An anonymous reader tipped us off to a proposed new U.S. policy which would require banks, credit unions and other financial companies to submit reports on most of their accounts to the tax-collectors at America's Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The reports "would break down the numbers to include physical-cash transactions per account, any transactions with a foreign account and transactions between accounts held by the same owner," according to the Arizona Republic newspaper. "The IRS wouldn't receive details on individual transactions but, rather, gross yearly totals."

America's treasury secretary reiterated that what's being proposed "is not reporting of individual transactions or anything of the like. And it would be a simple thing for banks and other payment providers to provide along with the other information they're already providing."

But the Arizona Republic notes the proposal is drawing some concerns — partly because it's been suggested it would cover any account with more than $600: Critics say this would burden financial institutions with new requirements and expose consumers and businesses to privacy incursions and possible data breaches. Supporters contend bank customers would face no new obligations while giving the IRS more information to pursue tax cheats, primarily among the wealthy. They hope to close a tax gap estimated at around $600 billion annually...

The $600 figure isn't set in stone. Some media reports have indicated it could be increased to, say, $10,000 — the level at which banks report transactions in an effort to combat money laundering. A Treasury summary of the plan indicated there would be no further recordkeeping or reporting requirements for individuals or businesses and that taxpayers wouldn't face any burdens at all. The Treasury also noted banks and other financial providers already have access to this information and already report interest income above $10...

About 15% of the money owed the federal government isn't collected, according to Natasha Sarin, a deputy assistant secretary at the Treasury Department... Just knowing the IRS would have access to some bank-account details might convince more taxpayers to pay what they owe.
The deputy assistant secretary argues there's a direct relationship between the information the IRS has and a taxpayer's voluntary compliance rate. "For ordinary wage and salary income, compliance with income tax liabilities is nearly perfect (1 percent noncompliance rate). In stark contrast, for opaque income sources that accrue disproportionately to higher earners...noncompliance can reach 55 percent...."

"Today's tax code contains two sets of rules: one for regular wage and salary workers who report virtually all the income they earn; and another for wealthy taxpayers"

Eight days ago Ozy announced it was shutting down after reports that the news site bought traffic, overstated its cable deals, and at one point even had its Chief Operating Officer impersonate a YouTube executive during a phone call with investors.

Then four days ago, Ozy's CEO said he planned to relaunch the company's newsletters (while looking for new board members) to try to instead revive the company. "Ozy Media boasts that it has more than 26 million subscribers for its newsletters," reports Forbes...

"But former employees say this is another example of deceptive tactics at the embattled digital media company, with most of the email addresses on its newsletter lists either purchased, taken from other companies without their permission or added back to the lists after the recipients unsubscribed — a potentially illegal act." Three ex-employees with knowledge of Ozy's newsletter operations, who asked to remain anonymous because of non-disclosure agreements they signed, said the company on multiple occasions obtained large numbers of email addresses through marketing partnerships it formed with other companies and news outlets. Ozy would offer to send an email for the other company as part of the partnership, and some companies would then share a list of addresses for a supposed one-time message. Instead, the former employees allege, those email addresses would then be permanently added to Ozy's newsletter subscriber list. Among the companies they say Ozy collectively accumulated millions of email addresses from were the McClatchy newspaper chain and the technology magazine Wired, according to two of the former employees.

Ozy would also buy in bulk email addresses from third-party websites like U.S. Data Corporation and Exact Data, ramping up the size of its newsletter following in order to fulfill advertising deals with its clients. After Ozy added batches of new addresses to its mailing lists, many recipients would attempt to unsubscribe from the newsletters only to be kept on the distribution lists and even re-subscribed under the direction of Ozy management, a potential violation of commercial email laws...

