Automattic’s head of AI replied: “We will notify existing partners on a regular basis about anyone who's opted out since the last time we provided a list. I want this to be an ongoing process where we regularly advocate for past content to be excluded based on current preferences. We will ask that content be deleted and removed from any future training runs. I believe partners will honor this based on our conversations with them to this point. I don't think they gain much overall by retaining it.” Automattic did not respond to a question from 404 Media about whether it could guarantee that people who opt out will have their data deleted retroactively.

News about a deal between Tumblr and Midjourney has been rumored and speculated about on Tumblr for the last week. Someone claiming to be a former Tumblr employee announced in a Tumblr blog post that the platform was working on a deal with Midjourney, and the rumor made it onto Blind, an app for verified employees of companies to anonymously discuss their jobs. 404 Media has seen the Blind posts, in which what seems like an Automattic employee says, “I'm not sure why some of you are getting worked up or worried about this. It's totally legal, and sharing it publicly is perfectly fine since it's right there in the terms & conditions. So, go ahead and spread the word as much as you can with your friends and tech journalists, it's totally fine.”

Separately, 404 Media viewed a public, now-deleted post by Gage, the product manager, where he said that he was deleting all of his images off of Tumblr, and would be putting them on his personal website. A still-live post says, “i've deleted my photography from tumblr and will be moving it slowly but surely over to cylegage.com, which i'm building into a photography portfolio that i can control end-to-end.” At one point last week, his personal website had a specific note stating that he did not consent to AI scraping of his images. Gage’s original post has been deleted, and his website is now a blank page that just reads “Cyle.” Gage did not respond to a request for comment from 404 Media. 

Several online platforms have made similar deals with AI companies recently, including Reddit, which entered into an AI content licensing deal with Google and said in its SEC filing last week that it’s “in the early stages of monetizing [its] user base” by training AI on users’ posts. Last year, Shutterstock signed a six year deal with OpenAI to provide training data.

OpenAI and Midjourney did not respond to requests for comment. 

[communistkenobi]

There is a baseline transmedicalism in framing transition as a purely medical process. “transition” is synonymous with medically transitioning, with taking hormones and having “corrective” surgery. This is a framing that largely comes from cissexual doctors and psychologists, but it has also been taken up in mainstream trans discourse by many trans people. It reduces the concept of “changing sex” to a medical procedure, and as a result, reaffirms the idea of sex as a purely biological category. It doesn’t account for the fact that you are also administratively and socially trans-sexual - some of the most intensely transgender moments in my life have been signing forms to change my name with yet another governmental department, with sending human rights complaints to my phone company because they refused to accept my name change documentation, with booking an appointment with a lawyer to notarise an application to change my sex marker on my birth certificate, with emailing my employer for the fourth time to PLEASE change my name in their internal emailing system. Administrative transition isn’t just simply updating a record here or there, you are comprehensively, administratively altering your position within the family, within marriage, within insurance claims, within census data, within the state itself. To use a phrase by Stryker & Sullivan, you are petitioning the king to correct the record of your own life. There’s nothing biological about that

and yes, these administrative and social transitions are often legitimatised through medical transition - you frequently need a psychiatric diagnosis to “prove” you need to change your sex marker, you need a doctor to affirm you’ve been on hormones for X number of months in order to get a replacement government ID or get put on a surgery waiting list. I had to have a specific surgery so I could fit into men’s clothing. Medical transition allows you to move through cis social spaces while being recognised as your gender. And also like, medical transition feels good! I love taking testosterone, I’m happy with my top surgery scars. I like being treated like a man by other people & medical transition has helped me achieve that. But there’s nothing inherently biological about this arrangement - the authority of the doctor and psychiatrist is what gets you legitimacy. I didn’t have to send pics of my top surgery to the federal government to change my ID, I needed the signature of a doctor. And this updated ID means my landlord and employer and bank and phone company and the cashier selling me alcohol all gender me correctly. No biology involved here!

[ravenromanova]

Sweet boy

Pairings: Assistant Bucky x Female ceo reader

Warnings: DO NOT READ IF YOURE UNDER 18+!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SUBBY BUCKY! (he’s just so pure and needy) but also a bit of dom bucky. Mommy kink, Nipple play, Oral m and f, unprotected sex, breeding kink (sorry not sorry) Riding, size kink, just really subby and needy bucky. MINORS DNI!!!!

Summary: You’ve taken quite a liking to your darling assistant.

Main masterlist - Send me requests!!!

~

You were the new CEO of Stark industries (it got passed down to you after your father stepped down) So being that you were the CEO you were incredibly busy. And you being busy 24/7 you decided to needed an assistant to help spilt the load. You had asked your secretary to put out an application and make a list of the best applicants, and that’s what she did as she was happy you were finally delegating.

So after countless interviews and countless people just wanting to get to you so they could get to your father, you finally found Bucky or James as you called him. He was the sweetest man you’ve ever met. When he walked into your office for the interview you were in awe of him, His long dark brown hair, Ocean blue eyes, Tall muscular figure. You almost died on the spot. And upon further inspection you found out just how smart he was. He went to yale and got a degree in engineering and wanted to get his foot in the door and the best technology company. You were quick to hire him after you finished the interview relieved that you found a good assistant along with some new eye candy.

That was about two months ago and in those two months you’ve grown extremely found of James as he did you. He was a very sweet and attentive man, always bringing you coffee and a bagel in the morning, forwards himself your emails if you’re swamped etc. You hate to admit it but you fell hard as fuck for him even though you shouldn’t. But in reality you didn’t care and neither did he.

Today was no different in the little routine youve both fell into. You had walked into your office after you greeted your staff, and settled into your office to do some paperwork. You had been in your office for all of fifteen minutes when you heard the very familiar knock on your door.

“Come in darling” You beckoned and as the door opened it revealed a very handsome Bucky walking in. He smiled as he walked in, shut the door and handed you your coffee and bagel.

“Thank you James” The words were sweet as they passed your lips causing a blush to appear on his cheeks. That was something that happened often, anytime you called him an endearing nickname or complimented him he would flush. Honestly it was the cutest thing youve seen and you couldn’t get enough.

“You’re welcome ma’am” He replied with that charming smile of his. He then took a second to look at you, your hair that was curled to perfection, the black dress that clinged to your supple body, the way your eyes glistened in the sun gods he was obsessed with you.

He shook is not so work friendly thoughts away when your voice broke the silence.

“i- uh i’m sorry ma’am what was your question” Bucky chuckled nervously as he rubbed the back of his neck.

You laughed at him a little before stopping to catch some air. “You’re adorable James” You chuckle out. “I asked if you would want to have lunch with me today.” Bucky’s eyes widen a little at your words and he chokes on air and starts coughing.

“I mean you could’ve just said no” You tease with a smirk. Bucky clears his throat again and walks closer to your desk.

“id love to ma’am” He said as he smiled before taking some papers off your desk and exiting the room with a smile on his face.

An hour passes by and you finally finish replying to your emails with a frustrated groan. You take your hair down and throw off your glasses before letting your head fall in your hands. You love your job you really do but you cant stand all the stress that it comes with. A knock on the door brought you back into reality.

You mumble a ‘come in’ before resting your forehead on your arms. The door opens and Bucky walks in with (your favorite meal) and a smile in his face but then it quickly fades. He notices how you dont even look up at him or say anything, he also notices your demeanor.

“Ma’am?” His voice is soft as he speaks and walks over to your desk.

You prop your head up on your elbows to look at him and give him a half smile. “Sorry James i’m just a little out of it today” Your voice is rough as the words pass your lips.

“Let me take care of your emails for the rest of the day ma’am” Bucky says as he comes up behind you and places his hands on your shoulders.

You dont know what comes over you, maybe its his breath on your neck, his hands on your exposed skin but whatever it is makes you feral. Before your mind knows what your body’s doing you stand up, grab his face, and smack your lips into his. It takes Bucky a second before he kisses you back as he pushes you against your desk. You let out a slight moan as your back hits the edge of your wooden.

“I want you” You whisper against his lips after you break the kiss to come up for air. He looks at you with blown pupils as you speak not knowing what to do.

“A-Are you sure?” Bucky asks hesitantly then his eyes got wider as you removed your shirt. He nods his head once he got the hint and removed your bra before taking a nipple in his mouth. Your head falls back as you moan at the contact of his warm mouth against you. Quickly you put your hands in his hair and tug on it earning a delicious groan from him.

Bucky takes one of his tattooed hands and uses it to push your skirt up against your hips. He then finds his way to your clothed pussy and starts rubbing your clit.

“Oh fuck baby-yea just like that right there” Bucky damn near loses his mind as the words leave your mouth unlocking something in him. He releases your nipple with a wet pop before he then slides your panties and skirt off leaving you fully exposed. Bucky grips your hips and places you on top of your desk.

He wastes no time in getting on his knees and taking your clit into his mouth.

“OH FUCK!” You shriek from how good his mouth feels on you. You lay back on the desk and make your way to his hair as you grind yourself on his face. Bucky moans as he tastes you and eats you like a man starved. He takes his time as he licks and sucks on your clit since at the moment all he cares about is pleasing you.

“Fuck baby-i-im gonna cum” And just like that your orgasm rips through you just from him eating you out. He moans as he tatses your juices on his tongue,

“You taste so good mommy” He utters out not even realizing what he called you or how it set a fire within you. You bring his face back up and then bring him in for a passionate and sloppy kiss. The moan you let out when you taste yourself on his lips is sinful. You move your hands to his shirt and waste no time in taking it off. Once Bucky’s shirt is off you take a second to admire the black ink that goes from his arms to chest. You trace your fingers over the delicate patterns earning a shiver from him, the softness of your fingers on his skin set him off even more. He then grabs you and kisses you with more passion than before. Instinctively you move your hand down his chest to his bulging cock begging to be set free.

“Please mommy” He whines as you start to palm him through his pants. You’re quick to undo his belt and then slide is pants off along with his boxers. You then marvel at his red stricken cock that’s begging to be touched, never in a million years did you think you find a mans genitalia attractive but fuck his is.

You take his cock and rub it along with the precum that came with it all over your waiting hole. Bucky throws his head back once you finally put his cock in your warm pussy. He thrusts into you softly as to not hurt you but finds it hard to control himself.

“Oh fuck baby you’re so big-filling mommy up soo good” You praise him when he bottoms out. He moans as he starts picking up the pace making you mewl in pleasure. Bucky places him hands on your shoulders to get better leverage and hits all the right spots.

