@spoon thank you for the link. You raised another important issue. Those "Advisors on Privacy and Civil Liberties" are mostly from American universities. Academia showed its true colors after Aaron Swartz was arrested near the Harvard campus by MIT police. Those clowns said nothing to help Aaron during the next 2 years (!) of prosecution, not a single word. Academia represents corporate interest not public. Everyone should watch The Internet's Own Boy documentary.

@aral
#privacy #freedom

Excellent article by @aral exposes hypocrisy of some well-respected organizations, including Mozilla and GNOME foundation:

https://ar.al/2019/01/11/i-was-wrong-about-google-and-facebook-theres-nothing-wrong-with-them-so-say-we-all/

#freedom #opensource #foss #mozilla #gnome #privacy

@mjog @aral @bob

When I was using GNOME I could easily access my Gmail account from a browser. You don't need a standalone app for that. The reason why I stopped using GNOME is that it keeps pushing some hidden corporate agenda, using corporate money. I care about my privacy and freedom more that I care about interface usability because I know how dangerous surveillance capitalism is. Exploiting non-tech-savvy people who have no idea about how modern tracking works is a shame.
#privacy

I don't think Google uses GNOME in any of their products.
But GNOME Desktop has an option to integrate Google services into the desktop environment. For example automatic syncing user's GNOME calendar to their Google calendar. Also it can sync email, contacts, documents, photos and even printers.

https://lifehacker.com/a-beginners-guide-to-the-gnome-desktop-1820890109

Also, GNOME Desktop has native Google Drive integration.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/2987962/operating-systems/gnome-318-lands-with-google-drive-integrated-firmware-updates-and-new-apps.html

@bob @aral

Some of the foundations not only take Google's money, but also let Google dictate what to do. GNOME has this rule for the Board of Directors:
"Keep confidential discussions private. This includes legal discussions or conversations with the Advisory Board." Google is in the "Advisory" Board.

https://wiki.gnome.org/FoundationBoard

@aral @conservancy
@bob