Despite a "very small" organic audience and low engagement numbers, according to a source with knowledge of Ozy's newsletter audience, Ozy sent a pitch deck to investors over the summer for its Series D funding round that claimed it was achieving an email open rate of 25%, or (in Ozy's words): "2.5x the industry standard." Ozy founder and CEO Carlos Watson admitted that number was exaggerated during a Monday interview with CNBC, claiming it instead represents the engagement rate among Ozy's "best, most regular people." Watson still claimed this subset of Ozy's audience is between 10 and 12 million people.
Forbes adds that there was no response to their request for a comment from Ozy, McClatchy, and Wired's parent company Conde Nast.

The Texas Tribune (an Austin-based non-profit digital news site) reports that climate change "has made the Texas heat worse, with less relief as nighttime temperatures warm, a report from the state's climatologist published Thursday found." Climate data also show that the state is experiencing extreme rainfall — especially in eastern Texas — bigger storm surges as seas rise along the Gulf Coast and more flooding from hurricanes strengthened by a warming ocean, the report says. Those trends are expected to accelerate in the next 15 years, according to the report, which analyzes extreme weather risks for the state and was last updated in 2019. The report was funded in part by Texas 2036, a nonpartisan economic policy nonprofit group named for the state's upcoming bicentennial.

The average annual temperature in Texas is expected to be 3 degrees warmer by 2036 than the average of the 1950s, the report found. The number of 100-degree days is expected to nearly double compared with 2000-2018, especially in urban areas. "From here on out, it's going to be very unusual that we ever have a year as mild as a typical year during the 20th century," said John Nielsen-Gammon, the Texas state climatologist who authored the report. "Just about all of them are going to be warmer."

A hotter Texas will threaten public health, squeeze the state's water supply, strain the electric grid and push more species toward extinction, experts told The Texas Tribune...

The entire baseline of temperatures in the state has shifted upward — a trend that is likely to continue to cause problems for the state's aging infrastructure, experts said. "I was surprised at how strong the upward trend was in the coldest temperatures of the summer," Nielsen-Gammon said. While global temperature analysis had already shown that trend, he said, it is now very clearly happening on the local level in Texas. Even this year, which was considered a mild year because Texas didn't see temperatures above 100 degrees in much of the state, Nielsen-Gammon said nighttime temperatures stayed warm enough to put 2021 in the top 20% of years with the hottest summer nights on record.

"October 5 marks the official release of Windows 11, a new version of the operating system that doesn't do anything at all to counteract Windows' long history of depriving users of freedom and digital autonomy," writes Free Software Foundation campaigns manager Greg Farough.

"While we might have been encouraged by Microsoft's vague, aspirational slogans about community and togetherness, Windows 11 takes important steps in the wrong direction when it comes to user freedom." Microsoft claims that "life's better together" in their advertising for this latest Windows version, but when it comes to technology, there is no surer way of keeping users divided and powerless than nonfree softwarechoosing to create an unjust power structure, in which a developer knowingly keeps users powerless and dependent by withholding information. Increasingly, this involves not only withholding the source code itself, but even basic information on how the software works: what it's really doing, what it's collecting, and how often it's snitching on users. "Snitching" may sound dramatic, but Windows 11 will now require a Microsoft account to be connected to every user account, granting them the ability to correlate user behavior with one's personal identity. Even those who think they have nothing to hide should be wary of sharing potentially all of their computing activity with any company, much less one with a track record of abuse like Microsoft...

We expect Microsoft to use its tighter control on cryptography that happens in Windows as a way to impose more severe Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) onto media and applications, and as a way to ensure that no application can run in Windows without Microsoft's approval. In cases like these, it's no longer appropriate to call a machine running Windows a "personal" computer, as it obeys Microsoft more than it does its user. Indeed, it's bitterly ironic that Microsoft is calling the program that verifies a system's compatibility with Windows 11 a "PC Health Check." We counter that a healthy PC is one that respects its user's wishes, runs free software, and doesn't purposefully restrict them through treacherous computing. It would also never send the user's encryption keys back to its corporate overlords. Intrepid users will likely find a way around this requirement, yet it doesn't change the fact that the majority of Windows users will be forced into a treacherous computing scheme...

