/rant Advertising broke the internet in so many ways since it became the number one way of monetizing “free” online services. Most popular means of communication (email, messaging, …), news distribution, or any other digital interaction (social media, neighborhood platforms, …) are driven by either selling users stuff they didn’t want from the service in the first place first place or by helping others do that through gathering huge amounts of data not needed for the service. So participation in the digital society partially forces us to play the game as non-profit open source solution typically only cover smaller portions of society. I’m so sick of it. /rantoff

I was wondering if blocking ads and switching off location services would even limit the impact on Webloc much. It’s always surprising how much information ca be pulled from seemingly harmless interactions.

Do I get this right? A hand full of OS devs who also sell phones form a group that attests combinations of phones and certified copies of their OSs as secure?
Sounds like self-verifying the own ecosystem of devices and OSs in a cartel-like consortium. But wasn’t that to be circumvented? Shouldn’t the certifying body be independent of the certified products?

I am having questions.