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   Gerry McGovern (gerrymcgovern@mastodon.green)'s status on Friday, 05-Apr-2024 00:34:37 JST Gerry McGovern

   In a city called The Dalles, in Oregon, USA, local people were worried that Google’s water use was soaring. As is so often the case, the city officials, who had given Google hundreds of millions in tax breaks, had no intention of letting anyone know how much water Google was using. It was up to a local paper, The Oregonian, to try and find out. They were forced to bring a case to court. City officials were ordered by Google to claim that Google’s use of scarce public water was a “trade secret”.

   • AnthonyJK-Admin, Anil Dash, GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) and Aral Balkan repeated this.
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     Gerry McGovern (gerrymcgovern@mastodon.green)'s status on Saturday, 06-Apr-2024 20:25:57 JST Gerry McGovern

     in reply to

     Democratic rights have become a Big Tech trade secret. Google imposed a gag order on city officials elected by the public, warning them that they must not tell the public anything about the Google project, particularly how much public water Google was taking. Using a slew of aliases to buy land, getting secret tax breaks, getting electricity at less than half of what ordinary people pay, being sold public land for less than half the market value, all in secret, this is how Big Tech rolls.

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     Gerry McGovern (gerrymcgovern@mastodon.green)'s status on Saturday, 06-Apr-2024 21:56:17 JST Gerry McGovern

     in reply to

     Making public officials promise that if any taxpayers file official requests for information, Google will be the first to know, this is how our democracy is stolen. Every day, we sell our democracy and basic rights to Big Tech for convenience, “cheap” data storage, some always-on entertainment and a few “free” services. We sell ourselves and our environment so cheap.