“F-Fuc-k mommy -i-im not gonna last long” He whimpers against your lips needing to touch you even more. Your eyes roll into the back of your head as he starts to pound into you.

“y-yes baby right there fuck- god i wanna have your fucking kids” You beg and then his pace starts to stutter as you’re both reaching your high.

“Gonna fill you up mommy i promise” He groans as he starts at the place where your bodies are intertwining. Your office is filled with salacious sounds as he fucks into you at a relentless pace.

It doesn’t take long before your orgasm builds up again and you’re grinding your hips against his cock. Bucky moves his hands to your hips as his thrusts falter and his grunts grow louder.

“F-Fuck i-im-“ His words are cut off as his orgasm rips through him and he spills his cum into you.

“Good boy baby” You praise as he continues to fuck his cum into you since he’s holding you to the whole kids thing. After a few more thrusts he’s satisfied that he wont drip out of you he pulls out. You moan a little at the loss of him in you but he’s quick to make you forget as he kisses you again making your brain go fuzzy.

“We should do that more often” He says smiling after he breaks the kiss.

“Y-Yea we should” You admit with a nod and attempt to find your clothes. Once the moment is over the reality of what you just did seeps in.

“oh fuck” The words are barely above a whisper as they leave your mouth. He notices how your demeanor went from happy to frantic in a matter of seconds.

“Hey Hey Hey what’s wrong” He asks concerned as he walks back over to you putting on his shirt.

“I-I just had sex with my assistant” You mumble as you run your hand over your face in utter disbelief.

“And it was amazing” Bucky said with a chuckle and lifted your chin to look at him.

“But it shouldn’t have happened” His happy demeanor soon faltered as the words left your mouth. He thought that he had finally had a chance with you. Truthfully he’s been wanting to do this for a while since he’s been madly in love with you since you hired him.

“Well we both wanted it to happen so i dont see the big deal” He say with a shrug not understanding the position you both were now in.

“Bucky you’re my assistant- im your boss this is completely unethical” You scoffed at yourself.

“Well what if i wasnt?” He questioned with a raised eyebrow.

“Huh? You’re gonna quit?” You asked offended that he was just thinking about leaving you and the company.

“Well yes but not because of this- i got an offer with Maximoff inc last month but i turned it down because i couldn’t stand being away from you. But if me staying is going to stop us from happening then ill take the position if it means i get to have you all the time” He confessed as he took his free hand and grabbed yours to put it on his chest.

“It’s kinda hard to say no when you look at me like that” You said with a fake pout as you stared into his adoring blue eyes.

“Then dont say no” He said leaning in for another kiss that was filled with love and passion. In that moment you two became more than just boss and employee. You two melted into one another and melded into one another’s soul.

Who knew your sweet assistant would be the man you’d fall for? Funny how fate works.

~the end~

i do not give permission for my work to be copied or translated on other cites

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 4/2/2024

in which i try to clean two different boxes with varying success

new people: hello! the tuesdaypost is a weekly roundup of stuff i've been listening, reading, watching, playing, and making. it is NOT a recommendation series, although i sometimes dabble in critique. when im firing on all cylinders i ask "what is the core concept of this? does it succeed in what i think it's trying to do and what it says it's doing?is it well-made but i dislike it/beautiful but not for me? why? what parts Really Work?"

if you are into purity culture, yelling at other people about the problematic media they consume, or are under 18 i am going to have very little patience for you.

listening

now that i live in houston i am legally obliged to loop the new beyonce album 24/7. there is absolutely truly nobody fucking doing it like her. every song is a multimedia art piece. goddamn do i miss the album as a tool to convey a specific concept/listening order/flow. sometimes (chappell roan most recently comes to mind, although it does feel unfair to compare anyone to beyonce) every individual song is pretty good but the listening experience if you sit down and listen all the way through the album is unpleasant and choppy. not so here. NEVER here.

my favorite like Dance Number is YA YA (it samples nancy sinatra's boots! and the beach boys' good vibrations! wildly different tones despite coming out a year apart!)

the one that goes on four different character/tone playlists is BODYGUARD.

great early roundup of influences, samples, and collaborators. delighted to see five fingers for marseilles listed, a rocky but underrated south african neo-western free on tubi rn for americans

-

reading

also very texas-relevant with the recent pornhub lawsuits! pornhub and sex tech (among other things) have been samantha cole's beat for almost ten years. i trust her to report sensitively and not for like. shock clicks

this site has a free paywall (sign up with your email for a link to the full article) so bots have a harder time scraping articles: this is a journalist-founded site with only the four founders running it and writing articles. while annoying i do think this is a reasonable measure

The platform still has problems, but after years of critical reporting and a litany of legal and reputational consequences, Pornhub is now more heavily moderated than any other porn platform, and most major social media platforms, for that matter. A growing list of age verification laws has put Pornhub in a position where it is compelled to block access to its site in seven states and counting. In theory, these laws are designed to prevent children from being able to access pornography online. In reality, what is going to happen is that children are going to end up on pornographic sites that don’t care what the law says, and where some of the most harmful content that exists online is actively promoted to them.

she's also got a new limited series podcast with CBC about the rise and fall of pornhub, which was fascinating and kept me company during an extremely early morning drive

-

watching

i'm lukewarm about this one but i spend a lot of time getting there, much like this movie

ive been watching a lot of frankly dogshit thrillers, which has made me wonder: what's the deal with supervillans? where did they come from? and thence arrived at the prototypical film Dr Mabuse the Gambler (1922, dir. Lang). the four and a half hour cut on Kanopy is two normal-length movies superglued together, which makes sense as a streaming product but it is sort of a terrifying runtime and took me three days to get through.

sometimes, as we know, i get a real bee in my bonnet about visiting the early versions of things. dr mabuse is the blueprint for every james bond and mission impossible villain, or really any shadowy supervillain with power over [INDUSTRY] or [THE MARKET]. it is a four and a half hour long cat and mouse game through lavish, eccentric sets between mabuse and prosecutor wenk. it has some trouble sustaining itself bc it is four and a half hours long but does deliver on the cat and mouse aspects. this letterboxed review has interesting things to say about the political climate of 1922 germany and how lang subverts the formula of the pulp serial.

really the film opens with mabuse yelling at his cocaine-addicted assistant, but the film properly gets going with mabuse's henchmen stealing a trade agreement (nothing really carbon dates a movie more than a missing trade agreement. vanishingly few post-early-30s movies have missing trade agreements as plot points) and then he crashes the stock market. for fun and profit.

however. i think every time you see an evil man who is a banker or stockbroker or generally uses money as power you have to interrogate whether it's antisemitic. the answer here is "maybe" but i'm not sure if intent matters when contemporary nazi critics were eager to hold mabuse up as "this is the typical jewish criminal". (sorry about the link directly to wikipedia, it's been touch finding online sources for this section). mabuse is not specifically jewish, but there are certainly elements of stereotype. i am still not good at being presented with "this movie has a shadowy behind the scenes figure manipulating the government and all the money ever" and going "hey wait a minute".

after that tremendous glaring caveat, for which i read more contemporary reviews and reviews in general than i ever read for movies in these posts, is it good? eh. a contemporary VARIETY review remarked (and i largely agree)

The direction of Fritz Lang has moments – but Lang somewhat negates his good technical effects by twenty forty-word captions of a ludicrous unconciseness.

the night scenes are particularly well done, and imo are better than many modern night scenes--other contemporary reviews remarked

In this film the techniques of the film camera (Carl Hoffmann’s brilliant photography) are brought to perfection. The problem of how to film lit-up streets at night has been solved for the first time. It is unbelievably impressive to see the glaring lights of speeding cars flash through the night or the rapid passing of an elevated train of the initially blurred, then gradually focussed glimpse through a pair of opera glasses on to the variety stage, the nuances of light and shade—these things alone prove the value of film documentary.

look at this shit! filmed from within the cars! in 1922!!!

this film asks you to believe hypnotism is real and really effective, so i don't think it's that big of a leap when it asks you to believe in ghosts. i don't understand that quibble from contemporary viewers. there are several on screen suicides with like. specific methods. which is not currently regarded as good filmmaking practice. im curious to know what contemporary audiences thought but couldn't immediately turn anything up, and wading through masters’ theses on cinematic suicide is a little beyond my current mental health.

if i were a more content-minded woman this would turn into a clickbait video essay about the antisemitic origins of every supervillan. however i am unqualified and untalented at video editing and i'm sure there are forty theses on this already. this movie is a hard sell to anyone jewish or employed. it is also a stunning example of cutting-edge film technology and part of the genesis of the modern supervillan. Fritz Lang films tend to fall in the category of “movies i am happy to see once and feel no need to revisit”.

-

playing

playing what is effectively the same game three times back to back (breath of the wild, tears of the kingdom, genshin impact) has sort of burned me out on open world games with a focus on battle skill progression and stumbling across little puzzles in the overworld. i have to get itch.io up and running on this pc and find the most linear jankiest possible one-sitting indie thing. or several of them. i might try the solo ttrpg Gentleman Bandit i seem to have acquired in one of the giant charity bundles

brief breath of the wild update bc i don't want to pull screenshots off my switch: i have gotten to the boss fight for the gerudo and goron regions, have not completed them bc my focus in this game is NOT hearts, and am in the middle of the zora temple. despite the quality of life improvements and new regions in totk i think i prefer botw: progression is a bit easier, there are fewer mmo-style hub quests and repeatable quests. things like the stable photos are cute but very repetitive, so are the sign bracing puzzles, and the sky crystal quests for sky shrines feel VERY samey. also dislike how the CLEAR OUT: [REGION] quests with the monster suppression squads reset at the blood moon.

anyway! to genshin! there was an exceptionally fun little event with a surprisingly involved management sim tacked onto the game??? you make and sell potions fulfilling different requirements, and can eventually stock travelling merchants all over the continent. the actual act of making the potions was this block-filling 1010! style thing (screenshot from polygon)

the new region, a port town and tea-growing area called Chenyu Vale, is maybe the prettiest one in the game so far? it's the one that feels the most picturesque and Designed, like this is one huge mansion garden studded with follies. they also added background chatter and noise in the cities and towns, which really startled me and makes them feels much more lived in! this is a fun trick to avoid putting in a thousand NPCs and making everyone's framerate crash. the less stuff in your game, the less shit can go wrong.

