I wonder if this amount is in any way tied to the profits made over the same period?

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/technology/google-privacy-settlement.html

Google Agrees to $392 Million Privacy Settlement With 40 States

Google agreed to a record $391.5 million privacy settlement with a 40-state coalition of attorneys general on Monday for charges that it misled users into thinking they had turned off location tracking in their account settings even as the company continued collecting that information.

Under the settlement, Google will also make its location tracking disclosures clearer starting in 2023.

The attorneys general said the agreement was the biggest internet privacy settlement by U.S. states.

Well said.

https://www.makeuseof.com/online-privacy-risks-dangers-solutions/

The Myth of Online Privacy: Risks, Dangers, and Solutions

Privacy these days means something completely different than it did even a decade ago. And the only things we have to blame for this are the internet and ourselves.

In the age of the internet, we're only as "private" as the tools we use allow us to be, which isn't much. While you rejoice in using a lot of free tools, know that you're actually paying with data.

For good governance, avoid bad examples…

https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/14/is-elon-musks-twitter-about-to-fall-out-of-the-gdprs-one-stop-shop/

Is Elon Musk’s Twitter about to fall out of the GDPR’s one-stop shop?

… Like many major tech firms with customers across the European Union, Twitter currently avails itself of a mechanism in the GDPR known as the one-stop shop (OSS). This is beneficial because it allows the company to streamline regulatory administration by being able to engage exclusively with a lead data supervisor in the EU Member State where it is “main established” (in Twitter’s case, Ireland), rather than having to accept inbound from data protection authorities across the bloc.

However, under Musk’s chaotic reign — which has already seen a fast and deep downsizing of Twitter’s headcount, kicking off with layoffs of 50% of staff earlier this month — questions are being asked over whether its main establishment status in Ireland for the GDPR still holds or not.

The resignation late last week of key senior personnel responsible for ensuring security and privacy compliance looks like a canary in the coal mine when it comes to Twitter’s regulatory situation — with CISO Lea Kissner, chief privacy officer Damien Kieran, and chief compliance officer Marianne Fogarty all walking out the door en masse.

This sounds both wishy and washy to me.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/italy-outlaws-facial-recognition-tech-except-fight-crime-2022-11-14/

Italy outlaws facial recognition tech, except to fight crime

Italy prohibited the use of facial recognition and 'smart glasses' on Monday as its Data Protection Agency issued a rebuke to two municipalities experimenting with the technologies.

Facial recognition systems using biometric data will not be allowed until a specific law is adopted or at least until the end of next year, the privacy watchdog said.

The exception is when such technologies play a role in judicial investigations or the fight against crime.

Economics is always interesting (and often confusing).

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/russias-road-economic-ruin

Russia’s Road to Economic Ruin

… Look behind the moderate GDP contraction and inflation figures, however, and it becomes evident that the damage is in fact severe: the Russian economy is destined for a long period of stagnation. The state was already interfering in the private sector before the war. That tendency has become only more pronounced, and it threatens to further stifle innovation and market efficiency. The only way to preserve the viability of the Russian economy is either through major reforms—which are not in the offing—or an institutional disruption similar to the one that occurred with the fall of the Soviet Union.

We will lose this when everything is an eBook.

https://www.bespacific.com/the-value-of-owning-more-books-than-you-can-read-2/

The value of owning more books than you can read

Big Think –

• Many readers buy books with every intention of reading them only to let them linger on the shelf.

• Statistician Nassim Nicholas Taleb believes surrounding ourselves with unread books enriches our lives as they remind us of all we don’t know. [we don’t know what we don’t know, until we learn it!]

• The Japanese call this practice tsundoku, and it may provide lasting benefits.”