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1. Gerry McGovern (gerrymcgovern@mastodon.green)'s status on Friday, 05-Apr-2024 03:41:05 JST Gerry McGovern

   In a city called The Dalles, in Oregon, USA, local people were worried that Google’s water use was soaring. As is so often the case, the city officials, who had given Google hundreds of millions in tax breaks, had no intention of letting anyone know how much water Google was using. It was up to a local paper, The Oregonian, to try and find out. They were forced to bring a case to court. City officials were ordered by Google to claim that Google’s use of scarce public water was a “trade secret”.

   • Aral Balkan repeated this.
   • Gerry McGovern (gerrymcgovern@mastodon.green)'s status on Tuesday, 14-May-2024 00:49:51 JST Gerry McGovern

     in reply to

     Making public officials promise that if any taxpayers file official requests for information, Google will be the first to know, this is how our democracy is stolen. Every day, we sell our democracy and basic rights to Big Tech for convenience, “cheap” data storage, some always-on entertainment and a few “free” services. We sell ourselves and our environment so cheap.