also pulled for and got chiyori, a geo-aligned seamstress (and sometime spy???) swordswoman who has what i can only call domme voice

-

making

ok now we'll talk about boxes. i was rearranging my kitchen, as unemployed women are known to do, and noticed this recipe box i picked up back in mass was disgusting. the finish is starting to fail but it was genuinely grody and last summer i packed my kitchen in a blind panic inside an hour and did not have time to address it. i have never seen a recipe box at an estate sale before or since and it made me desperately sad.

it was full of a lot of stuff.

i went at it with a somewhat inadvisable combination of things: wood soap didn't budge it, so i dampened a paper towel in vinegar and wiped it down in the vain hope it would do something. the thing that worked, and would be inadvisable for anything veneered or less densely textured, was baking soda paste and the scrubby side of a sponge. it still smells Very musty even after 48h of loose baking soda inside with several changes, but that might be partly the recipe cards' fault. i would like to refinish this at some point but i don't have polyurethane on hand and the fun little project budget is empty until further notice/i get a job.

the hinge did rust a bit despite my best efforts but that has since been lightly steel wooled and oiled. a well loved object! it's possible the lady who died just fucking sucked and that's why literally her entire estate including many other things families usually keep was on sale, but i would like to think perhaps she simply had no other family? a well loved/used object even if all the recipes are for semi-horrifying fifties new england recipes.

the other box, pre-acids but post-washing: this topp trading card box with seven episode one packets of cards was intact with the original seal. i have verified it was not worth much more than the $5 i paid for it with the trading card obsessed man in my best friend's husband's friendgroup. i bought this three months ago but the man was unavailable to open it until uhhh last week. some sort of liquid got inside it at some point and it was super corroded. i was going to store embroidery floss in here but even with all my powers (barkeepers friend. brasso.) i cannot completely remove the corrosion. it's not corroded Through but it looks bad and feels rough. so it goes. it'll probably hold the tiedown straps in my car bc that plastic bucket is rapidly failing

[h-c-u]

No longer a secret pt 3

Summary: The one where InternetTM has ideas and the relationship officially goes public.

Pairing: Toto Wolff x fem!reader

W/C: 4k

Rating: PG, age gap

TWs: none

A/N: I didn't expect the characters to grow this much, but I guess we're in it, guys, gals and pals. Also, below you can find a link to a playlist I listen to while writing all of this softness. The songs on it don't apply to either of the characters, just put me in a good mood for fluff. Also-Also - I don't have a clear plan for a part 4, so it might be few days before I'll write it.

Taglist: @crimeshowjunkie, @omgsuperstarg

Series Masterlist | Masterlist | List of tags | Playlist for the series

You hated waking up early, especially alone in bed, but there had to be some cons of being with a man like Toto. Although it was more of a personal preference, than a true inconvenience. And during most mornings out of season, you had him all to yourself...

But today he was most likely either in some early meeting, or still in the gym, and you had your own meeting in about 30 minutes, so it was time to get up and get ready. 

You've just finished making a quick breakfast and a second coffee for your guest when there was a knock at the door. 

Mr. Zane, or Mark - as he insisted you should call him - was definitely worth whatever Toto was paying him because he was able to find a discrepancy in your contract that not only could void it after 30 days of you not being assigned a "full-length uninterrupted interview", based solely on the word uninterrupted, you could also sue the network based on precedence you wouldn't be able to repeat under any threats.

He already drafted a proper resignation letter mentioning all the legal things, and next to that, there was a letter from his firm stating that a failure to comply would result in legal action. You only wanted to add one condition to the things he prepared - you wanted to be the one to announce your departure from the network first; on your personal social media and without naming specific reasons.

He quickly edited the file to include that condition, and passed the tablet to you to sign, and just like that - everything was taken care of. And as a bonus, he checked a statement you quickly prepared, just to make sure the wording was ok, and after a few tweaks, you had it ready to post as soon as you got a reply from the HR department. And Mark assured you that they should confirm everything when the message will be marked as read since everything was effective immediately. 

A twenty-minute meeting saved you a full month of additional work, and with that, you were officially free. And unemployed. You would just have to return all the network-issued gear and vacate the room they paid for as soon as possible, which shouldn't be an issue, since the majority of your things were already here. You also no longer could use your press pass and network ID, but that wasn't going to be a problem, since you had no desire to do so. Sure, it was a dick move to leave your colleagues in the middle of the season, especially when there was supposed to be coverage tomorrow on track. But your resignation was a great opportunity for someone to put to good use. 

To your surprise, you got the notification that your Network acknowledges your resignation and accept the terms before Mark left the suite, and you had to make sure three times that it was indeed real because it still felt like a dream. After he finished the coffee, he congratulated you on your freedom, and just like that - he was gone, leaving you alone with your thoughts, and you immediately went into damage control mode, making call after call to your friends in the network, letting them know that you're no longer with the company; you didn’t want them to find out from a company-wide email, or worse - your social media. To those you couldn't reach, you wrote a message, and since all of you were basically in the same camp, there was no one who was bitter or angry; your friends fully supported your decision. Sure, there were a few less-than-appropriate comments, but all were in good faith.

Toto came back from the gym while you were still on the phone, and gave you a quick kiss on the top of your head in passing, because he didn't want to hug you when he was still sweaty, and before he disappeared in the bathroom, you mouthed "It's done, thank you...", and you could almost feel the pride radiating off of him, even though you basically didn't do anything. A question on the other side of the line made you turn around and focus on the reply.

When he came out of the shower with only a towel wrapped around his hips you couldn't help but stare a bit, and Toto just smiled when he caught you, came closer, and wrapped his arms around you, while you put your right hand on his shoulder blade, pulling him closer, so you could rest your cheek on his chest. His skin was so warm after the shower, that you could just melt into it, but you knew you couldn't stay like that long, because he had to get ready, and you had to continue the call session. Well, you technically didn't have to, but you wanted to explain whatever you could in person. 

You eventually let go of him, still deep in a conversation with your friend from the weather department, who just asked about your plans for t   future. You started telling her a rough idea of the project, and while Toto was getting dressed, you went to the kitchen to make him a coffee and take the breakfast out of the fridge, so he wouldn't miss it. You knew you didn't have to do that, but you enjoyed doing small things like that for him, and he did the same for you.

It looked like he would have a virtual meeting first because he took out his laptop, so you left him at the kitchen island and quietly closed the door to the bedroom, from where you continued your calls. You honestly thought that it would take less time, and after the sixth call, everything became so repetitive, that you honestly started to regret that you didn't make a group chat and let them know by a meme that you quit. 

But you eventually finished, and it was almost 11. It's not like you had something else to do today since you were officially free, but that feeling of guilt for not doing anything specific was present in the back of your brain, so you sighed and came into the other room, trying to figure out if Toto was still in the meeting, and when you heard your own voice coming from his laptop, you realized that he definitely wasn't. 

You lowered the barstool he was sitting on so you could take a look over his shoulder to see what he was watching, and the sudden movement down made him laugh. You hugged him from behind and rested your chin on his shoulder, because for once you could do that without abysmally tall high heels. He was watching your interview with Lewis from yesterday, and you came just in time to see him walking into a frame and putting his jacket over your shoulders. 

- My hero... - you laughed, and you pressed a tender kiss to his cheek. You stayed like that until the video ended, and after it did, you reached under his arm and scrolled down to see the comments, and you immediately started shaking, trying to contain laughter.

- "Y/N is so strong because I simply would have fainted if he did that to me..." - you read out loud the latest one, and he took over scrolling, so you wouldn't have to strain your wrist. - Oh, Mr. Wolff, please catch me in your strong arms if I faint...? - you couldn't help yourself and he shook his head with disbelief.

- It will be hard for me to catch you if you're behind me... - he laughed, and pulled you in front of him, basically switching your positions, so you leaned on him and intertwined your fingers with his on your stomach. 

- This one is funny... "Y/N is definitely in a secret relationship with Lewis Hamilton. In this essay I will...". - he read out loud, and you couldn't help but laugh. A quick look in the top right corner told you that you were still logged into your account on his computer, so you hit reply and commented "Where is the essay, OP...?", and he laughed even harder. 

- I like this one "A single mom who works two jobs, and one o  the jobs is definitely making sure his favorite son won't get sick", it's a reference to a song... - you added and you could feel him smiling, while you typed, but you hesitated before you hit send. - Are we ok with that...? - you made sure, even though it wasn't anything specific, just a slight suggestion. "Ok, but like are we sure-sure he's single?" 

- Are you ok with that...? - he flipped the question, and instead of replying you just sent the comment, and you could feel him pulling you closer, so you basically sat on his lap now. - Do I want to know what that means? - he pointed at one of the comments that read "Where is that fan cam of Toto to "big boy" because I suddenly need it to survive.", and you laughed again.

- I don't think I've ever seen this specific one, but people take clips of other people, in this case, you, and put them together to different songs. I suspect in this case they refer to you looking very hot, Neshama Sheli. - he couldn't help but laugh. 

- I don't think I'd like to see that... I would be much more interested in seeing fan cams of you, Schatzi. - you shook your head and wrinkled your nose, when he pressed a quick kiss to your temple, while you continued scrolling, and while there were a lot of comments about pet race, Toto's gesture was the second thing people talked about the most, and you both laughed from one more "I volunteer as a headset!", referring to the fact that there were times when he didn't treat his headsets the best. 

Only after you saw a comment where someone said that they can't wait for your next interview with Lewis, you realized something. 

- Shit, I forgot to post the official information about my resignation. - you immediately grabbed your phone and posted the prepared statement across all your social media. 

- By the way, I requested a Mercedes pass for you till the end of the season, so you could still come and go to the tracks as you want. - he said when you finally closed his laptop and turned around so you were facing each other. 

- Thank you. - this time you had to lean a bit to kiss him, and you would have lied if you said that you didn't enjoy it. 

- Is there anything else I can do for you, love? - he asked, pressing his forehead to yours. 

- Actually... - you took a deep breath - I want to get in front of the possible rumors, and I want to announce, well... us. - a giant smile bloomed on his face while he pulled you for another kiss. 

- No more hiding...? - he asked more as a formality, but he also wanted to make sure that you were 100% ok with sharing that part of your life.

- No more hiding. - you confirmed, your voice surprisingly confident.

- Then what are you waiting for? - you couldn't help but laugh. 

