| Stargate, jury duty scam call, adult diaper influencer ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏  | | Hey there, it's a wonderful Wednesday, friend! I've shared all kinds of stories about folks saved by their Apple Watches, but here's a wild one: Tim Cook says it saved his dad's life. The Apple CEO's father lived alone and fell. The Apple Watch's Fall Detection feature notified emergency services, and, when he didn't answer, first responders kicked down his door and found him unconscious. Amazing. I'll share the steps to enable this feature at the end of this newsletter. 🕶️ I'm giving away a pair of Ray‑Ban Meta smart glasses (a $329 value). Be a pal and share this link with your friends, family, coworkers, neighbors or the PTA. There's no purchase necessary; all they have to do is try my free newsletter once. Wahoo! Let's get down to business. — Kim 📣 Don't keep me a secret: Share the email with friends (or copy URL here) | TODAY'S TOP STORY Your location, sold to the highest bidder  Playing Candy Crush, swiping left on a dating app and checking your Yahoo inbox shouldn't expose your location. I say shouldn't, but those apps and thousands more were likely hijacked by data brokers who turned your personal info into cash. Now, cybercriminals on the Dark Web have access to the location information of tens of millions of people. I'll explain how this happened and share my secret weapon for fighting this kind of privacy invasion. 🔎 Whodunnit? It all started with Gravy Analytics, a data broker that tracks over a billion devices worldwide. (They also own Venntel, which sells info to U.S. government agencies like the FBI and IRS.) A Russian hacker wormed into Gravy's records, stealing 1.4 gigabytes of info. ▶️ That data includes over 30 million location points. 404 Media (paywall link) investigated the breach and found the shocking way they obtained your whereabouts. This is clever (and super sketchy) When you open a site or app, there's a millisecond-long auction to decide the ads you see. The process is called real-time bidding (RTB), and it's based on, among other things, all the data points they have about you and what you're most likely to buy. RTB collects enough information to make sure the right people are seeing an ad, and data brokers are in those auctions, too, with another purpose: To snag your info. The scummiest part is they don't even need to buy any ads to do it. The Gravy Analytics leak data shows thousands of apps gathered your location data. The working theory is they collected RTB data themselves or bought it from other data-broker companies. Who's on this list? The list is long, and I'll get to the specifics. Some apps, like Tinder, say they've never worked with Gravy Analytics. (I've heard that excuse before.) But if the info came from RTB, that's in the advertising ecosystem, not the app's code. Really, that's worse in some ways. This type of location tracking is happening through apps whether or not developers explicitly OK it. This includes: - Dating apps: Tinder and Grindr
- Fitness and health apps: MyFitnessPal, Sleep Tracker: White Noise, and My Period Calendar & Tracker
- Games: Angry Birds, Candy Crush, Temple Run, Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells, Injustice: Gods Among Us and The Sims FreePlay
- News and entertainment apps: AOL, BuzzFeed, Bloomberg, Daily Mail, Euronews, Fox News, Sky News, Times of India and Spotify
- Social media and communication apps: Tumblr, Microsoft 365 and Yahoo Mail
- Transportation apps: Flight Tracker+ and Moovit
I could go on, but the odds are you have at least one of those on your phone right now. I do. Switching off location sharing wouldn't have worked, and it won't change anything now, but there is one thing you can do: Wipe the unique advertiser ID tied to your profile. 🍎 On iPhone: Do this under Settings > Privacy & Security > Apple Advertising, and toggle off Personalized Ads. 🤖 On Android: Go to Settings > Privacy > Ads, and tap Delete Advertising ID. Pro tip: These steps might be different on your phone. If you don't see those exact words, search your settings app for "ads." That's only part of the problem. If you really want to clean up what's tied to your identity, you have to go to the source. Tell data brokers goodbye Gravy Analytics is one of the biggest, but there are thousands of apps and sites that exist solely to collect and sell your info. By law, they're required to remove your data if you ask. I've tried doing this myself over the years, and it's an absolute pain. The process is long and annoying, and, before you know it, they add you back. That's why I went looking for a better solution. Incogni finds all the sketchy people-search and data-broker sites where your personal information is listed and submits requests to remove it on your behalf. 👉 Incogni has removed me from 981 sites and put me on 40 suppression lists so I stay off. All told, Incogni's saved me an estimated 735 hours and 45 minutes. I bet it's more. The process takes forever to do on your own. ✅ Ready to take back your privacy? I negotiated a 60% discount on Incogni just for you. If you don't like the results, it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. | KIM KOMANDO TODAY Why the founder of Craigslist isn't a billionaire Craig Newmark started the classified site Craigslist 30 years ago from his San Francisco apartment. He told me why he never took VC money. Listen on Komando.com → | DEALS OF THE DAY Problem, meet solution I love an easy fix. These are worth having around when you need 'em. 💡 Have old tech sitting around? Send it to Amazon through its Trade-in Program and get a gift card for the value. It doesn't even need to work! | WEB WATERCOOLER 💸 Stargate will change everything: Yesterday's announcement by President Trump, along with the biggest tech CEOs, is the most consequential technical project of the century. Stargate is bigger than anything. