And both seem to believe it's always exploitative.

It isn't. And if you're a soft touch who's a sucker for a sob story the exploitation can very much work the other way round as well.

I've met various flavours of dominant male, and they all seem like arseholes. To me. But the sub women they're with are fully consenting and obviously seem to like it. To be fair, the sub women annoy me too - but it's a preference. One person's arsehole is another person's strong, powerful man. Each to their own.

Yeah, I agree that some people are drawn to BDSM because they've got problems. Or at least don't fit in to normal conventions. That doesn't make it unhealthy. I think being able to find a like minded community helps to prevent what normal society sees as unusual behaviour turning in on itself and becoming unhealthy.

In that case it's invasion of his privacy. Someone's been cyberstalking him.

If you're on a site like, say, Fetlife, that should be understood to be private. If you run a personal blog talking about that stuff, then fair game.

Maybe he has a case for sexual discrimination - his sexual preferences, as long as they're acted out only with consenting adults - should not be anyone's business but his.

Flagging you as a robot incorrectly would be less of an issue if it was just Google doing it.

Unfortunately, lots of other websites use the API. There are plenty of Wordpress plugins that add Google's recaptcha to comment forms and I've seen it elsewhere.

It could become a de-facto standard and at that point the issues - in particular for accessibility - become critical. If it's more likely to pop up if you're disabled and using things like screen readers then it's discriminatory.

If nothing else, it'll be something new to keep the EU busy with Google...

I used to use shorthand password that were reminders (first letter of one of a selection of base words, with a random five digit number at the end).

In the end it was the convenience of being able to copy and paste the full password that made me switch to storing the actual password. Especially on a phone, where typing a complex password is a pain.

You know the problem with 30+ random characters?

I know of at least a couple of websites that block pasting into the password field. For some dumb reason they think it's more secure to have you type your password than paste it from somewhere. Which of course encourages short, easy to type passwords.Sad but true.

Some - especially enterprise tools - also enforce special characters, mix of lower and upper and all that stuff that makes it harder to use a phrase. Couple with password expiry every 30 days and no reuse of your last ten passwords and they've created the perfect recipe for poor passwords that get scribbled on post it notes.

Otherwise, yes, I agree - I use Keepass and have it generate random passwords for most things now. Alternatively if a site allows authentication with a google account I use that, with a secondary gmail account I keep for that purpose. That's mainly for forums and other non-critical things.

Not accurate enough. When I'm on a motorway (speed limit 70mph) and there's another road running parallel, or even a bridge crossing the motorway, my satnav will sometimes pick up the speed limit for that road. Imagine the chaos if all of the satnav speed limited cars suddenly slammed the brakes on as the satnav picked up a 30mph limit by mistake.

Conversely, my satnav has also not realised that a road near to me has had the limit reduced from 70mph to 50mph (even though it's been like that for a few years now). You definitely can't rely on what the satnav thinks the limit is.

Ah yes, the "this is terrible, look, look at the pictures" method they like so much. Titillate the readers while professing outrage.

The problem with the Mail is that a lot of otherwise sensible people who consider the Sun to be a silly comic actually believe the Mail is a proper newspaper and can't be convinced otherwise.

Is it basically the Google store your emails anywhere - might be in the US, might not, might move around?

In the Microsoft case, wasn't it Microsoft Ireland, an Irish registered subsiduary, holding the data in an Irish datacentre (and only an Irish datacentre)? To comply with the court order, Microsoft Ireland would have had to break Irish/EU data protection laws.

At least, that's my understanding of the difference.

I'm in the UK where that doesn't happen. I can buy direct from Samsung or from a high street store that sells them unlocked. OK, so there are the Samsung apps and they do preinstall the Microsoft apps, but again, these aren't things that will particularly both the average user.

I don't understand why the Android media has gone head over heels for the Pixel.

The S7/S7 Edge phones beat the corresponding Pixel/Pixel XL in several areas - bigger battery, SD slot, water resistance and, currently, lower price and arguably they look better. Oh, and they have wireless charging.

For the consumer, they're better phones. OK, so the Google phones get updates quicker but that's only a consideration for the geek crowd. Assistant is, I dunno, OK I guess but probably not a major consumer selling point. The unlimited photo storage might be nice if you take a lot of photos but other than that, what is the appeal?

Reading most of the Android media I see Samsung getting little attention - it's all about Pixels, OnePlus, even LG, more than Samsung.

To me, the Pixel felt rushed (probably due to Huawei dropping out late in the process and being replaced by HTC as the manufacturer) The design is nothing special and the specs aren't as good as many other current Android flagships that cost less.

Actually I think most of the current generation of Android phones have them with the main exception of the Google Pixel.

What's the betting that another department complains about this breaking their SMS based two factor authentication once this is rolled out...

Really? That low? Just looked and their "all you can eat" data plan allows 30GB of it to be used as a personal hotspot, implying you can use more than that as long as it's not as a hotspot. Their highest limited plan is 30GB, so I doubt they'd throttle unlimited at 5GB?

Well, if you're just going to say "No you don't" to anyone who says they do, waddya want? Photographic evidence? I've seen them at work a few times, and from visiting consultants (if you have to run Windows by corporate policy but need something very light, they're a good fit). I've seen a handful being used in coffee shops.

But hey, I must be lying, eh?