- It's a whole process... You know business and management, I know journalism, but more important - I know social media, and I know exactly how quickly the information and wild theories will spread in this community. – this whole endeavor would require some finesse, and you honestly debated if you shouldn’t leak your relationship to a few drama channels yourself to avoid ripping the Band-Aid yourself, but it would be much messier that way.

- I understand. What do you need me to do...? - he asked and leaned back on the stool a bit, so he could look at you better. 

- Take a selfie with me... I was thinking about posting it with information that I will go live and answer questions for about 30 minutes to dispel any craziness that will definitely come up sooner or later. - you explained your plan. All of it still seemed so surreal...

- Sounds good. Is that all you need? - he asked again, closing his knees a bit, and squeezing you between them.

- I mean, I still need to get the rest of my stuff from the other hotel, but I'll do that later today. - you sighed. You had more things to do, but this one had a deadline 

- I'll drive you. - he said as if it was the most obvious thing, and it wasn't even a question.

- Toto, you have a race to think of... And I am perfectly capable of doing that myself. - you tried to steer his mind away from taking care of you, but he didn't budge.

- I know... But consider this - I want to. - well, how could you argue with such sound logic? - Do you have any ideas for the photo?

- Not really, but I don't want it super staged, so I guess... just smile...? - he placed a quick kiss on the tip of your nose, and you turned around, sat on his lap, and turned the camera on the two of you, while he leaned a bit forward and rested his chin on your shoulder. You quickly took a few pictures in a row, while he placed another kiss on your cheek and you couldn't help but smile. And when you started lowering your phone, you felt the vibrations in his pocket, but it was to be expected. He chose to ignore them in favor of another few seconds this close to you. - Answer your phone, Meu Tudão... - and with a heavy sigh he did, while you stood up from his lap and started to choose the best of the photos. And the one when he kissed your cheek and you smiled was just perfect. 

You quickly cropped it so the proportions would fit the layout of the website, and made the picture a bit brighter, but that was it. The description only read "30 min live AMA at noon, get ready". You turned the screen in Toto's direction, so he could take a look, and he gave you thumbs up and a huge smile, and that was enough for you to post it. 

Not even a minute passed and the notifications started blowing up your phone to the point that you had to turn them off for this specific app in fear of it crashing every few seconds. 

You still had at least 10 minutes till the live, so you got something to drink from the fridge, because you suspected that 30 minutes of talking might make you a bit parched. You also carefully chose the place you wanted to stream from. Definitely not in front of the window because of the light, and you didn't want to share the view, so you opted for a couch set on the wall perpendicularly to the floor-length windows. You also made sure that there weren't any personal items in the frame, just in case. 

Toto was still on the phone, but as soon as you started your live, he moved to the bedroom, because the things he was talking about weren't exactly public. 

- Hi everyone... Oh, wow... There are a lot of people here... Jeez... - you looked at a quickly growing count indicating how many people were currently watching you, and the number was significant; you knew that neither of you was exactly anonymous, but it still exceeded expectations. - Ok, I'm gonna give everyone one more minute to join in and then I'll start answering questions... - you explained and leaned back a bit, but still made sure that the angle was good. You slowed down the chat, just so you'd be able to read anything. - How am I...? I'm great! Nervous as hell, but I'm actually great. - you didn't want to be quiet for that minute, so you decided to answer a few general questions. - Where am I...? I'm currently at the Ritz-Carlton... - You saw that the number of viewers started to stabilize, so you knew it was time.

- Ok, time for some serious questions and serious answers. As usual, I won't engage with anything vulgar or inappropriate, so make sure to keep your questions clean. But first some general info, so we're on the same page... - you took a deep breath because it would be the first time you shared that information out of your own free will. - Yes, me and Toto Wolff are together. We've been together for just over a year now... - you couldn't help but smile when you saw the flood of reactions in the chat, and you tried to catch as many questions as you could. - Did anyone know? No, not until yesterday. We decided to keep it private because of my career. Is someone blackmailing me to share that information...? - you couldn't help but laugh. - No, no... I'm doing it out of my own free will, no blackmail involved. - you took a moment to get to another question. - Did my departure from the network was because of our relationship? No, it's not. I keep my work life separated from my private life and there was no influence either way. - another quick break to catch up and read the question. - Why did I quit my job? I didn't quit my job. It was a mutual departure because our priorities no longer lined up and continuing that partnership wouldn't be good for either me or them. - you stuck to the things Mark approved earlier today. - Why am I sharing this now? Since I no longer will be working around the track, there was no reason to keep it secret. - you noticed that Toto left the bedroom, the phone still in his hand, but he was no longer on a call. You didn't ask him to join you, and you were prepared to do the AMA alone, but he sat next to you and wrapped his arm around you, and the chat exploded again. - Say hi to everyone... There are over 20k people watching us now... - you almost instinctively leaned into him. 

- Hello everyone! And wow! 20k just for us? That's impressive! - he leaned forward a bit, so the angle would be better. 

- Do you want to answer a few questions, Ya Amar? - he smiled, and you could see on the screen that he wasn't looking at the camera, only at you, and that warmed your heart. 

- Sure, why not... - he chuckled quietly. 

- So how did we meet? - you relayed one of the questions that popped up in the chat with a smile because the mere memory of that afternoon was more than enough to put you in good mood. 

- Well, believe it or not, it was nowhere near the track. She actually yelled at me, because I accidentally destroyed the flowerbed in front of a small B&B she was staying at, and that was enough for me to know then and there... - he smiled when you looked at him, and you couldn't help but blush a bit. 

- And I did that fully knowing who he was because the older couple put so much work into maintaining that flowerbed and he just... run over it! - you built on top of his story. 

- In my defense, I did that to avoid hitting a squirrel! - now both of you were laughing, and it took you a second to remember that you should be answering more questions. 

- Where was our first date? - you read the question out loud, and you were preparing to answer it when Toto cut you off.

- Oh, that's easy... Deutsches Technikmuseum in Berlin, and it lasted what... 10, 11 hours? - he replied and pulled you closer.

- Yup, it's a very big museum, and we were there since it opened till it closed, and we still didn't see everything. And after that, we went to a park and just sat on the grass and talked. It was perfect. - you added. You didn't want to share more details like - a much too expensive, very poor-quality dinner you sneaked onto the roof of the brewery on the museum grounds... Or the cheap strawberry champagne with glitter, which you chose only because you thought he would never buy or drink it, and which later exploded in his hands before he even managed to open it, soaking both of you in a pink, sugary, sticky residue; fortunately, neither of you got hurt then.

- Indeed... It was perfect because it was with you... - he leaned a bit and pressed his forehead to your temple, and you looked at the chat again in search of another question.

- Do we live together? Come on guys, that's too personal. What did we do for our first anniversary...? We spent a whole week on a cabin cruiser in Greece, just the two of us... - you could feel his hand gently stroking your back. - Ok, we're over the 30min mark here, so one last question and we're done. Make it a good one, guys... Ok, ok... - you took a moment to actually choose the question. - What are our favorite things about each other...? For me, it's your smile. - you replied, more to him, than to the chat. - I know it's cheesy, but it represents so many things... It makes me feel safe and cared for, it tells me that there is nothing to worry about, and no matter what - everything will be all right. And even when I'm having the worst day of my life, when I see you smile, it all disappears, because you give me the strength to get through everything. - you said and he pulled you in for a quick kiss. 

- For me, it's also easy... You make me want to be a better person in every area of my life. You push me to do things I wouldn't even consider before I met you by forcing me to look at things from different perspectives. You have this way of listening to my problems, that makes me realize exactly how to deal with them, doesn't matter if it's about work or about something private... And you make me want to be a better man for you, a partner you could be proud of. - this time you were the one who pulled him into a kiss, not caring how many people were watching you, although currently, they were watching more of the ceiling than the two of you. 

- Ok guys... Thank you so much for watching, that's going to be it for today... - you centered the camera on you and Toto again. - Take care, everyone! - and with that, you ended the live. 

- That went well. - he said, pulling you closer, and you leaned into his body. 

- Actually, better than I expected. But I guess we'll see what the articles will say in a few hours. 

- Do you think there will be articles...? 

- Oh, there definitely will be articles... And I can guarantee that at least one of them will be titled something like "Austrian billionaire and his latest, much younger fling" or "A principal and his student". People on my side of the media are vultures... - you couldn't stop the sigh that came out of your chest, but even though you knew that people would take the one thing about your relationship and run with it till the end of Earth, you honestly didn't care. Not when Toto's arms were tightly wrapped around you. - Oh, and an honest heads up - you and your team will definitely be asked about me during media hour... - you closed your eyes, letting yourself relax a little. 

- Do you care about how we will be perceived? - he asked with that pure childish honesty in his voice. 

- 6 months ago, I honestly wouldn't be able to sleep because of it... But now...? - you smiled and looked up just so you could see his face. - Now I truly don't give a fuck. - he couldn't stop the light chuckle that made his chest vibrate under you. - And I pity people whose lives are so boring that the only entertainment they can come up with is making up lies about two people who clearly love each other... - you leaned back again, savoring this moment, because you could just feel that it will and soon. After all - it was still racing season, and even though positions for tomorrow were already assigned, Toto still had a lot to do before the race. 

Part 4

A/N 2: Please don’t feel obligated/pressured to reblog, because I write mostly for myself. A comment would be appreciated though :) Love, G.

[phantom-howl]

BEWARE

(Original Link) (This post is a copy & paste of the original)

PLEASE READ! THIS SCAM IS VERY DANGEROUS AND MAY BE VERY CONVINCING TO SOME!

The scam will open with someone either from your friends list or from a server you share DMing you. They will send a message saying they accidentally reported your discord account for something really bad and if you don’t file an appeal, both your account and IP address will be permanently banned from discord. They will say how sorry they are and include a screenshot of a discord email that states this offense, a ticket number, and instructions on how to file an appeal. The email screenshot will look real and even has the official discord support email as the sender. However it is faked.

The person who was hacked will then ask you to reach out to the ‘discord support member’ mentioned in the email, encouraging you that they’re doing the same and if you act fast, you can save your account.

The ‘support member’ I was directed to went by the name of Chao Chen. This same scammer may be the one speaking to everyone who falls for this, or it may be someone different, but either way, be wary. They will have a profile on discord that claims they’re a discord support team member seeking to rid discord of scammers (the irony)

They will also send a transcript that contains some of your account details, to make you think the scam is real.

