Tag: big tech

Google Removes the Final Workaround for Full Ad Blocking in Chrome

Google is removing the last technical workaround that kept effective ad blockers alive in Chrome.

When Chrome 150 ships on June 30, the browser will delete a hidden setting called the ExtensionManifestV2Disabled flag, a switch that power users had been toggling to keep old-style extensions running after Google officially discontinued them.

Without it, uBlock Origin and every other extension built on the old Manifest V2 framework, the set of rules that governed how browser extensions worked for years, will stop functioning permanently. Chrome 151, expected in July, will strip the remaining MV2 flags entirely. No policy override and no hidden setting will bring them back.

The company that sells more advertising than any other on Earth now controls whether you can block those ads. And it just decided you can’t, at least not effectively.

What Google took away and why it took it

The technical change is the replacement of Chrome’s webRequest API with the declarativeNetRequest API.

Under the old system, extensions like uBlock Origin could watch your browser’s traffic as it happened, see an ad or tracker trying to load, and block it on the spot before it ever reached your screen.

Under the new system, extensions have to hand Google a pre-written list of things to block and Chrome decides whether to follow those instructions. The lists are capped at a fixed number of rules, and the extension can’t react to anything that isn’t already on the list.

uBlock Origin’s developer, Raymond Hill, has been clear that a Manifest V3 version cannot replicate the original’s full capabilities. A stripped-down version called uBlock Origin Lite exists for MV3, but it handles only a fraction of the filter lists, the community-maintained databases of known ads and trackers, that the original supported.

It also can’t perform cosmetic filtering, the process of hiding ad containers and promotional elements that remain on a page even after the ad itself is blocked. Without it, you get blank boxes where ads used to be, or sponsored content that looks native to the page. For more than 40 million Chrome users who relied on the original, the replacement is a downgrade by design.

Google engineer Devlin Cronin confirmed the timeline in a Chromium code review commit, a logged change to Chrome’s underlying source code that other developers can inspect, writing that “MV2 extensions are no longer allowed in any supported version of Chrome, and we are removing support for them and the associated functionality. We won’t be able to provide / maintain this functionality indefinitely due to the complexity and tech debt, as well as the security risks it entails (we’ve actually found a number of bugs that are specific to MV2 lately). Of course, other browsers can continue supporting these if they so desire.”

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OpenAI Eyes Massive 10-Gigawatt Ohio Data Center

OpenAI is moving along in talks to lease a proposed 10-gigawatt data center campus on federal land in Ohio, according to a new report from The Information, in a deal that could include financial backing from Nvidia. This comes as Ohio lawmakers unveiled new legislation aiming to regulate data center build-outs.

The massive 10 GW data center would be the largest data center development ever considered, with a potential buildout cost topping $500 billion based on current prices for chips, labor, and construction materials.

Under the proposed deal, OpenAI would control the chip stacks through a long-term lease and begin making payments once the facility starts operations.

The first phase is expected to come online in 2028. For some context, 10 GW of power is roughly the output of several large nuclear reactors or about 10 large gas-fired power plants running at full capacity. Each GW can power about 700,000 to 1 million homes.

The data center development would require dedicated power generation, substations, transmission lines, cooling infrastructure, access to water or advanced cooling systems, and phased construction over several years.

Simultaneously, Ohio lawmakers have unveiled Substitute House Bill 646, which aims to regulate data center buildouts in the state.

“The Joint Data Center Study Committee has done its job,” Senate Finance Chair Brian Chavez (R-Marietta), who is also the co-chair of the data center committee, said, and quoted by local outlet ABC News 5.

Bill 646 would create a new electric rate class for data centers to ensure that the costs of generation, transmission, and distribution are entirely paid by hyperscalers.

“Make sure the ratepayers are kept harmless, held harmless, and that data centers pay for whatever they’re causing,” Chavez said.

This year alone, Goldman calculates that hyperscalers will unleash $800 billion in data center capex.

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UK Plans To JAIL Tech CEOs Who Refuse To SPY On Every Phone

New measures would compel client-side inspection of every photo, video and message on devices, escalating the digital ID lockdown already plotted for British smartphones in coordination with major technology firms.

Privacy advocates warn the “child safety” framing masks a broader drive to turn personal phones into mandatory surveillance endpoints, with criminal penalties aimed at any executive who resists.

Reclaim The Net, an organization dedicated to countering online censorship and digital surveillance, flagged the draft legislation in recent updates. 

The group described how UK authorities are preparing to imprison tech executives for up to five years under the Online Safety Act if companies refuse to build and deploy scanners capable of reviewing every piece of content on user devices.

The push targets expanded “client-side scanning” features, requiring devices to inspect material before it is sent or received.

Existing tools from Apple and Google, such as nudity detection in Messages or sensitive content warnings, would be broadened into comprehensive, always-active systems. Non-compliance would trigger direct penalties against company leadership rather than the firms alone.

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Signal, DuckDuckGo, and NordVPN threaten to exit Canada if metadata surveillance law passes

Another day, another government attempt to force tech companies to build backdoors. This time, Canada is proposing legislation that would require companies to retain certain metadata and provide law enforcement with access to it. Predictably, many tech players have sharply criticized the proposal, with some saying they would rather leave the Canadian market than comply.

