The EU seems almost ready with the bill that would force all phones to use USB-C (including iPhones)

For years we have heard talks about the European Union enforcing a common charging port for all phones, even tablets and headphones. Reuters now reports that those talks are probably about to become reality, citing unnamed sources.

EU to reach deal for a common charging port on June 7

Oh my - we may finally be witnessing the end of the Lightning port (at least in Europe), if the proposal for a common charging port gets finalized and accepted as law. As you may already imagine, the common charging port will be USB-C.

On June 7, EU member countries and EU lawmakers are reportedly going to meet and discuss the proposal in question. You may have heard (or you may suppose, rightfully so) that Apple has been criticizing this proposal.

It may come as a surprise to some, but this single mobile charging port proposal was first introduced by the European Commission more than a decade ago. Its introduction was due to iPhone and Android users complaining about having to use different chargers for their phones.

And it seems this proposal is on its way to become law. According to Reuters' sources, next Tuesday will mark the final meeting between EU countries and EU lawmakers on this topic. One of the issues is whether or not to include laptops to this proposal. If this happens, it may impact Samsung and other device makers as well.

On top of that, EU lawmakers are striving to include wireless charging systems to be 'harmonised' by 2025, but some EU countries and the European Commission demand a longer period for technical reasons.

As for Apple, the company has previously criticized this proposal, underlining that if the proposal becomes law, it could cause more electronic waste. Why? Well, such a law could cause iPhone users to ditch their current Lightning accessories. Additionally, forcing users to change to new chargers would also create a mountain of e-waste.

But Apple may actually be moving towards USB-C connector anyway. Recent rumors about the iPhone 15 (yes, the iPhone 14 is not yet out, but nothing stops rumors about the iPhone 15 to surface anyway) indicate the 2023 iPhones may ditch the Lightning connector in favor of USB-C.

Victoria the secretly ruled totalitarian police state

Victorians are ruled in secret without any transparency by a totalitarian régime claiming that there are not enough police.

Well that depends on what you as a government want to do.

If you 'just' want to keep the peace, then there are enough officers to service the civilian population. 

But if the government was to lock the population down in some point in time in the future, then there is not enough.

Excessive force is a normal modus operandi of Victoria Police.

Above illustration: ViPol using excessive force on a disability pensioner while laughing at him.

You realistically do not need 8 officers to surround one alleged thief in a shopping centre.

You do not need 80 police officers against one person on their way home.

Vodafone plans carrier-level user tracking for targeted ads

Vodafone is piloting a new advertising ID system called TrustPid, which will work as a persistent user tracker at the mobile Internet Service Provider (ISP) level.

The new system is in test phase in Germany and is intended to be impossible to bypass from within the web browser settings or through cookie blocking or IP address masking.

The mobile carrier plans to assign a fixed ID to each customer and associate all user activity with it. The ID will be based on a number of parameters, so that the system will be able to maintain persistence.

Then, the mobile ISP creates a personal profile based on that ID and helps advertisers serve targeted ads to each customer without disclosing any identification details.

Keeping the internet "free"

According to Vodafone, the problem that arises for its internet subscribers is that the "free" parts of the internet are threatened by stricter cookie blocking and privacy-boosting schemes.

Apple already blocks default tracking everywhere, which destroyed Facebook's business model, and Google is also expected to switch off its advertising cookie in Chrome by 2023.

These new models threaten the targeted advertising industry, and according to Vodafone, the danger of this is losing content and platforms currently supported by ads.

"Consumers appreciate the idea of a 'free' Internet, but this comes with a trade-off: publishers need a sustainable revenue model, meaning that it becomes essential to add subscription paywalls or rely on advertising to maintain free access to high-quality content," reads the explanation on the TrustPiD website, managed by Vodafone Sales and Services Limited.

The industry is looking for alternative tracking ways, and mobile ISPs are in a position to provide a solution that users are likely to find difficult to circumvent.

Concerns over privacy

Vodafone explains that TrustPiD will be generated through randomness, and its subscribers will have the option to manage their consent over accepting the tracking via the company's Privacy Portal.

For complete details on how the collected information will be used and who is going to receive it, check out TristPiD's privacy policy.

No matter the claims made there, however, having the ISP the power to assign persistent tracking IDs is concerning, and not everyone is willing to accept superficial assurances.