The scammer will ask for basic information like your age, date of birth, and other questions seemingly related to your account identity. They will send you an official-looking card affiliated with discord that shows their specialty and position in the company. They will also request your discord ID number and then request you to temporarily change the email associated with your account to a burner email for “screening.” I made the mistake of letting my anxiety best me and agreed to this, but this step is how they steal your discord account. Once you have changed the email, you require a code sent to that email to change it, meaning you are now locked in to the scam email.

After this step, your account will be stolen and near the end of the scam or once you find out something is wrong, they will change the email, kicking you out. I tried to log back in using that email and my password but to no avail; they will change the email as soon as they can so you can no longer log back in.

If you haven’t figured out til now that this is very suspicious and is likely a scam (sadly I did not) they will next ask you to complete a “federal security check” and request you send them a small sum using your bank, PayPal, or card. They assure that the money will be returned in accordance with policy, but this is a lie. This was the point I finally got some sense and realized I was being scammed, and blocked the fake support member before I had my money taken. They then kicked me from my account and are now using it to spread the scam to others.

The scammer will also say small things to sway you into believing their lie. Threats like they have higher-ups monitoring the situation and telling you to “be careful and follow the instructions exactly”, official-looking documents, transcripts, etc, and acting like above all else they wish to help you get your account back.

The friend/server member who initially sends the scam will have already fallen prey to it, so block their account and be sure to warn any mutual friends/servers you share.

TL;DR; THIS DISCORD SCAM WILL STEAL BOTH YOUR ACCOUNT AND YOUR MONEY! BE WARY.

If your account was hacked, please reach out to Discord Support immediately. I will update on wether or not I get my account back and what they did to help, as of right now I am still awaiting a response.

Stay safe and please share this information where you can

[eraepoch]

[Full Text] Emerging Media Companies, Tracking Cookies, and Data Privacy -- An open letter to Critical Role, Dropout, and fellow audience members

Summary / TL;DR

Both Critical Role (CR) and Dropout have begun exclusively using links provided by third-party digital marketing solution companies in their email newsletters.

Every link in each of the newsletters (even the unsubscribe link) goes through a third-party domain which is flagged as a tracking server by the uBlock Origin browser extension.

Third-party tracking cookies are strictly unnecessary and come with a wide array of risks, including non-consensual targeted advertising, targeted misinformation, doxxing, and the potential for abuse by law enforcement.

You are potentially putting your privacy at risk every time you click on any of the links in either of these newsletters.

IMO these advertising companies (and perhaps CR/Dropout by proxy) are likely breaking the law in the EU and California by violating the GDPR and CCPA respectively.

Even if Critical Role and Dropout are not directly selling or exploiting your personal data, they are still profiting off of it by contracting with, and receiving services from, companies who almost certainly are. The value of your personal data is priced into the cost of these services.

They should stop, and can do so without any loss of web functionality.

1/7. What is happening?

Critical Role and Dropout have begun exclusively using links provided by third-party digital marketing solution companies in their email newsletters.

[ID:  A screenshot of the Dropout newsletter alongside the page’s HTML source which shows that the target destination for an anchor element in the email leads to d2xR2K04.na1.hubspotlinks.com. End ID.]

[ID: A screenshot of the CR newsletter alongside the page’s HTML source which shows that the target destination for an anchor element in the email leads to trk.klclick.com. End ID.]

The domains attached to these links are flagged as advertising trackers by the uBlock Origin browser extension.

[ID: Screenshot of a Firefox web browser. The page displays a large warning icon and reads “uBlock Origin has prevented the following page from loading [...] because of the following filter: `||hubspotlinks.com` found in Peter Lowe’s Ad and tracking server list. End ID.]

[ID: Screenshot of a Firefox web browser. The page displays a large warning icon and reads “uBlock Origin has prevented the following page from loading [...] because of the following filter: `||klclick1.com` found in Peter Lowe’s Ad and tracking server list. End ID.]

In both cases, every link in the newsletter goes through the flagged third-party domain, and the intended endpoint (Twitter, their store page, etc.) is completely obscured and inaccessible from within the email itself. Even the unsubscribe links feed through the tracking service.

You can test this yourself in your own email client by hovering your cursor over a link in the email without clicking it and watching to see what URL pops up. You may have noticed this yourself if you use uBlock Origin as an ad-blocker.

I don’t know for certain when this first started. It’s possible that this has been going on for a year or more at this point, or it may have started just a few months ago. Either way: it ought to stop.

2/7. What is a tracking cookie?

A tracking cookie is a unique, universally identifiable value placed on your machine by somebody with the intention of checking for that value later to identify you (or at least to identify your machine).

Tracking cookies are used by companies to create advertising behaviour profiles. These profiles are supposedly anonymous, but even if the marketing companies creating them are not lying about that (a tough sell for me personally, but your mileage may vary when it comes to corporations with 9-figure annual incomes), the data can often be de-anonymized.

If this happens, the data can be used to identify the associated user, potentially including their full name, email address, phone number, and physical address���all of which may then be associated with things like their shopping habits, hobbies, preferences, the identities of their friends and family, gender, political opinions, job history, credit score, sexuality, and even when they ovulate.

Now, it is important to note that not all cookies are tracking cookies. A cookie is just some data from a web page that persists on your machine and gets sent back to the server that put it there. Cookies in general are not necessarily malicious or harmful, and are often essential to certain web features functioning correctly (e.g. keeping the user logged in on their web browser after they close the tab). But the thing to keep in mind is that a domain has absolute control over the information that has been stored on your computer by that domain, so allowing cookies is a matter of trusting the specific domain that wants to put them there. You can look at the outgoing information being sent from your machine, but its purpose cannot be determined without knowing what is being done with it on the other side, and these marketing companies ought not to have the benefit of your doubt when they have already been flagged by privacy watchdogs.

3/7. What’s the harm?

Most urgently, as I touched on above: The main source of harm is from corporations profiting off of your private data without your informed consent. However, targeted advertising is actually the least potentially harmful outcome of tracking cookies.

1/6. Data brokers

A data broker is an individual or company that specializes in collecting personal data (such as personal income, ethnicity, political beliefs, geolocation data, etc.) and selling or licensing such information to third parties for a variety of uses, such as background checks conducted by employers and landlords, two universally benevolent groups of people.

There are varying regulations around the world limiting the collection of information on individuals, and the State of California passed a law attempting to address this problem in 2018, following in the footsteps of the EU’s GDPR, but in the jurisdiction of the United States there is no federal regulation protecting consumers from data brokers. In fact, due to the rising interest in federal regulation, data broker firms lobbied to the tune of $29 million in the year 2020 alone.

2/6. De-anonymization techniques

Data re-identification or de-anonymization is the practice of combining datasets (such as advertising profiles) and publicly available information (such as scraped data from social media profiles) in order to discover patterns that may reveal the identities of some or all members of a dataset otherwise intended to be anonymous.

Using the 1990 census, Professor Latanya Sweeney of the Practice of Government and Technology at the Harvard Kennedy School found that up to 87% of the U.S. population can be identified using a combination of their 5-digit zip code, gender, and date of birth. [Link to the paper.]

Individuals whose datasets are re-identified are at risk of having their private information sold to organizations without their knowledge or consent. Once an individual’s privacy has been breached as a result of re-identification, future breaches become much easier: as soon as a link is made between one piece of data and a person’s real identity, that person is no longer anonymous and is at far greater risk of having their data from other sources similarly compromised.

3/6. Doxxing

Once your data has been de-anonymized, you are significantly more vulnerable to all manner of malicious activity: from scam calls and emails to identity theft to doxxing. This is of particular concern for members of minority groups who may be targeted by hate-motivated attacks.

4/6. Potential for abuse by government and law enforcement

Excerpt from “How period tracking apps and data privacy fit into a post-Roe v. Wade climate” by Rina Torchinsky for NPR:

Millions of people use apps to help track their menstrual cycles. Flo, which bills itself as the most popular period and cycle tracking app, has amassed 43 million active users. Another app, Clue, claims 12 million monthly active users. The personal health data stored in these apps is among the most intimate types of information a person can share. And it can also be telling. The apps can show when their period stops and starts and when a pregnancy stops and starts. That has privacy experts on edge because this data—whether subpoenaed or sold to a third party—could be used to suggest that someone has had or is considering an abortion. ‘We're very concerned in a lot of advocacy spaces about what happens when private corporations or the government can gain access to deeply sensitive data about people’s lives and activities,’ says Lydia X. Z. Brown, a policy counsel with the Privacy and Data Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology. ‘Especially when that data could put people in vulnerable and marginalized communities at risk for actual harm.’

Obviously Critical Role and Dropout are not collecting any sort of data related to their users’ menstrual cycles, but the thing to keep in mind is that any data that is exposed to third parties can be sold and distributed without your knowledge or consent and then be used by disinterested—or outright malicious—actors to de-anonymize your data from other sources, included potentially highly compromising data such as that collected by these period-tracking apps. Data privacy violations have compounding dangers, and should be proactively addressed wherever possible. The more of your personal data exists in the hands of third parties, the more it is to be de-anonymized.

5/6. Targeted misinformation

Data brokers are often incredibly unscrupulous actors, and will sell your data to whomever can afford to buy it, no questions asked. The most high-profile case of the consequences of this is the Facebook—Cambridge Analytica data scandal, wherein the personal data of Facebook users were acquired by Cambridge Analytica Ltd. and compiled alongside information collected from other data brokers. By giving this third-party app permission to acquire their data back in 2015, Meta (then Facebook) also gave the app access to information on their users’ friend networks: this resulted in the data of some 87 million users being collected and exploited.

The data collected by Cambridge Analytica was widely used by political strategists to influence elections and, by and large, undermine democracy around the world: While its parent company SCL had been influencing elections in developing countries  for decades, Cambridge Analytica focused more on the United Kingdom and the United States. CEO Alexander Nix said the organization was involved in 44 American political races in 2014. In 2016, they worked for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign as well as for Leave.EU, one of the organisations campaigning for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union.

6/6. The Crux: Right to Privacy Violations

Even if all of the above were not concerns, every internet user should object to being arbitrarily tracked on the basis of their right to privacy. Companies should not be entitled to create and profit from personality profiles about you just because you purchased unrelated products or services from them. This right to user privacy is the central motivation behind laws like the EU’s GDPR and California’s CCPA (see Section 6).

