Wow, wtf! I would not expect that degree of mass surveillance to be economically viable. And so overtly stark in the face of the GDPR. In principle, we should be able to make a GDPR access request to the central bank to ask them where we shop with cash and which ATMs we used.
I don’t get why “QR” is described as a “payment option”. It’s still a bank account transaction in the end which is exclusively for banked people. And worse, it excludes people without recent smartphones and the Google Playstore account needed to get the closed-source app that violates our software freedom.
I have a hard time giving a shit about the novelty of not carrying a plastic card in the big scheme of things, when forced-banking is being oppressively shoved in our faces and privacy is toast, while also being vulnerable to systemic denial of service in the event of cyberattacks as acts of war. While violating our human rights (banks treat different people differently based on where they come from).
Europeans are fucked as far as privacy goes. The GDPR is unenforced. But even if were enforced, the GDPR’s data minimisation (article 5) rule only obligates data controllers to consider options that are available.
We know from all the cashless bars in Amsterdam how naive and flippant consumers are about privacy. Creating a digital footprint of alcohol consumption is one of the most foolish things consumers can do, particularly in light of that Scandinavian guy who was denied a mortgage on the basis of his drinking habits, which were known to the bank by his purchase history.
Privacy aside, there is a human rights issue because banks treat different demographics of people differently. It’s disturbing how the human rights problem is so overlooked.
In any case, Albania cannot join the EU while being cashless unless Albania keeps their own currency.
I agree. But you have to start somewhere. The guideline has been converted into legislation in Belgium since last week.
Do you have more detail on what was implemented? I could only find this repairability index, which I suspect won’t be much more useful than energy indexes and nutrition indexes.
This is why I said at the local level. City council cannot change federal laws.
The EU has been grappling with right to repair laws for over 10 years now. It’s a complete shit show.
At the moment, a washing machine maker in the EU is only required to release repair documentation to professional repairers who are insured, not consumers. And they only have to do it in the 1st 10 years, not in the time period that things actually break. At the 10 year mark, they automatically lose the docs and stop making parts.
The law you reference is not yet in force AFAIK. But when it comes into force and each member state eventually legislates, look at what we are getting-- from your reference:
A European information form can be offered to consumers to help them assess and compare repair services (detailing the nature of the defect, price and duration of the repair). To make the repair process easier, a European online platform with national sections will be set up to help consumers easily find local repair shops, sellers of refurbished goods, buyers of defective items or community-led repair initiatives, such as repair cafes.
That’s crap. It’s fuck all. Consumers are not getting service manuals. They are just being told where they can go to get someone else to do the work. We can of course already find repair cafes because they publish their own location. But repairers at repair cafes are just winging it. You cannot bring them a large appliance like a washer. They don’t even have water and drain hookups. And even if one repair cafe made an exception for large appliances, their repairers are not insured and thus cannot legally get access to service manuals.
Everything at the state/fed/intl levels is a total shitshow. This is why I asked in the OP what can be done at the local level.
I should have linked the parent thread. Federal laws are a shit show. In the US, most states have paltry R2R protections typically only covering cars, wheel chairs, and farm equipment.
This is why I am collecting ideas for what we might petition LOCAL govs to do, like city councils.
I don’t think that is true. I never heard of a creativity test or measurement as a precondition to copyright protection. As I understand it, anything you write (regardless of artistic creativity) is automatically protected under an all rights reserved copyright unless you explicitly state otherwise.
Perhaps that was the case a year ago when you posted this, but now the free accounts allow zero outbound msgs.
It’s interesting that their highest tier plan is capped at 150 msg/day. In any case, I think @jet@hackertalks.com has no cause for concern.
My problem is that they delete trial accounts without reason & without warning. So I distributed my email address to people and just a few months later the address is dead. They don’t say the free accounts have a time limit. I thought the only limit was lack of sending feature.
Yes, and in fact it’s worse than your linked page suggests. I was happy to receive email and not send. So that free trial would have been forever perfect for me. But after a few months my login creds mysteriously quit working. No warning and no msg after the fact to tell me why my #onionmail.org account was deleted.
It’s a dick move because people rely on email for important tasks. It’s fair enough to have limitations, but concealing the limitations is off.
Sounds like Paypal, who is “not a bank”, but who operates on the basis that you must link a bank or interact with a bank to do transactions. But you say unbanked people can use it? How do you get cash loaded onto it?
I suppose it’s still far from being something I could find useable because apps that reject rooted phones would be closed-source (read: untrustworthy; misplaced control).