Notices by Jon Keegan (jonkeegan@mastodon.social)

This Dara Kerr piece on Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff's secretive land purchases is WILD. Dara's one hell of a reporter. (h/t Tonya Riley)

https://www.npr.org/2024/02/28/1232564250/billionaire-benioff-buys-hawaii-land-salesforce

NEW: What happens to your sensitive data when a data broker goes bankrupt? Location data broker Near went from IPO to Chapter 11 in 7 months and is up for sale. Near’s data was used by an anti-abortion group to target women at 600 Planned Parenthood clinics in 48 states.

Sen. Ron Wyden asked the FTC for restrictions on the use of this data, which appeared in a new bankruptcy filing.

https://themarkup.org/privacy/2024/02/23/what-happens-to-your-sensitive-data-when-a-data-broker-goes-bankrupt

TIL: "In Belgium, every citizen has access to a "digital vault" provided by the government, which is accessible using their ID card. Individuals can upload up to 1GB of documents into this vault. It's a well-designed system that ensures privacy during one's lifetime, but you can choose what happens with it after your passing." https://www.izimi.be/en/ (via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37520374 )

NEW: Twitter (X) is still throttling links to competitors' sites. We measured a consistent 2.5 second delay for Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky and Substack links, compared to a random control group of domains. That may not seem like a lot but it is 60x longer than other domains. This delay occurs via Twitter's t.co link shortener. AND we built a tool so you can test out other t.co links. Great collab with @dphiffer and Joel Eastwood. 🐢https://themarkup.org/investigations/2023/09/15/twitter-is-still-throttling-competitors-links-check-for-yourself

Love this Axios Visuals look at the evolution of pickup trucks and their popularity in the US (and how they are used for shopping / daily driving much more than hauling boulders) . This view of the inversion of the ratio between cab and cargo bed tells the story. https://www.axios.com/ford-pickup-trucks-history