It's a great Tuesday, friend.You've seen these for sure. If you've ever proven you're not a robot by clicking every tiny traffic light square or motorcycle tires, congrats, you've also had an unpaid side gig you didn't apply for. Luis von Ahn built CAPTCHA in 2000 to block bots, then realized humans were burning 500,000 hours a day on these mini eye exams, time basically going to waste.
📖 So he upgraded it to reCAPTCHA. Smart. It's one word to test you, one mystery word to help digitize old books and historical archives computers couldn't read.
Guess how many million words were getting digitized every day at the peak: A) 1M, B) 10M, C) 40M or D) 100M? Keep reading, the answer's waiting to be captured by you at the end.
🎯 You're a massive target right now. With a simple Google search, anyone can find your home address, phone number and family details. Data brokers sell this info to scammers and stalkers every single day. That's exactly why your phone keeps ringing with spam. I use Incogni to wipe my profile from their databases automatically. Get 60% off with code KIM60. More below.* — Kim
Spam unsubscribe links can confirm your address is active, making you a bigger target.
Fake unsubscribe buttons are a top phishing tactic to steal passwords and install malware.
Your email app has a safer built-in option most people walk right past.
A free Gmail trick will tell you exactly who sold your address in the first place.
📖 Read time: 2.5 minutes
You know that little unsubscribe link at the bottom of an email from some business you know or maybe a phishing expedition? Clicking it might be the most expensive mistake you make all week. Yes, it's true.
If the email is from a spammer, you lit up a neon sign that says "real person, clicks things." Your address gets flagged as active, packaged up and sold to more spammers. The flood doesn't stop. It multiplies.
That's the good outcome.
The bad one? That unsubscribe button mimics Netflix, Amazon, PayPal, Microsoft, your bank, whatever brand you trust. The logo, the colors, the sender name. All fake. One click and you're on a site built to steal your login or drop malware on your device.
Americans lost $12.5 billion to email scams last year. Up 25% from the year before. This is how it starts.
🎣 How to know when it's safe
If you signed up for something and you're done with it, the unsubscribe link is fine to click. Big legitimate brands follow the rules. But if you don't recognize the sender? Don't touch it.
Here's something I have to say, because I see it go wrong constantly.
If you signed up for a real newsletter and you're over it, use the unsubscribe link at the bottom. Do NOT hit spam. Here's why.
When you mark a legitimate sender as spam, the system boots you permanently, and there's no way back. I see it happen with my own newsletter all the time. Someone marks my newsletter as spam, then emails me a week later asking why they're off the list. That's right. Once you click spam on my newsletter, you're not allowed back on the list. That's the way the system works.
FYI, some companies can legally re-add you to their list months later under a federal loophole.
🛡️ Four moves that work
1. Use your email app's built-in unsubscribe. Gmail, Apple Mail and Outlook all show one near the top of the message, right under the sender's name. It runs through your provider, not the sender. That's the safe version.
2. Hover before you click. Always. On a computer, hover your mouse over any link without clicking, and look at the URL that appears. Random characters, a mismatched domain, anything that doesn't line up with the real company's website? Run.
3. Block, don't just delete. Deleting junk doesn't teach your inbox anything. Right-click the sender and hit Block, so emails from that address never reach you again.
4. Use the Gmail plus-sign trick. This is the one nobody talks about. When signing up for anything online, add a plus sign and a word to your Gmail address: yourname+walmart@gmail.com or yourname+coupons@gmail.com. The email lands in your normal inbox. But now, when that address starts getting spammed, you know exactly who sold your info to a data broker, or worse. Then go to Settings > Filters > Create a new filter and auto-delete everything sent to that alias. You become the detective.
Phew, after all that, you need a smile. Ready? I just unsubscribed from Disney+. I feel marveless. 🦸🏼♀️
🫠 Know someone whose inbox is a disaster zone? Forward this. You might save them from a very expensive click. Or use the icons below to post it on your social media, so everyone in your circle stays safe from scams.
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
Stop strangers from finding you online
With only a simple Google search, anyone can find out where you live. Whether it's a stalker or scammer, or a company selling your data, your personal info is out there in the wild, and that's scary. It gets worse. Every day, more of your information is collected, shared, and exposed without your knowledge.
But there's a way to fight back. Incogni works quietly in the background to wipe your personal data from people-search sites, data brokers, and hidden databases you may not even know exist.