The latest version of Canada’s Bill C-22 would require digital services such as internet service providers, messaging platforms, email providers, and potentially hardware companies to retain up to one year of user metadata. In addition, tech companies would have to implement mechanisms that allow authorities to obtain “lawful access” to that information for criminal investigations. Critics argue the proposal amounts to another government-mandated backdoor.

During his testimony before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, Signal executive Udbhav Tiwari said Bill C-22 would turn everyday digital tools into a surveillance network. He argued that requiring companies to retain metadata about users’ communications runs counter to Signal’s privacy practices.

A spokesperson for DuckDuckGo also confirmed that the company would remove its VPN service from Canada if Bill C-22 passes. NordVPN and other VPN providers have made similar statements.

Apple and Google have also joined industry warnings that the legislation could force them to weaken encryption. Last year, Apple successfully opposed a similar proposal in the United Kingdom that would have required it to build a backdoor into iCloud. The incident was the latest in a series of conflicts between the Cupertino-based company and government regulators over security and user privacy.

The primary concern is that malicious actors would inevitably discover and exploit any digital backdoor, regardless of whether it was designed exclusively for law enforcement or domestic government agencies. OpenMedia, which has described C-22 as an attempt to create a surveillance state, pointed to a late-2024 incident in which Chinese state-backed hackers compromised government-mandated police wiretap systems to steal sensitive data from AT&T, Verizon, Lumen Technologies, and other telecom providers.

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UK Government Plots Digital ID Lockdown On Every Phone In Lockstep With Big Tech

The Labour government in Britain is accelerating its assault on digital privacy under the well-worn banner of child protection. Fresh plans leaked to the press reveal ministers intend to compel Apple, Google and other tech firms to restrict smartphones so thoroughly that a digital ID will be needed to use them with unfettered access.

The mechanism comes in the form of expanded age verification that effectively demands digital identification for device setup and use. What is sold as safeguarding the young is shaping up as a backdoor mandate for every adult in Britain to submit ID just to operate a phone or go online.

This development lands alongside Google’s confirmation that it will soon bring digital IDs to Android devices in the UK via Google Wallet. Users will record a short video selfie and scan a government-issued ID to add a digital version of their passport or other documents.

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Meta leads largest anti-scam operation with FBI and DOJ, leading to 63 arrests

Officials announced a massive, coordinated anti-scam operation led by Meta alongside the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of Justice (DOJ), Microsoft, Coinbase and Starlink, resulting in 63 arrests, millions of dollars in frozen cryptocurrency and the removal of over a million scam-related online accounts.

The initiative, announced Tuesday, represents Meta’s largest disruption campaign to date. It was described as the first coordinated effort of its kind to unite major technology companies, financial platforms and global law enforcement agencies against the broader fraud ecosystem.

Globally, recent federal efforts against these networks have resulted in the arrests of more than 300 individuals, the rescue of over 2,000 human trafficking victims and the seizure of billions in illicit cryptocurrency.

“Protecting people around the world from scams is one of our highest priorities. We’re proud to partner with industry and DOJ, FBI, Royal Thai Police, and other law enforcement agencies in taking this global fight directly to these Asia-based scam centers at their source,” said Chris Sonderby, Meta’s vice president and deputy general counsel, in a statement.

The operation spanned Washington, D.C., and Thailand, utilizing the U.S. Secret Service alongside law enforcement agencies from the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Thailand.

Authorities say these criminal networks steal billions of dollars from Americans annually through romance scams and cryptocurrency investment fraud. Several of the targeted organizations operate out of forced-labor compounds in Southeast Asia run by transnational organized crime groups.

During the crackdown, Meta has successfully removed about 1.4 million scam accounts, pages and groups from Facebook and Instagram, while the Royal Thai Police arrested 63 people suspected of having connections to the scam centers.

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FBI RAIDS $35 MILLION CALIFORNIA MANSION — Tech CEO Arrested for Allegedly Supplying U.S. Equipment to Iran’s Nuclear and Military Programs While Reporting Just $20K Income

The FBI has arrested a California tech CEO living in a lavish $35 million mansion after federal authorities accused him of secretly supplying U.S. technology and equipment to Iran’s nuclear and military establishment while allegedly hiding millions of dollars from the IRS.

63-year-old Jamshid Ghomi, a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen and CEO of the Tehran-based tech firm Faraz Pardaz Rayaneh Co. Ltd. (FPR), was taken into custody on federal charges of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

He faces up to 20 years in federal prison. Prosecutors are already moving to seize his mansion and other assets purchased with Iranian blood money.

According to the Department of Justice, he procured hundreds of controlled U.S.-origin items through eBay, PayPal, and direct purchases from suppliers in Minnesota and Nebraska, then routed them through front companies in the United Arab Emirates to Iran — all without the required licenses from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

A significant portion of the equipment went to the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) — the regime entity responsible for Iran’s centrifuge and uranium-enrichment programs — and to Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics, along with affiliated military and defense-electronics entities.