4/7. Refuting Common Responses

1/3. “Why are you so upset? This isn’t a big deal.”

Commenter: Oh, if you’re just talking about third party cookies, that’s not a big deal … Adding a cookie to store that ‘this user clicked on a marketing email from critical role’ is hardly [worth worrying about].

Me: I don’t think you understand what tracking cookies are. They are the digital equivalent of you going to a drive through and someone from the restaurant running out of the store and sticking a GPS monitor onto your car.

Commenter: Kind of. It’s more like slapping a bumper sticker on that says, in restaurant-ese, ‘Hi I’m [name] and I went to [restaurant] once!’

This is actually an accurate correction. My metaphor was admittedly overly simplistic, but the correction specifies only so far as is comfortable for the commenter. If we want to construct a metaphor that is as accurate as possible, it would go something like this:

You drive into the McDonald’s parking lot. As you are pulling in, unbeknownst to you, a Strange Man pops out of a nearby bush (that McDonald’s has allowed him to place here deliberately for this express purpose), and sticks an invisible bumper sticker onto the back of your car. The bumper sticker is a tracker that tells the Strange Man which road you took to drive to McDonald’s, what kind of car you drive, and what (if anything) you ordered from McDonald’s while you were inside. It might also tell him where you parked in the parking lot, what music you were listening to in your car on the way in, which items you looked at on the menu and for how long, if you went to the washroom, which washroom you went into, how long you were in the washroom, and the exact location of every step you took inside the building.

Now, as soon as you leave the McDonald’s, the bumper sticker goes silent and stops being able to report information. But, let’s say next week you decide to go to the Grocery Store, and (again, unbeknownst to you), the Strange Man also has a deal with the Grocery Store. So as you’re driving into the grocery store’s parking lot, he pops out of another bush and goes to put another bumper sticker onto your car. But as he’s doing so, he notices the bumper sticker he’s already placed there a week ago that only he can see (unless you’ve done the car-equivalent of clearing your browser cache), and goes “ah, it’s Consumer #1287499290! I’ll make sure to file all of this new data under my records for Consumer #1287499290!”

You get out of your car and start to walk into the Grocery Store, but before you open the door, the Strange Man whispers to the Grocery Store: “Hey, I know you’re really trying to push your cereal right now, want me to make it more likely that this person buys some cereal from you?” and of course the Grocery Store agrees—this was the whole reason they let him set up that weird parking lot bush in the first place.

So the Strange Man runs around the store rearranging shelves. He doesn’t know your name (all the data he collects is strictly anonymous after all!) but he does know that you chose the cutesy toy for your happy meal at McDonald’s, so he changes all of the cereal packaging labels in the store to be pastel-coloured and covered in fluffy bears and unicorns. And maybe you were already going to the Grocery Store to buy cereal, and maybe you’re actually very happy to buy some cereal in a package that seems to cater specifically to your interests, but wouldn’t you feel at least a little violated if you found out that this whole process occurred without your knowledge? Especially if you felt like you could trust the people who owned the Grocery Store? They’re not really your friend or anything, but maybe you thought that they were compassionate and responsible members of the community, and part of the reason that you shopped at their store was to support that kind of business.

2/3. “Everyone does it, get over it.”

Commenter: [The marketing company working with CR] is an industry standard at this point, particularly for small businesses. Major partner of Shopify, a fairly big player. If you don't have a software development team, using industry standard solutions like these is the easy, safe option.

This sounds reasonable, but it actually makes it worse, not better, that Critical Role and Dropout are doing this. All this excuse tells me is that most businesses using Shopify (or at least the majority of those that use its recommended newsletter service) have a bush for the Strange Man set up in their parking lot.

Contracting with these businesses is certainly the easy option, but it is decidedly not the safe one.

3/3. “They need to do it for marketing reasons.”

Commenter 1: Email marketing tools like [this] use tracking to measure open and click rates. I get why you don’t want to be tracked, but it’s very hard to run a sizeable email newsletter without any user data.

Commenter 2: I work in digital marketing … every single email you get from a company has something similar to this. Guaranteed. This looks totally standard.

I am a web programmer by trade. It is my full time job. Tracking the metrics that Critical Role and Dropout are most likely interested in does not require embedding third-party tracking cookies in their fans’ web browsers. If you feel comfortable taking my word on that, feel free to skip the next section. If you’re skeptical (or if you just want to learn a little bit about how the internet works) please read on.

5/7. Tracking cookies are never necessary

We live in a technocracy. We live in a world in which technology design dictates the rules we live by. We don’t know these people, we didn’t vote for them in office, there was no debate about their design. But yet, the rules that they determine by the design decisions they make—many of them somewhat arbitrary—end up dictating how we will live our lives. —Latanya Sweeney

1/3. Definitions

A website is a combination of 2 computer programs. One of the two programs runs on your computer (laptop/desktop/phone/etc.) and the other runs on another computer somewhere in the world. The program running on your computer is the client program. The program running on the other computer is the server program.

A message sent from the client to the server is a request. A message sent from the server to the client is a response.

Cookies are bits of data that the server sends to the client in a response that the client then sends back to the server as an attachment to its subsequent requests.

A session is a series of sequential interactions between a client and server. When either of the two programs stops running (e.g. when you close a browser tab), the session is ended and any future interactions will take place in a new session.

A URL is a Uniform Resource Locator. You may also sometimes see the initialism URI—in which the ‘I’ stands for Identifier—but they effectively refer to the same thing, which is the place to find a specific thing on the internet. For our purposes, a “link” and a URL mean the same thing.

2/3. What do Critical Role and Dropout want?

These media companies (in my best estimation) are contracting with the digital advertising companies in order to get one or more of the following things:

Customer identity verification (between sessions)

Marketing campaign analytics

Customer preference profiles

Customer behaviour profiles

3/3. How can they get these things without tracking cookies?

Accounts. Dropout has an account system already. As Beacon is a thing now I have to assume Critical Role does as well, therefore this is literally already something they can do without any additional parties getting involved.

URL Query Parameters. So you want to know which of your social media feeds is driving the most traffic to your storefront. You could contract a third-party advertising company to do this for you, but as we have seen this might not be the ideal option. Instead, when posting your links to said feeds, attach a little bit of extra text to the end of the URL link so: becomes or or even These extra bits of information at the end of a URL are query parameters, and act as a way for the client to specify some instructions for the server when sending a request. In effect, a URL with query parameters allows the client to say to the server “I want this thing under these conditions”. The benefit of this approach is, of course, that you actually know precisely what information is being collected (the stuff in the parameters) and precisely what is being done with it, and you’ve avoided exposing any of your user data to third parties.

Internal data collection. Optionally associate a user’s email address with their preferences on the site. Prompt them to do this whenever they purchase anything or do any action that might benefit from having some saved preference, informing them explicitly when you do so and giving them the opportunity to opt-out.

Internal data collection. The same as above, but let the user know you are also tracking their movements while on your site. You can directly track user behaviour down to every single mouse movement if you really want to—again, no need to get an outside party involved to snoop on your fans. But you shouldn’t do that because it’s a little creepy!

At the end of the day, it will of course be more work to set up and maintain these things, and thus it will inevitably be more expensive—but that discrepancy in expense represents profit that these companies are currently making on the basis of violating their fans’ right to privacy.

6/7. Breaking the Law

The data subject shall have the right to object, on grounds relating to his or her particular situation, at any time to processing of personal data concerning him or her [...] The controller shall no longer process the personal data unless the controller demonstrates compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which override the interests, rights and freedoms of the data subject or for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims. Where personal data are processed for direct marketing purposes, the data subject shall have the right to object at any time to processing of personal data concerning him or her for such marketing, which includes profiling to the extent that it is related to such direct marketing. Where the data subject objects to processing for direct marketing purposes, the personal data shall no longer be processed for such purposes. At the latest at the time of the first communication with the data subject, the right referred to in paragraphs 1 and 2 shall be explicitly brought to the attention of the data subject and shall be presented clearly and separately from any other information. — General Data Protection Regulation, Art. 21

Nobody wants to break the law and be caught. I am not accusing anyone of anything and this is just my personal speculation on publicly-available information. I am not a lawyer; I merely make computer go beep-boop. If you have any factual corrections for this or any other section in this document please leave a comment and I will update the text with a revision note. Before I try my hand at the legal-adjacent stuff, allow me to wade in with the tech stuff.

Cookies are sometimes good and sometimes bad. Cookies from someone you trust are usually good. Cookies from someone you don’t know are occasionally bad. But you can take proactive measures against bad cookies. You should always default to denying any cookies that go beyond the “essential” or “functional” categorizations on any website of which you are remotely suspicious. Deny as many cookies as possible. Pay attention to what the cookie pop-ups actually say and don’t just click on the highlighted button: it is usually “Accept All”, which means that tracking and advertising cookies are fair game from the moment you click that button onward. It is illegal for companies to arbitrarily provide you a worse service for opting out of being tracked (at least it is in the EU and California).

It is my opinion (and again, I am not a legal professional, just a web developer, so take this with a grain of salt) that the links included in the newsletter emails violate both of these laws. If a user of the email newsletter residing in California or the EU wishes to visit any of the links included in said email without being tracked, they have no way of doing so. None of the actual endpoints are available in the email, effectively forcing the user to go through the third-party domain and submit themselves to being tracked in order to utilize the service they have signed up for. Furthermore, it is impossible to unsubscribe directly from within the email without also submitting to the third-party tracking.

[ID: A screenshot of the unsubscribe button in the CR newsletter alongside the page HTML which shows that the target destination for the anchor element is a trk.klclick.com page. End ID.]

As a brief aside: Opening the links in a private/incognito window is a good idea, but will not completely prevent your actions from being tracked by the advertiser. My recommendation: install uBlock Origin to warn you of tracking domains (it is a completely free and open-source project available on most major web browsers), and do not click on any links in either of these newsletters until they change their practices.

Now, it may be the case that the newsletters are shipped differently to those residing in California or the EU (if you are from either of these regions please feel free to leave a comment on whether or not this is the case), but ask yourself: does that make this any better? Sure, maybe then Critical Role and Dropout (or rather, the advertising companies they contract with) aren’t technically breaking the law, but it shows that the only thing stopping them from exploiting your personal data is potential legal repercussions, rather than any sort of commitment to your right to privacy. But I expect that the emails are not, in fact, shipping any differently in jurisdictions with more advanced privacy legislation—it wouldn’t be the first time a major tech giant blatantly flaunted EU regulations.