"Thank you for telling me about Incogni!" I've been using it for several months, and it has made a great difference. Thanks Kim!" — Mark
How hacked traffic cams tracked Iran's supreme leader
Years of footage. One AI algorithm. Nowhere to hide. Israel hijacked Tehran's security grid to create a real-time digital shadow of Khamenei. The result? A strike driven by the most precise targeting data we've ever seen. Here is exactly how they pulled it off.
🎧 Or search "Komando" wherever you get your podcasts. I'm everywhere.
WEB WATERCOOLER
📱 Search Tok: Maybe you've seen the headline. Adobe says nearly half of U.S. consumers use TikTok as a search engine, a jump of almost 20% in two years, based on 807 consumers and 200 small business owners. (Wait, they sampled 1,000 people to estimate half of all consumers? Great math right there.) People say Google, Reddit and ChatGPT are more trustworthy, but TikTok has 200M+ Americans on it, and they're searching recipes, beauty advice and restaurant recs because it feels a bit more natural. Ask TikTok for a plumber, and it'll show you a guy unblocking a sink to a Drake remix. Just sayin'.
Lost pet scam: A Florida man lost his German shepherd puppy, Hazel, through a fence hole, posted everywhere, then got a call from a fake St. Petersburg police sergeant. The impostor said Hazel got hit by a car and was at the vet, even providing a report number and address. The phony cop told the man to Zelle $1,900 for Hazel's emergency surgery and texted an AI dog ER photo. Zelle flagged the transaction, and when Hazel strolled home the next morning, her owner stopped payment. Next up: ransom notes written in Paw Patrol font and people will still Venmo first, ask questions later.
👩🦰 Women pick drivers: So Uber finally pushed its women-only matching option nationwide in the U.S. The messy part? It's expanding while Uber's getting sued by male drivers who claim discrimination, arguing that the feature stereotypes men as dangerous. Lyft's in the same lawsuit soup. I'm glad the option exists, not thrilled it took thousands of assault reports and an $8.5 million verdict.
Thrift store takeover: Etsy bought the secondhand fashion app Depop for $1.6 billion in 2021, spent five years watching Gen Z sell vintage Levi's and Y2K windbreakers to each other, then sold it to eBay for $1.2 billion cash. Depop did over $1 billion in sales in 2025 with 7 million active buyers, almost all under 34. Somewhere a 22-year-old selling a $12 vintage T-shirt is completely unbothered.
🧢 Tiny games, giant checks: Get this, teens are building simple games onto Roblox's 144 million-user platform and making serious moola. Nate Colley, 19, grew up in a trailer park, couldn't find a fishing job in Roblox, so he built Fisch, reportedly pulling $400K a month. The crazy part? Lego and Walmart buy ads inside it. Roblox paid creators $1.5B (paywall link) in 2025. $400K a month catching virtual fish while real studios drown. You could say he's got the whole industry hooked.
DAILY TECH UPDATE
That résumé goes right into the trash
Parents are getting too involved, even accompanying their Gen Z kids to job interviews and negotiating pay: an embarrassing trend that one Shark Tank star says will land your résumé in the trash.
Forget hiding keys under the mat. This smart lock opens with your fingerprint, keypad code, phone app or IC card. Setup takes minutes with basic tools. High-tech and much harder to pick.
Image: Evanshow
🏠 Yard bodyguard:Outdoor security camera(33% off, $100) 4.4 ⭐ 1,700+ reviews Plug nothing in. The sun powers this outdoor 2K cam, while it pans and tracks motion. The removable solar panel needs only two hours of daylight to charge.
Ahead of the storm:Emergency alert radio(20% off, $40) 4.5 ⭐ 36,700+ reviews Tornado warning at 3 a.m.? An alarm will wake you up with NOAA and local emergency alerts. Covers 60+ other warnings, like floods, too.
🔐 Shut the gap:Sliding window locks(23% off, $10, four-pack) 4.5 ⭐ 4,200+ reviews A simple fix for a common weak spot. These clamp onto the track, so they're harder to force open. Adjustable and perfect for patios or bedrooms.
Pull-pin protection:Personal safety alarms(20% off, $8, two-pack) 4.6 ⭐ 1,400+ reviews Small keychains, big noise. One pull triggers the 140 dB siren blast to scare off attackers and get attention fast. Clip one to your keys or bag.