Patrick Breyer, member of the European Parliament and digital rights activist, has told BleepingComputer the following:

The online activities of an individual allow for deep insights into their (past and future) behavior and make it possible to manipulate them. These personality profiles, which even cover political opinion, sexual orientation, or medical conditions, are a risk to privacy but also to national security, where officials can be blackmailed, and also to democracy, where elections and referendums can be manipulated. A unique ID would allow for monitoring our entire digital lives. These schemes are totally unacceptable, and the trials should be stopped. Democracy is not for sale. - Patrick Breyer

Despite the objections, Vodafone is proceeding with a limited trial of TrustPiD system, and, according to Spiegel, Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile's parent company) is also planning to test the "super-cookie."

For now, neither has disclosed what number of users are taking part in the pilot phase of TrustPiD, but Bild.de, one of the largest sites in Germany, has disclosed that it is taking part in the program.
  

Corrupt police and the judicial system

Australia's first police force (the NSW police force) has criminal beginnings where even today the colony's state's police forces still commit criminal offences with impunity where the judicial system covers this up.

Too many times victims state that they have lost faith in the police and the judicial system, especially when the victims are NGEs (Non Government Entities), and even erroneously state that the system is broken.

The system is not 'broken' it's functioning perfectly as that's the way the architects designed it.

If you (the serf) kill a cop, then the system will allocate 'limitless' resources for 'justice' for the victim's families, whereas in the case of murdered serfs their families are too often met with police nonfeasance, unless maybe if you publicly expose them, remembering that silence is acquiescence.

The 'system' seconded a high profile known paedophile by the name of Lionel Murphy to oversee the operations of the Family Court, where he would often take trips during the cover of night to Brisbane to obtain more victims to abuse.

The Family Court database is a great resource of victims.

Of course the authorities would turn a blind eye to this, where Murphy would never see the light of day in any so called court or even of being accused by any victims as they have been silenced with threats by not only police but others in positions of power.

The business known as the Family Court of Australia also creates a slew of victims, where many suffer in silence, including those 'good' fathers that have committed suicide as a result of injustice or deliberately unfair orders by those who have a vested interest in destroying the family unit, as there are many businesses or institutions that feed off that destruction.

The death threats made against Ms Marshall would have come to fruition if she went down the rabbit hole of looking into the actions of those in power, rather than just the victims.

With that in mind she lives to report another day.

See also:

NSW police officers convicted of domestic violence have kept their jobs, despite force's claims of 'zero tolerance'

Victoria Police states while assaulting a minor "I can do whatever I want"

Queensland police officer charged with leaking domestic violence victim's address

Magic Earth Privacy Policy

It's really that simple:

If you want to read more about it, then see here:

https://www.magicearth.com/privacy/

Where the statement read the following at the time of this post:

Privacy Policy

This privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) governs how we, Magic Earth (“we”, “our” or “us”) use, collect and store information pertaining to you (“User”, “you”), user of Magic Earth mobile application (“App”).

Please take a moment to familiarize yourself with our privacy practices and contact us if you have any questions.

This Privacy Policy explains:
• What information we collect and why we collect it.
• Your rights and choices with regard to that information.
• The steps we take to protect that information.
• Limitations with regard to third party websites and content.
• How we transfer the information.
• How we may make changes to our Privacy Policy.
• How you may contact us.

INFORMATION WE COLLECT AND WHY WE COLLECT IT
“Personal Information” means any information about an identified or identifiable individual.
The information we collect is kept only for the purposes stated below, and for a limited period of time, after which it is destroyed.

We use the information about you that is automatically generated while you use our services, but we do not collect it. In many cases data is generated inherent to you using a computing device or inherent to transmitting data over computer networks, such as the Internet. This data includes IP-addresses, date and time of your requests, operating system type. We may also use real-time geo-location information of your device, search reference geographic position, routing and search preferences, crash reports and app version installed.

We do not store Personal Information generated automatically while you use our services.

We may collect data in a form that does not, on its own, permit direct association with any specific individual. We may collect information such as language, time-zone, search requests and routing requests, so we can improve the user experience and our services.

We may use the information we collect for the following reasons:
(i) Provide our services
• We use your information to provide navigation services, best route choices, traffic information, map updates, alerts, weather data and to provide information about locations on the map.

(ii) Maintain and improve our services
• We also use your information to ensure our app is working as intended, for technical diagnostics, to detect fraud and abuse and to improve our services. For example, we may use the route information to improve the accuracy of the navigation data.