Without an additional browser extension such as uBlock Origin, a user clicking on the links in these emails may not even be aware that they have interacted with the advertising agency at all, let alone what sort of information that agency now has pertaining to them, nor do they have any ability to opt out of this data collection.

For more information about your right to privacy—something that only those living in the EU or California currently have—you can read explanations of the legislations at the following links (take note that these links, and all of the links embedded in this paper, are anchored directly to the destinations they purport to be, and do not sneakily pass through an additional domain before redirecting you):

7/7. Conclusion

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by neglect, ignorance or incompetence. —Hanlon’s Razor

The important thing to make clear here is this: Even if Critical Role and Dropout are not directly selling or exploiting your personal data, they are still profiting off of it by contracting with, and receiving services from, companies whom I believe are. You may not believe me.

I do not believe that the management teams at Critical Role and Dropout are evil or malicious. Ignorance seems to be the most likely cause of this situation. Someone at some marketing company told them that this type of thing was helpful, necessary, and an industry standard, and they had no reason to doubt that person’s word. Maybe that person had no reason to doubt the word of the person who told them. Maybe there are a few people in that chain, maybe quite a few. I do not expect everyone running a company to be an expert in this stuff (hell, I’m nowhere close to being an expert in this stuff myself—I only happened to notice this at all because of a browser extension I just happened to have installed to block ads), but what I do expect is that they change their behaviour when the potential harms of their actions have been pointed out to them, which is why I have taken the time to write this.

PS. To the employees of Critical Role and Dropout

It is my understanding that these corporations were both founded with the intention of being socially responsible alongside turning a profit. By using services like the ones described above, you are, however unintentionally, profiting off of the personal datasets of your fans that are being compiled and exploited without their informed consent. You cannot say, implicitly or explicitly, “We’re not like those other evil companies! We care about more than just extracting as much money from our customers as possible!” while at the same time utilizing these services, and it is my hope that after reading this you will make the responsible choice and stop doing so.

Thank you for reading,

era

Originally Published: 23 May 2024

Last Updated: 28 May 2024

[do-you-have-a-flag]

me: i've been busy volunteering to gain experience and work on my portfolio in the field i got my degree in, so i have been applying for other paid work online at the same time.

job agency: you need to apply through other methods.* how about a cleaning job in a hospital.

me: I do not want a job in a hospital because I had recent negative experiences and do not think I could work in that environment

job agency: ok, not cleaning. How about food service in a hospital? or a call center job!

me: i have no food service experience or certifications. I can not work in a hospital. I do not want to apply for call center jobs because I will be bad at them.

job agency: here's a call center roll you have to apply for

me: this is a search results page on a job listing website, you didn't even name the company correctly so I can find it myself, why didn't you send me the actual listing link?

job agency: you have to apply to these jobs or you'll get a demerit

me: this is still applying online you didn't even make a connection for me.

call center application form: provide multiple forms of ID including [one I don't have] and [one that expired and I haven't been able to afford a new one] you cannot submit without this

me: well I will simply upload a blank pdf then, fuck off, I just wanted to go in for admin and retail and literally anything else.

the teaching industry: hi, would you-

me: I DON'T HAVE ANY CERTIFICATION TO TEACH WHY ARE YOU FOLLOWING ME

*every time I have cold called/emailed/walked in to apply for a job I have been told to apply online I'm so tired

[cademygod]

not something id normally post on here but im assuming there are other small business owners/artists who are looking for new sticker printing options in lieu of stickermule due to what they broadcasted this week

if you’re behind:

following the recent political news in the US, stickermule sent out an email/text blast regarding their support for trump, including a “btw, buy a shirt for $4 when it’s normally $19. i suggest buying one that shows you support trump.”

in many people’s opinions, this is incredibly inappropriate on top of a steaming pile of other things.

(it’s my understanding something similar happened in 2016, but that seems to have been washed down well enough that people aren’t seeing it upon first glance)

due to this, a lot of people (including myself) are looking for new manufacturers for their products. ive complied a list of a bunch of suggestions that i hope will help!

- sticker app

- sticker blitz

- avery labels

- sticker giant

- sticker ninja

- diesel fuel prints

- jukebox print

- vinyl disorder

- sticker bros

if you’re aware of more or have other suggestions, please let me know and i will add them!

majority of these companies offer $1-2 sample packs with free shipping so you can test their quality before committing to them, as well. ive also noticed a lot of them are running sales and other deals right now

[stainedglassgob]

[Image ID: DM conversation between @ariskofrain (Rain) and me on Twitter.

Rain: hiya goblin, just wanted to reach out and let you know that i talked with jg about the design of justice spoon for the card game - we agreed to change that design, and i would like to apologise for the initial design being so close to yours, that's absolutely on me and doing less research than i should. let me know if there's anything else you'd like from me, and again, i am sorry.

Me: I’m more than fine with JG or other artists using my designs in the project, I merely wanted some form of credit with said design, as well as the other pre-existing designs that were being used (goodwin, fish, mike, etc.)

Me: Let me know if you saw this message because I genuinely do not want JG to redraw the card.

Rain: well i chatted it over with jg, and it was both of our decisions to make the change - to be clear, it's not the only card that is getting an art change, it just so happened if was one of the cards on jg's list of cards that she wanted to change anyway. and to be clear about what the crediting plans are, we are already including a section for artists whose designs had a notable influence, and you're gonna appear there, regardless of the redraw. but ultimately we're happier with the new piece, as has been the case for any of the various redraws over the course of the project

Me: awesome, thank you so much! i apologize for my forwardness with any of these messages, crediting is something i'm passionate about and i'm very thankful to hear that it'll be included in the game

Rain: i absolutely get it, don't worry, it's important for us too

End ID.]

This was the DM conversation I had after I emailed Wayfinder games with a spreadsheet of uncredited/stolen player designs featured in Blaseball: Wild Cards. In hindsight, I wish I was more forward with my actual demands, but back then I didn’t think people would be on my side or that I would have any of my requests met. The fact that Rain even responded to me (even though our last DM conversation was Rain leaving me on read about a commission) was a surprise. It’s been half a year since the conversation, and Wayfinder continues to not be transparent with design usage and persists in asking for permission to use designs AFTER the cards have been made. Designers aren’t seeing a penny to their name and have received no public recognition from the company. I am a business graduate. Never in my life have I heard of a company that would rather waste time, effort, and money on redesigning cards rather than working with designers from the beginning to make sure everyone is being paid fairly for their work. I legitimately feel bad for the hired artists that have been repeatedly made to redraw a card over and over because Wayfinder didn’t do their due diligence. As a freelance artist, character designer, and Blaseball fan, I am disgusted by Wayfinder’s lack of care towards everyone involved in this cash grab of a card game. The fact that this isn’t even my only grievance towards Blaseball: Wild Cards is severely frustrating and mentally taxing to explain. 

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

THIS WEEKEND (June 7–9), I'm in AMHERST, NEW YORK to keynote the 25th Annual Media Ecology Association Convention and accept the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity.

#20yrsago Danny O’Brien’s Life Hacks https://craphound.com/lifehacks2.txt

#15yrsago New fashion copyright bill will let big companies own public domain designs and bury young, indie designers in legal costs https://memex.craphound.com/2009/06/05/new-fashion-copyright-bill-will-let-big-companies-own-public-domain-designs-and-bury-young-indie-designers-in-legal-costs/

#10yrsago A letter from Edward Snowden and the ACLU https://memex.craphound.com/2014/06/05/a-letter-from-edward-snowden-and-the-aclu/

#10yrsago Today is the day we Reset the Net https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKk8MHFLNNE

#10yrsago Crowdscrounging pennies to support Canada’s most important environmental research https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBsTH28AV58

#10yrsago Turn on your data for one minute, AT&T sticks you with a $750 international roaming charge https://jeffreifman.com/2014/06/04/yes-you-can-spend-750-in-international-data-roaming-in-one-minute/

#10yrsago How Wikipedia can become a no-asshole-zone https://web.archive.org/web/20140609085220/http://wikiconferenceusa.org/wiki/Sumana_Harihareswara_keynote

#10yrsago Student’s awesome non-apology for wearing leggings https://www.tumblr.com/urb4n-hipst3rr-xo/86435758488

#10yrsago Google announces end-to-end encryption for Gmail (a big deal!) https://blog.google/products/gmail/transparency-report-protecting-emails

#5yrsago AOC condemns solitary confinement for Paul Manafort https://x.com/AOC/status/1136320114335391744

#5yrsago This is the color of cyberspace https://www.sherwin-williams.com/en-us/color/color-family/neutral-paint-colors/SW7076-cyberspace#/7076/?s=coordinatingColors&p=PS0

#5yrsago New Jersey law would force Verizon to pay the taxes it avoided for a decade https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/06/verizon-stiffed-towns-on-millions-in-taxes-but-might-have-to-pay-it-back/

#5rysago Russia adds Tinder to the list of apps that have to release user data to its cops and spies on demand, without a warrant https://www.zdnet.com/article/russia-says-tinder-must-share-user-data-private-messages/

#5yrsago The best Joker is the woman Joker who snaps after a lifetime of being told to “smile, baby” by shitty men https://www.everywhereist.com/2019/06/i-tweeted-about-the-joker-being-a-woman-who-was-tired-of-this-shit-and-it-now-feels-auto-biographical/

#5yrsago 68% of “ordinary Facebook investors” voted to fire Zuckerberg https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-investors-vote-to-fire-mark-zuckerberg-as-chairman-2019-6

#5yrsago LA’s new homelessness stats reveal a crisis that is only worsening https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-lopez-06052019-story.html

#5yrsago Patronscan wants cities to require bars to scan your ID with its service so it can maintain a secret, unaccountable blacklist https://memex.craphound.com/2019/06/05/patronscan-wants-cities-to-require-bars-to-scan-your-id-with-its-service-so-it-can-maintain-a-secret-unaccountable-blacklist/

#5yrsago Leaked UK military “Extreme Right Wing” checklist: “using the term ‘Islamofascism'”, adding “-istan” to place names https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/05/29/army-guide-spot-right-wing-extremists-warns-identify-patriots/

#1yrago Wall Street Journal goes to bat for the vultures who want to steal your house https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/05/vulture-capitalism/#distressed-assets

[paulgadzikowski]

[copied from my reblog of this post about lack of forward compatibiilty in technology so I can reblog amendments to my story without cluttering OP's notes, and backdated now that you can do that here]

I’m reblogging this from someone who reblogged it from me because since I reblogged this I’ve experienced it

Friday I sat with my mother at her place to wait for the arrival of the phone repairman from the phone/cabletv/internet company sometime between 08:00 and 17:00. Mom’s phone’d been out for a week, and she was also having trouble logging into her email. Mom is 90 and not very mobile and doesn’t have a cellphone so, aside from me, these things are her only means of putting out contact to the world. For a week I’ve been going over to Mom’s twice a day because we are regularly checking in with each other daily anyway but now all our means to do so telecommically were out.