Sometimes, Microsoft realizes that it can't be quite so overtly antisocial. We've commented many times before on the hypocrisy involved in saying that Microsoft "loves open source" and "loves Linux," two ways of mentioning free software without reference to freedom. At the same time, Microsoft employees do make contributions to free software, contributions which benefit many others. Yet they do not extend this philosophy to their operating system, and in the last few years, they've made an attempt to impair the ways free software makes "life better together" further by making critical functions of Microsoft GitHub rely on nonfree JavaScript and directing users toward Service as a Software Substitute (SaaSS) platforms. By attacking user freedom through Windows, and the free software community directly by means of nonfree JavaScript, Microsoft proves that it has no plans to loosen its grip on users.

No program that you're forbidden to copy, modify, or share can truly bring people "together" in the way that Microsoft claims.

Thankfully, and right outside the window, there's a true community of users you and your loved ones can join...

Let's stop falling for the trap of chasing short-term, superficial improvements in proprietary software that may seem to make life better, and instead opt for free software, the only software that can support the best versions of ourselves.
The post urges readers to sign (or renew!) their pledge not to use Windows and to help a friend install GNU/Linux, "sending Microsoft the strong message that software that subjugates its users has no place in Windows.... If you don't feel ready to take the plunge and switch entirely, you can use our resources like the Free Software Directory to find programs you can use as starting points for your free software journey."

The post also has harsh words for TPM, warning that "when it's deployed by a proprietary software company, its relationship to the user isn't one based on trust, but based on treachery. When fully controlled by the user, TPM can be a useful way to strengthen encryption and user privacy, but when it's in the hands of Microsoft, we're not optimistic."

And when it comes to Microsoft teams, "it seems that no Windows user can avoid it any longer.... we hope Teams' unpopularity and its newfound, unwanted place in Windows will encourage users to seek out conferencing programs that they themselves can control."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from How-To Geek: Firefox now sends more data than you might think to Mozilla. To power Firefox Suggest, Firefox sends the keystrokes you type into your address bar, your location information, and more to Mozilla's servers. Here's exactly what Firefox is sharing and how to control it. This change was made as part of the introduction of Firefox Suggest in Firefox 93, released on October 5, 2021. As part of Firefox Suggest, Firefox is getting ads in your search bar -- but that's not the only thing that will be news to longtime Firefox users. According to Mozilla, "Firefox Suggest acts as a trustworthy guide to the better web, surfacing relevant information and sites to help people accomplish their goals." In reality, what that means is, when you start typing in your address bar, you won't just see the standard search suggestions from Google or your current search default engine. You'll also see "Firefox Suggest" results pointing to web pages. Some of them are sponsored ads, but you can disable the ads.

Firefox Suggest is on by default. Mozilla's blog post on the subject says Firefox Suggest is an "opt-in experience," which was the case in September 2021 -- but it's now enabled by default in Firefox 93. However, as of Firefox 93's release in October 2021, Firefox Suggest is only enabled in the USA -- for now. It's worth noting that, for many years, Firefox and other web browsers have had search suggestions in their address bar. So, when you start typing "win" in your address bar, you may see suggestions for "Windows 11" and "Window repair." This is accomplished by sending keystrokes to your default search engine as you type in the search bar, as Mozilla's support site explains. Mozilla is also providing contextual suggestions, for which it needs more data, including the city you're located in and whether you're clicking its suggestions.

You can disable Firefox's suggested results, if you like. This will stop Mozilla from collecting the data you type in your search bar, and it will also disable the suggested results and ads. To do so, open Firefox and click menu [and then] Settings. Select "Privacy [and] Security" in the left pane, and scroll down to "Address Bar -- Firefox Suggest." Disable "Contextual suggestions" and "Include occasional sponsored suggestions" to stop Firefox from sending data to Mozilla.