Photo: Counterclockwise from top left: AP, BBC, Gizmodo, Getty
The holidays are nigh, and this year’s naughty list is long indeed—and from revelations of reckless privacy violations over at Facebook headquarters and continued labor abuses at Amazon to the generally terrible way humanity has treated our homeworld, your erstwhile chroniclers at Gizmodo have been adding names to it until the very last minute.
This week, our friends at the North Pole might wish to take note of Amazon giving out recordings of personal conversations to other users, anyone who purchased a DNA test as a gift, Facebook tracking users even when location data access is turned off, and the FBI. But this being the season of giving, there are some names for them to consider adding to the nice list as well: Everyone supporting New York Representative-elect Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s New Green Deal, workers rallying against Big Tech’s terrible treatment of workers, and all the good animals.
All this and more, in this week’s best of Gizmodo:
The Amazon Alexa Eavesdropping Nightmare Came True
An Amazon user in Germany recently requested data about his personal activities and inadvertently…
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This Was the Year the Robot Takeover of Service Jobs Began
Out of the three major sectors of the economy—agriculture, manufacturing, and service—two are…
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Don't Take the DNA Test You'll Probably Get for Christmas
This year, you and your loved ones may have come across ads for a great gift to give this holiday…
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The Machines That Spy on Antarctica's Hidden Lakes
The solar panels stood tall against the icy expanse as the four-person team approached on…
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Melting Chunks of Greenland Are Bringing Londoners Face-to-Face With Climate Change
LONDON, ENGLAND—Any Londoners walking past their city’s famous Tate Modern art gallery this month…
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New Poll Shows Basically Everyone Likes Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal
The Green New Deal is popping. New polling released on Friday by the Yale Program on Climate Change …
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We Answer Your Burning Questions After Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse
How awesome is Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse? Seriously, it’s so good. We can’t stop thinking…
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Doctor Who Christmas Specials, Ranked By Their Festivity
For the past 13 years—well, apparently not this year—Doctor Who has been an integral part of…
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What's the Newest Animal?
Bears. Donkeys. Fat, friendly dogs. These animals—animals, generally—have been around for an…
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Turning Off Facebook Location Tracking Doesn't Stop It From Tracking Your Location
Aleksandra Korolova has turned off Facebook’s access to her location in every way that she can. She …
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FBI Secretly Collected Data on Aaron Swartz Earlier Than We Thought—in a Case Involving Al Qaeda
Nearly two years before the U.S. government’s first known inquiry into the activities of Reddit…
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How '90s Cybersex Pioneers Looked for Action and Found Community
If you take a peek at the back pages of 1990s computer magazines, you’ll find plenty of ads for…
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The Year Workers Stood Up to Big Tech
2018 has been an excruciating exercise in achieving, and then discovering new definitions of, rock…
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