At 15:00 the phone repairman phoned me (I’d left my cell as the contact number) to inform me the problem (which he mentioned is being experienced by multiple customers) is, somehow, not with the company’s phone lines but with the company’s cable lines. Therefore it would require a cable tech to fix it and he would pass this information on to the cable department. (The cable tech(s), it develops, will be out tomorrow, Monday. Sometime between 08:00 and 17:00.)

SO I decided to sit down with Mom’s email and try to change the password so she could reach me that way again. The problem was, it developed, the account had no established means on record for a temporary code to be sent out (well, it had Mom’s phone number, BUT). With a trip to the brick-and-mortar store (Did I mention Mom’s internet is with a different provider than her phone? Mom’s internet is with a different provider than her phone) I got my cell phone number added to the account because I was already listed as an authorized user.

BUT THEN, for reasons that aren’t clear to me, before I could change the password I needed to Verify Identity To The Account. By sending a copy of state-issued photo ID by cellphone camera, then a selfie.

(The counter CSR saw my ID while I was there, and Mom’s, yet directed me back to this process. Why couldn’t they have done the identity verification right there? I wish I’d understood the process’ purpose well enough while at the store to ask that.)

At home I went through the ID verification process six or eight or ten times in two hours. And each attempt took multiple tries to get satisfactory photos of the state photo ID.

The first wholly successful attempt, with Mom’s ID and selfie, was nevertheless rejected because her ID is expired.

Aha, thought I, I can do it with my ID and selfie, because I’m also an Authorized User. <belushi>But nooooo</belushi>

Every attempt at the verification process with my ID required multiple tries because of difficulty of the system recognizing the photo on my ID as a face.

Meanwhile every attempt to photograph the ID, front and back, required the ID be ideally framed and centered in the viewfinder, with no shadow or reflection on it; and held steady, at a distance greater from the surface where the ID rested than my hand could brace it, in order to get the whole ID in the frame.

But I did get through the process! Twice! And each time I reached a screen that informed me that the verification was successful and I could go on to the next step! - but did not say what the next step was, nor present me with a button to proceed to it.

In retrospect, what it probably meant was to go back to Mom’s laptop and resume trying to change her email password. I didn’t realize this Friday. I realize this because today (Sunday) when I stopped by to check in, Mom was in the process of trying to update the password herself. She was stuck on the … oh I can’t think of what they’re called, where you have to pick the squares that have a bus (that also took multiple tries, and I mean about a dozen after I took it over - I think her laptop screen colors are off; it’s old). I got her through that, and we successfully entered the new password, twice for security.

Then we were presented with a screen for creating two-step verifiction.

With no option to skip it.

Using her phone.

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT ECOMMERCE NEWS (INCLUDING ETSY), January 2024

Welcome to my first commerce news update of 2024!

Now that we are through the intensity of the holiday rush, I plan on getting a few of these out each month. Please follow me on Bluesky or on LinkedIn if you want more timely updates. (New ways to get updates coming soon!)

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

Some Etsy listings now have a link which displays some shop owners' names and home addresses under the seller contact info, which says “Meet your seller”. This may be legally required in some jurisdictions, including within the US if you don’t have a proper location on your shop, but here is how to remove it if you don’t need it. Here’s some of the info on the US INFORM Act which could require disclosure of your information; the EU and UK are other jurisdictions which sometimes may require this info if you sell to them. 

Reminder that UK small sellers may end up having their taxable income reported by the platforms they sell on starting for 2024. “The first deadline for firms to report details of transactions is the end of January 2025 – a year after the rules come into force. Bank account details and the cost of transactions made by sellers with sizable trading activity must be reported.” Etsy reminded shop owners that there is no change in taxes owed in the UK; the changes force platforms to report income so that people can’t evade taxes as easily. 

In case you missed it, many USPS rates, as well as forever stamps, went up again on January 21. Some label services such as eBay may actually offer decreases in certain categories, however.

ETSY NEWS 

Etsy announced 2 (very different) “privacy” changes at the beginning of January: limiting some third-party apps from receiving buyer email addresses, and making the Etsy forum a seller-only site in the near future. Shops will have to log in to read anything other than Announcements and the Technical Issues sections. We are not yet sure if this applies to shops in long-term vacation mode. 

Etsy teased a promotional announcement on Jan. 16, which is likely that the site will be launching Gift Mode [post by me with a link to another post with screenshots]. I’ll write more on that once it is officially released, but here is one of my screenshots from today, with lots of infringement. Also, the site is apparently buying a Super Bowl ad. This year’s ads are expected to cost at least $7 million USD. Etsy forum thread discussing both topics here. 

Etsy chose not to respond to this article about AI art sold as indigenous creations. “Etsy has a policy that prohibits users from selling items falsely listed as being produced by Indigenous peoples — but only in Northern America, and allows “Indigenous-style” products by non-Indigenous people.”

Some shop owners from Turkey claim their shops are being shut down at a high rate, with no explanation. At least some had issues with items that cannot be sold on Etsy, and there appeared to be some with ID or financial anomalies. I am still interested in hearing more, if anyone knows anything. 

EcommerceBytes covered the Etsy problems with the domestic pricing tool charging some international buyers domestic prices, which have been going on since May 2023. While some sellers have managed to get refunds from the company, others report no such luck. 

ECOMMERCE NEWS (minus social media)

General

The Indie Sellers Guild is running a virtual convention in April; read the panel ideas here. 

Amazon

Amazon product pages now have a link to get AI-answers to your questions. Expect to see a lot more of this on many types of sites. 

There are several keyword tools that can help you optimize your Amazon products; 5 are discussed here, but note that some may be pricy.

The latest layoffs at Amazon include people working for the “Buy with Prime” department. 

Amazon’s difficult-to-navigate system for suspensions and other punishments has led to entire law firms dedicated to supporting shops that have been closed or have had listings removed. 

BigCommerce

BigCommerce sites can now have a marketplace component, meaning that a single business site can now have other sellers on it. 

eBay

eBay had to pay $3 million over its behaviour in the cyberstalking case against Ina and David Steiner, owners of EcommerceBytes. The Steiners issued a victim impact statement; the civil lawsuit in this matter goes to trial in March 2025. 

eBay’s discounted Tracked Packet rate from Canada Post has been extended to March 31, 2024. 

Buyers and sellers are getting annoyed with long delays in product authentication. 

eBay called a few sellers and pushed them to offer cheaper shipping rates, based on the discounted rates for eBay’s labels. (They seem to have forgotten that they charge fees on those shipping rates.)

Poshmark

Poshmark’s recent policy changes included a class action waiver. Changes are effective February 5. 

All Other Marketplaces

Depop released its first Trends Report, similar to those put out by its parent company, Etsy. 

Bonanza is introducing a combo website builder/inventory integration and accounting platform called Vercado. Price will be $99 a month, so I strongly suggest investigating what - if any - advantages it provides over its competitors. 

Payment Processing

PayPal and Venmo are teasing some big ecommerce plans for this year, to be announced on Jan. 25. It involves use of AI, and the possibility of improving engagement rates. 

Shipping 

There have been numerous reports of major USPS shipping delays, especially in Texas.

[eduhivecreativestudio]

5 Essential Digital Marketing Strategies For Business

Creating a strong digital presence is crucial for the success of a small business. Cost effective digital marketing solutions can help you to create a strong digital presence with ease.

Here Are 5 Essential Digital Marketing Practices For Boosting Your Online Presence:

A)  Develop a clutter free website-: The basis of your online presence is to present your business by means of a user friendly & eye-catching website with clear intent of services and products which you want to sell. Your website should clearly display all basic details of business such as company intro , valid phone no, address  ,E-mail id and the services provided by the company. One must not forget to include a cheery call to action buttons /book meeting buttons which encourage users to take further action.

B)  Effective use of SEO technique-:   Search engine optimization is a powerful technique to make sure that search engines like google promote & make your site visible to more & more people organically. To make sure that your site leverages the advantages of SEO, one must do proper keyword research to identify relevant keywords for one’s business. Post keyword research the content title, meta description & tags should be modified accordingly. Once the on page SEO activities are properly defined and executed, focus should shift towards off page SEO which builds quality backlinks. Remember to find quality backlinks sites with high DA to link with yours.

C)  Engage with social media-: Social media platforms accentuate your digital presence & brand awareness. A mix of informational ,promotional & entertaining content which attracts a target audience should be used to pep up your social media account. Proactively responding to mails,messages,comments & reviews on your social media builds better presence & helps in brand recall. One must fully utilize the powerful paid features offered by social media platforms nowadays to advertise & build a strong digital presence.

D)  Email marketing-:Email marketing is an effective strategy for building client relationships and increasing conversion rates. It relies on the genuinely of the email list. Genuine email list can be structured by exchange of good content, offers & giveaways by small businesses. A user friendly website with useful pdfs which can be downloaded by providing an email is an example of gaining authentic mail id’s for retargeting. Retargeting is all about brand recall & emails with neatly placed call to action buttons facilitates sales in the digital marketing area. The usage of email marketing increases your site visit & help you gain good organic growth for digital presence. Remember to keep a mix of informational, promotional & entertaining content in your mails for better engagement 

E)  Monitor and analyze performance-: A plan without a strategy leads nowhere. Monitoring and analyzing the strategy put  in digital marketing helps to refine our approach & leads our plan to achieve higher growth by widening our digital presence .

Tools like google analytics provide a lot of information for your decision making. Further one can make use of advanced AI tools and CRM dashboards coupled with tools like HUBSPOT & SEMrush for better visualization of digital marketing efforts.

This is all about 5 essential digital marketing strategies for businesses. Any business  big or small should adapt these core principles to fortify their digital presence & target wider reach in the digital landscape.