(iii) Communicate with you
• We may use your information to communicate with you through push notifications. For example, we may contact you to provide service-related messages such as notifications, confirmations, updates, and security alerts. 
• We may keep a record of your requests in order to help solve any issues you might be facing;

(iv) Protect Magic Earth, our users, the public and for Legal reasons
• To enforce the Terms of Use or Privacy Policy;
• To comply with any applicable law and assist law enforcement agencies under any applicable law
• To detect abuse and illegal activity; to detect and prevent fraud, misappropriation, infringements, identity theft and other illegal activities and misuse of our services;
• To handle breakdowns and malfunctions;
• To take any action in any case of dispute, or legal proceeding of any kind between you and the App, or between you and other users or third parties with respect to, or in relation with the App;
• For purposes provided under this Privacy Policy and Terms of Use;
• To help improve the safety and reliability of our App.
• To create anonymous data (where such data does not enable the identification of a specific user).

A list with the information that we use, collect and store, along with the period of time for which this is retained, can be found here.

We do not sell or rent the information to marketers or third parties. We may, however, share or disclose the information as follows:
• Members of our group. We may share the information to any members of our group, subsidiaries and branch offices, to which it is reasonably necessary or desirable for us to disclose the information in order to carry out the above-mentioned information processing purposes.
• Compliance with laws and law enforcement. We will share the information if we, in our good faith judgment, believe it is necessary to: (i) investigate and defend ourselves against any third-party claims or allegations; (ii) comply with laws and legal process (including valid subpoenas, court orders, or government requests); (iii) take precautions against liability and protect the property, rights, and safety of our App users or others as required or permitted by law; (iii) enforce our Terms of Use or other agreements; (iv) prevent or stop activity we believe to be illegal, fraudulent, abusive, unethical or legally actionable; and (v) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, the security or integrity of our App or equipment used to make the App available, or any other technical issues.
• Other Disclosures. We may disclose the information in other ways when we have your consent to do so.

YOUR RIGHTS AND CHOICES
Subject to applicable law, you may have the right to request access to and receive information about the data we collect about you, update and correct inaccuracies in your information, and have the information blocked or deleted, as appropriate. You also have the right to withdraw your consent to the collection of your Personal Information. You may at any time stop the collection of your information via the settings of your device, or by uninstalling the App. Note however that if you exercise your right of blocking or deletion, if you decline to share certain information with us, or if you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide to you some of the features and functionalities of the App.

To exercise your rights and choices to your Personal Information, please contact us by using the contact details provide below under “Our Contact Information”.

INFORMATION SECURITY
We maintain technical and organizational measures intended to protect the information that we collect against unauthorized or unlawful processing and against accidental loss, destruction or damage.

THIRD PARTY WEBSITES AND CONTENT
Our App may provide links to other websites for your convenience and information. These websites may operate independently from Magic Earth. Linked websites may have their own privacy notices or policies, which we strongly suggest you review if you visit any linked websites.

CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY
We may revise this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will post the revised policy and the revised version will be effective when it is posted.

OUR CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy and the way in which we handle the information that we collect, or to exercise your rights and choices, please contact us at privacy@magicearth.com.

Magic Earth, Netherlands, De Smalle Zijde 3, NL-3903 LL, Veenendaal

Australian Government tracking you less than Rupert Murdoch?

Well not quite.

The statement is technically false but factually true in the 'news' sense.

The Australian Government's Pravda or Xinhua News Agency equivalents for Russia and China respectively is the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).

Corporations vie for your data, where ultimately it's all about control, with an entrepreneurial mix of surveillance capitalism, a much better use of cannon fodder rather than the archaic practice of wasting good meat.

You (the product) are an almost endless supply of revenue for the corporations from the data you've generated during your life on your smartphone and other sources where you can be identified, even after you're long gone.

In the above sample, viewing 10 pages of news or rather information, the ABC tries to extract 3,360 pieces of information or 26.45MB worth of data from your smart phone.

In a web browser with blockers this threat can be mitigated, whereas in an (closed source) app you do not know what sort of 'nasties' they've programmed into the code, that's why they always push/entice/'force' you to use an app.

The 'Australian Government' and various other so called authorities 'force' you to use their app, as shown during the current (never ending?) so called global health situation, where you were required to use a smartphone with a tracking app otherwise you were excluding from conducting commerce in this colony.

You (the people) are in an abusive, domestic violence relationship with your government, but that's another topic for another post.

In any event Australia is part of the top tier 'Five Eyes' global data hoovering fascist states.

See how much Murdoch tracks you within the post:

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp a data collection corporation!