Between 2014 and 2018 alone, Ghomi and his co-conspirators smuggled more than 250 metric tons of networking equipment into Iran, hiding U.S.-origin items inside larger shipments and keeping Ghomi’s name off paperwork.

Internal communications revealed Ghomi and his associates referred to Iran as the “Motherland.”

While Ghomi lived like royalty in one of California’s most expensive enclaves, he was systematically looting the system and cheating American taxpayers.

From 2011 to 2024, Ghomi moved more than $15 million in proceeds from his illegal Iran business into his U.S. bank accounts and a construction escrow account used to build his mansion. He falsely reported those funds to the IRS as a foreign inheritance.

His federal tax returns told a completely different story:

  • His highest reported income in any single year was just $20,684.
  • He fraudulently claimed the Earned Income Tax Credit — a benefit intended for low- to moderate-income working individuals and families — in seven different tax years.
  • Over the same period, he reported more than $1.7 million in home mortgage interest deductions and $1.25 million in state and local real estate taxes.

The mansion itself was funded with dirty money. Ghomi purchased a vacant lot in Newport Coast in 2010 for $4.49 million and spent another $10.49 million constructing the massive residence. More than $7 million in foreign-source wires — many from the same trading companies and exchange houses tied to his Iran operation — flowed into the escrow account between 2011 and 2015.

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Facebook Is Accused Of Fostering Ethnic Enclaves At Headquarters

Tech advocacy group blames visa programs for enabling corporate tribalism.

A terminated software engineer is accusing Facebook parent company Meta of allowing Chinese migrants to take over entire departments while American employees face systematic exclusion and layoffs, Neil Munro of Breitbart News reported.

Jeremy Bernier, who graduated from Virginia Tech in 2012, lost his software engineering job at the company and has gone public with allegations of widespread discrimination. “At Meta, 90% of my coworkers were Chinese, and non-Chinese were routinely excluded, disadvantaged, and targeted for layoffs,” Bernier said. He continued that “6 out of the 7 layoffs I observed targeted non-Chinese despite non-Chinese being the vast minority. Certain org[anizations] like ads and MRS [Meta Recommendation Systems for prioritizing Facebook posts] are notorious for being Chinese dominated.”

The former employee shared his account through multiple social media posts. “On Wednesdays and Fridays I’d often be the only non-Chinese person on my team in the office, and they’d all get lunch together without inviting me,” Bernier recounted.

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U.S. Tech Professional Exposes Chinese Enclaves, Discrimination at Facebook/Meta

Meta, the company that used to be called Facebook, has allowed at least one department to be run by Chinese migrants, according to a former employee who says the company allows discrimination against Americans.

“At Meta, 90% of my coworkers were Chinese, and non-Chinese were routinely excluded, disadvantaged, and targeted for layoffs,” said Jeremy Bernier, who was recently fired from a software engineering job at Meta. He added:

6 out of the 7 layoffs I observed targeted non-Chinese despite non-Chinese being the vast minority. Certain org[anizations] like ads and MRS [Meta Recommendation Systems for prioritizing Facebook posts] are notorious for being Chinese dominated.

“On Wednesdays and Fridays I’d often be the only non-Chinese person on my team in the office, and they’d all get lunch together without inviting me,” Bernier said in a series of posts about his experience with the company.

“I think Americans would be outraged if they knew that their own citizens were getting marginalized and laid off at their own companies, while Chinese promote themselves up, conquer entire orgs, and reap millions [in pay and bonuses],” said Bernier, who is a 2012 graduate of Virginia Tech.

“Americans are practically non-existent in the most coveted, high paying tech jobs in the world at American companies in America,” he said on May 30, echoing 2025 comments by Silicon Valley investor Marc Andreessen.

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Billionaire Tech Investor Peter Thiel Moves Family to Argentina, Citing Concerns Over America’s “Long-Term Direction”

Billionaire investor and tech founder Peter Thiel has quietly relocated his family to Argentina, a move that is fueling speculation about the future plans of one of Silicon Valley’s most influential and politically connected figures.

The move abroad is allegedly partly driven by concerns about the “long-term direction” of the United States, as well as Thiel’s ideological alignment with Milei’s anarcho-capitalist government.

The PayPal co-founder has purchased a sprawling mansion in Buenos Aires and enrolled his children in local schools, according to recent report from the New York Times. The development has attracted significant attention on both sides of the Atlantic.

While some social media users interpreted the move as an outright departure from the United States, the reality appears more nuanced. Thiel remains an American citizen, and the overwhelming majority of his wealth and business interests remain firmly anchored in the United States.

Even so, the decision has prompted fresh questions about why one of America’s most prominent technology investors is spending increasing amounts of time in Argentina.

The answer may lie in a combination of politics, economics, and ideology.

According to reports, Thiel has developed a close relationship with Argentine President Javier Milei, whose radical free-market reforms have earned admiration from libertarians and economic conservatives around the world.

Milei’s administration has aggressively challenged Argentina’s political establishment, slashed government spending, and pursued a sweeping deregulation agenda aimed at reviving the country’s struggling economy.

Those priorities align closely with views Thiel has expressed for years.

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