Prices and deals were accurate at the time of publication.
DEVICE ADVICE
⚡️ 3-second tech genius: You have unread messages on Facebook, and you don't know it. Anyone outside your friends list gets silently filtered into a folder you've never opened. Tap the Messenger icon, then Settings > Message Requests. Could be spam. Could be someone who's been waiting years for a reply. Go look. I mentioned this on my show and a listener told me the son she gave up for adoption contacted her this way. If I didn't tell her about the folder, she may have never heard from him.
Your Android is running in slow motion: Most phones ship at 60Hz even if your screen can do 120Hz. Go to Settings > Display > Motion Smoothness and bump it up. Everything gets instantly smoother. If you see an Adaptive option, pick that. Faster screen, better battery. Should've been the default. It wasn't.
Windows can pull text straight out of any image: Open Snipping Tool, snip what you need, click Text Actions, then Copy All Text. Screenshots, menus, photos of documents. If there's text in it, Windows can grab it. No retyping. Ever again.
🧠 Your phone has been logging everything and hiding it: Go to Settings > Screen Time on iPhone or Settings > Digital Wellbeing on Android. Every app. Every hour. Every pickup. Most people open this once, feel personally attacked and close it immediately. Fair.
WHAT THE TECH?
Image: @VirtuixOmni via X
🎮 Run for your (virtual) life
Video games have always promised immersion. Usually that means slightly better graphics and a chainsaw that sounds more realistic. Cool. Yawn.
Omni One is done with that.
This full-motion VR platform turns your entire body into the controller. Step onto the concave treadmill, strap into the harness, and you can physically walk, run, crouch, sprint, and spin a full 360 degrees. Pair it with PCVR and Resident Evil 2 stops being a game. It becomes a zombie evacuation drill happening in your living room.
Your legs are moving. Your heart rate is spiking. Your brain has completely forgotten you're standing in a suburb in Phoenix.
It's like a Peloton, except instead of an instructor yelling about your cadence, there's a flesh-eating monster three feet behind you.
Turns out fear is an excellent fitness program. Nobody skips leg day when something is chasing them. Watch it in action here.
LOGGING OUT …
🔜 Tomorrow: The internet's new bouncer isn't asking "18?" anymore. It wants your license and a selfie, and the age check is often a third-party vendor you've never heard of. Kids jump on a VPN, adults get scanned and stored. I'll show you who's really collecting the data and what to do before you feed the ID honeypot.
🤖 The answer: C) About 40 million words per day. The collective effort helped finish the archive of every issue of The New York Times back to 1851. Google bought reCAPTCHA in 2009. Those "click every square with a crosswalk" puzzles? They helped train image recognition for things like Google's Street View and self-driving research.
You were part of humanity's largest distributed computing project. You thought you were proving you weren't a robot. Congratulations. You digitized the internet. You made $0.
Geek joke for the road: Humans are being tested against a new AI program. The robot beats the human in every category. The last contest is hunting. The robot again beats the human. However, one of the organizers sets the animals free and tells participants to try to get them again. The robot doesn't move while the human wins because robots can't recaptcha.
🛑 Take back your privacy. Look at this note I received from a reader named Mark: "I have been using Incogni for several months, and it has made a great difference. Thanks, Kim!" Incogni handles the entire legal battle to delete your data, so you do not have to lift a finger. Stop strangers from finding you online. Use code KIM60 to get 60% off right now.*
🔋 Charge your thinking the same way you charge your phone. Daily. Reading my free newsletter definitely helps. Glad you're here! — Kim
Kim Komando • Komando.com • 510+ radio stations • Trusted by millions daily
🏆 THE KIM CHALLENGE:Forward this to ONE person who needs to hear it today. Pick the person who popped into your head while reading. You know who it is.
Photo credit(s):Gemini, Evanshow, @VirtuixOmni via X
Companies and products denoted by an asterisk (*) within this publication are paid sponsors or advertisements. As an Amazon Associate, the publisher earns from qualifying purchases. Statements regarding products denoted by a double asterisk (**) have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration; such products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. This newsletter is provided for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial, medical, or professional advice of any kind. Readers should consult with a qualified professional before making any decisions based on this content. The publisher disclaims all liability for any loss, damage, or injury resulting from the use of or reliance on the information contained herein.
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