It's not just desperation but also greed. Especially in countries where workers don't have many rights and a lot of costs like the US.

Greed is the most successful attack vector in most scams. The temptation of more money tends to blind even some of the most astute people, especially in a mercenary culture.

It could be worse, Consumer.

This is pretty much the last media company Disney doesn't own... although it is owned by Larry Ellison so it's not really that much better.

Remember to consume mindlessly Consumer, and it can get worse, it can always get worse.

This is the elephant in the room that no-one wants to talk about, especially those who are benefitting from it.

Social media isn't just targetting kids, they're targetting everyone and it's not just the under 16 who are vulnerable. Loads of adults are as well, in particular the elderly. Social media is radicalising a large number of older people as well. If we're going to restrict SM for younger people, we should also be doing it for the older people who are just as susceptible to propaganda and misinformation, in many ways, more susceptible.

Top Of The Pops must have made many enemies over the years (and not just because of Jimmy Saville).

Jokes aside, this is largely an American problem as companies there are permitted to be as abusive as they like.

If a store tried to force me to use their app and refused to take an order via their web site they'd lose an absolute shitload of business (not just from me). Same with banks, however there are laws with banks that mean they must meet standards of accessibility and forcing people into a proprietary app is going to violate a few rules there. My bank still uses a OTP sent via SMS.

Obviously the long term solution is legislative, but good luck with that given you keep voting in corporate shills.

Yep, pretty much this.

When you have a physical datacentre, you take backup off site in case the site fails, when you're in the cloud you're really just in one physical location unless you're paying through the nose for co-location.

"Cloud" has pretty much taken the LCC (Low Cost Carrier, A.K.A. Budget Airlines) model to compute and Amazon is the Ryanair of that world. Sure, they advertise a £19 flight to Magaluf but want a seat that isn't shit, pony up, want to take luggage, gonna cost you, don't want to take the red eye flight from "London" Isle of Skye airport... you get the idea and before you know it that £19 flight is a £190 flight. Amazons price structure is the same, cheap headline price, what you actually pay is much, much higher.

A good manager would... Sadly there are a lot of bad managers out there.

There is a grey area here.

Yes, following someone around in public can be considered harassment if it were done with the intent of harassing or disrupting the person in question. A journalist with a legitimate interest can use that as an excuse provided they were not intentionally being disruptive or harassing in order to get a story. If a "reporter" starts getting in your way to force you to react and does so repeatedly, this is harassment.

Intent has a lot to do with it, if you're following someone around without cause then you're pretty much on the wrong side of it.

Also, a good investigative reporter (or private dick) doesn't want to be noticed by the person they're surveilling. It tends to taint the results of the investigation (and here in the UK the police can use the results of a journalists investigation in court) and this affects their livelihood as no legitimate news agency wants to deal with a reporter who is a well known nuisance (as they can be sued as well as the "reporter" in question).

In most countries, taxi services automated their dispatch years ago... This is not an excuse to support illegal services that are both against competition and seek to reduce the rights of workers.

Ever since I've lived in the UK, you've been able to book taxis and minicabs online. It is more recent to Australia but Australia is hopelessly stuck in the past.

Yep, get caught posting company secrets online, expect to get marched out the door immediately.

Employee protection laws simply mean I can't be fired because the CEO wants to make themselves look scary.

And your saliva filled fellatio of Musk makes you oblivious... I mean in general, not just about Europe.

I could get fired today if I did something illegal, dangerous, or blatantly stupid (like sexual harassment or threats). Hell, you can even be fired if you're bringing the company into disrepute, like becoming a far right thug (the freedom of association which is enshrined in the UK and Europe includes the freedom not to be associated with something).

What I can't be fired for is when the CEO is having a bad day, wants to get their jollies or if the company wants to cut costs (in that case, they'll need to make me redundant, which has some legal responsibilities).

You're saying that like it's a bad thing.

A CEO in Europe is expected to act like an adult, so they are expected to deal with disagreements with colleagues and employees as an adult. Often this means compromising and understanding the other side. This has the unfortunate side effect of making the CEO better informed and thus leading to better decisions being made. I know this is hard for many Americans to understand as it seems that emotional maturity isn't a requirement for leadership positions over there.

Yep, Australia went fully card mental in the 2000s and wonders why everything became so expensive. Sadly they'll never put two and two together because the answer really is 5, 2+2 is 4 but the extra is made up by merchant service fees that the merchant is legally obliged to hide in their prices.

What about the brave soldiers on the Floating Fortress Winston Smith.

It's only criminal if you get caught.

That being said, why do you think so many companies are trying to demonise laws like the GDPR... because they have real teeth to protect ordinary people.

You're thinking too smart... cars need a mobile connection because they're mobile, TVs are stationary so all they need to do is look for an open Wifi network. WPS can allow access easily enough these days and then all you carefully slurped data can be uploaded to the mothership.

Never forget it's easier and faster to use a $5 wrench to beat the password out of someone than to spend hours cracking it.