Europeans just scored big when it comes to Internet privacy efforts. The New York Times reports today that Google will expand its so-called “right to be forgotten” efforts to span all of its domains, not just those in Europe. If you’re not familiar, “right to be forgotten” allows Internet users to request that certain web pages and links be de-listed from Google’s search engines. Presently, if the petition is approved, then the de-listing goes into effect on the domains Google has in that user’s country. But, all the global sites Google owns are unaffected — meaning if the user who wants something de-listed lives in France, then Google.fr will comply, but Google.de in Germany and Google’s main site, Google.com, will not. Now, Google will wipe whatever it is said Internet user doesn’t want on the web from all of its domains. Google has long resisted going this far, saying that it threatens the notion of a free and open Internet, but threats of fines from European countries must have changed its mind. Curious why we don’t have something similar in the US? That could change. But is that a good thing, just wiping misdeeds from historical records like that? There’s plenty of debate on the topic, and we encourage you to add your voice to the conversation in the comments below.
Ever been cruising through your feed when you come upon a video that looks interesting but you’re just not in a position to click on it to hear the audio – maybe you’re in a crowded or quiet spot where a sudden blast of sound coming from your phone just wouldn’t be cool? Well, a new automated feature rolling out to videos will make that a problem of the past. Soon, you’ll notice captions added to videos which will appear whenever a video is being previewed in your feed. The captions will be automatically generated so you can follow what’s happening without turning up the volume. This is expected to make users happier, but it will most certainly please advertisers, since they’ll be getting their message out to more people without doing a thing.
And finally, if you’ve haven’t seen this already, you definitely need to know about Funny or Die’s hilarious 50-minute movie on Donald Trump. Starring an almost unrecognizable Johnny Depp as the Donald – no we’re serious, and he does a really great job, it’s amazing – the spoof follows the mogul in the mid-80’s through a film he supposedly wrote, directed and starred in about his book, “The Art of the Deal”. It all starts with an intro by the great Ron Howard, and just goes off from there. Believe us, it’s worth the 50-minutes it takes to watch – that is, if you tolerate Trump being made fun of. You’re welcome in advance.
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