Notices by Bruce Lawson ✅ ♫ ♿ ✌️♂️✊ (brucelawson@social.vivaldi.net)

Today, the European Parliament allowed the suspicionless mass scanning of private communications (“Chat Control 1.0”) to pass. (More MEPs voted against than for, but not absolute majority). US tech companies are once again allowed to scan private messages without a warrant or prior suspicion. This affects direct messages on platforms like Instagram, Discord, Snapchat, Gmail. The interim regulation passed today will remain in effect until 2028, or until an agreement on a permanent regulation is reached. https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/eu-parliament-greenlights-chat-control-1-0-breyer-our-children-lose-out/

If you’ve never had your car stolen in France, you don’t know voiture missing.

Today, the European Court of Justice has upheld Google’s fine of around €4.1 billion by the European Commission for abusing its dominance by requiring distributors of Android devices to bundle Google Search and Google Chrome. I expect the copper-coloured crumbly crypto cretin to nuke Luxembourg. PDF: https://curia.europa.eu/site/upload/docs/application/pdf/2026-07/cp260093en.pdf

In Greek mythology, the self-adoring Narcissus was brought down by a reflecting pool.

Ukraine has "open-sourced" Russian weaponry. https://trophylab.mod.gov.ua/en/

Relatable.

@cloudflare Hello - is your browser development program closed? The form says it's ""no longer accepting responses. Try contacting the owner of the form if you think that this is a mistake". But who owns the form? I'd like to talk about some bugs with Cloudflare our users are reporting.

I'm happy that when the fascists came to my city yesterday, they were hugely outnumbered by counter-protesters, and lots of the knuckle-draggers skulked off home posting sadly about how local pubs and shops refused to serve them. Well played, Birmingham.

"The letter from U.S. lawmakers to the Pentagon said that, given what military officials know about the trade in location data, they should have acted ⁠faster to protect their personnel, for example by disabling the unique advertising ID attached to military-issued devices, automatically turning off location sharing on smartphones in the field, and steering staff away from Google's Chrome web browser toward more privacy-focused alternatives." https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/pentagon-says-us-military-personnel-are-reportedly-being-targeted-using-location-2026-05-28/

I'm off to Brussels on Monday for meetings with some partner orgs who want to end Big Tech's anti-competitive behaviour in Europe, so naturally I have a new t-shirt.

'Millions' of pounds saved by replacing Palantir tech in refugee system https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2l2j1lxdk5o - the new system was built by Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in-house staff, delivered on time, and users report it's simpler to use and more accessible than its predecessor. Hooray.

The only way to stop a bad dog with a gun is with a good dog with a gun. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/26/dog-shotgun-nebraska-convenience-store

I'm just about to meet the UK competition regulator and "help them with their enquiries". Of course, the meeting is on Microsoft Teams.

To celebrate this wondrous news that Google will turn its search into a walled garden sparkling autocomplete, trained on every one else's content, I'm wearing my best tech t-shirt.

Yay! FINALLY!! https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/may/19/google-glasses-search-ai

BruceLab. An important announcement. BruceLab Act 2.1: Accelerating Human-Centric Agentic Synergy at Machine Velocity https://brucelawson.co.uk/2026/brucelab-act-2-1-accelerating-human-centric-agentic-synergy-at-machine-velocity/

Today is "Victory Day" in Moscow, to celebrate Russia's part in defeating Nazism. Russia has now been invading Ukraine for longer than it fought Germany. No military hardware will be on display; Moscow's internet will be throttled; only the leaders of Belarus, Malaysia and Laos will attend. Victory indeed.

The new range of Reform football tops are brilliant. I've got the Quisling one, and my toddler looks great in his Yaxley-Lennon one! https://reformfc.uk/

Typical. No NATO members helped him during the dinner.

I got a Reform leaflet through the door today, so am returning it freepost in a large envelope with some past their date carrots and a couple of crap tinopeners that don't work (as they expressly said "tell us your opinion"; their ideas are rotten, and don't work). Just because the light obscures it, the address is Reform UK, FREEPOST RTLT-ZXHY-KSDC, 83 Victoria Street, London, SW1H 0HW. Each one costs them the rouble equivalent of £2.50.