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, OpenAI's Sam Altman and SoftBank's CEO Masayoshi Son declared a half-trillion-dollar investment in AI. In medicine, Stargate promises cures and the ability to stop most diseases from happening. We cannot fathom all this means except that our country will be an AI leader. Stargate will create an immediate 100,000 jobs. Let's talk AI-bot it: The CIA's new AI chatbot takes on the personalities and views of foreign presidents and prime ministers so agents can better prepare. This upgrade is part of the intelligence agency's plan to woo tech partners and create a more Silicon Valley-like work culture. No, you didn't miss jury duty: This scam is spreading across the U.S. It starts with a call or email from a "court official" saying you've gotta pay up via wire transfer or gift card to avoid fines or arrest since you were a no-show. Delete the email or hang up the phone. Then, if you're still concerned, call your county's courthouse. Heads-up: Real government websites end in .gov. 👀 The IRS is watching: If you sold over $5,000 on sites like eBay, Etsy or StubHub last year, keep an eye out for a 1099‑K form in the mail (paywall link). The reporting threshold used to be $20,000. Now, you need to report side hustle earnings over $5,000, even if you don't get a form from a specific site. Space heaters recalled: Nearly 8,000 Vornado VH2 Whole Room Heaters sold on Amazon are being recalled. The power cord could detach, leading to electric shocks and fires. Check your heater for the date codes "JUL24" or "AUG24," along with "TYPE VH2" on the silver label. Hit this link for help. Adult diaper influencer: You read that right. It's 27-year-old YouTuber Bumble Pree, who has trouble controlling her bladder as a result of multiple sclerosis. Her two diaper companies, InControl and Rearz, make options with trendy designs like kawaii-style cats and unicorns. Their ads feature cute gals in crop tops. The adult diaper biz is set to hit $24 billion by 2030. Hooray, I wrote all that without making a poop joke! 🛑 Stop letting Big Tech decide what you see: StartMail is my pick for privacy-first email. It's super easy to switch over your contacts and mail, or you can treat it as a fresh inbox for only your VIPs. Save 60% now with my special link.* 🌠 The sky is falling: On Prince Edward Island in Canada, Laura Kelly's doorbell cam caught the exact moment a meteorite fell. In a big first, the cam also caught the sound it made on impact. This happened last July, but scientists just released their findings. Huh … sounds different than I expected. | DAILY TECH UPDATE Where are the drones from November? A few months ago, New Jersey residents were all over the news describing giant drones hovering over their homes at night. So, what happened? Listen on Komando.com → | TECH LIFE UPGRADES 🕵️ Cheater, cheater: A TikTok PI revealed a sneaky trick cheaters use, and it's one I've been warning you about for a decade. In the Apple Notes app preinstalled on every iPhone, you can share a note. It's way more hidden than talking through text. A note has been shared if there's a little icon of a person next to it. I'm not telling you to go spy; I'm just sharing the tricks of the trade. Cool, calm and collected: AI can draft a message and keep it chill, even when you're not. It's good for something like, "My heating hasn't worked for two weeks. I told my landlord, but it's still not fixed. Help me write a polite but firm note reminding them and requesting a timeline for repairs." 🔌 There are never enough airport outlets: Smart charging protects your phone's battery over time by only topping you up to 85%. But if you're on the go or need every bit of juice, you can turn it off. On iPhone, head to Settings > Battery > Battery Health & Charging, then turn off Optimized Battery Charging. On Android, go to Settings > Battery > Adaptive Charging, and turn off Use Adaptive Charging. Google Docs shortcut: Editing a doc? There's an easy way to open links with no mouse required. With your cursor over the link, on Windows, hit Alt + Enter. On a Mac, it's Option + Enter. Bonus keyboard shortcut: In Word, Google Docs and lots of other programs, you can add a hyperlink to your existing text. Highlight the text you want to link and hit the Windows key + K (Windows) or Cmd + K (Mac), then paste or type in the web address. Done. Cheap gas? Yes, please: The free Upside app gives you cash back on gas, groceries and dining out. Download Upside* and use promo code Kim to get an extra $0.25 back for every gallon on your first tank of gas. | BY THE NUMBERS $50 per year To use a $900 camera as a webcam. A photographer had the bright idea to use his fancy Canon PowerShot G5 X Mark II digital camera for video meetings. When he plugged it in, nothing. Then, he found the reason on Canon's site: It's $5 per month or $50 per year for the software. Shutter up. $580 million How much Tom got for Myspace. Remember that guy in the white T‑shirt from your Top 8? That's Tom Anderson. He doesn't show his face much these days, but he was just spotted in California. Tom and co-creator Chris DeWolfe sold the early social media site to News Corp in 2005. A few years later, Tom retired to Hawaii to lei around. $0 To stream Super Bowl LIX on Tubi. All you need to sign up is an email address (no credit card, yay!). Kickoff is 6:30 p.m. ET on Feb. 9. No idea who's playing yet, but I know you love it when something's free! | WHAT THE TECH?  Have $20 million to spare? You can get a spot in a members-only doomsday bunker, complete with medical robots, fine dining and a really fancy pool. The company behind it is planning one in every state. | UNTIL NEXT TIME ... Use an Apple Watch? Make sure Fall Detection is set up. It works with the Apple Watch SE, Series 4 and later, and the Apple Watch Ultra. If Apple knows you're 55 or older, it's enabled automatically. To check: - Open the Watch app on your iPhone.
- Tap My Watch > Emergency SOS.
- Turn on Fall Detection. You can select Always on or Only on during workouts.
Now, if your watch detects a fall, you'll get a pop-up asking if you need emergency help. If not, you can signal you're OK. No response? Emergency help is on the way! A lamb, a drum and a snake fall off a cliff. Bah‑dum‑tsssss. (I know you're going to share that.) On that note, I'm outta here! Thanks for reading. If something in this newsletter helped you out, do me a solid and share it with a friend. Let's get this world tech-ahead together! See you right back here tomorrow. — Kim | How'd we do? What did you think of today's issue? | | |
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