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Today's Topics:
1. Re: ***SPAM*** Re: Search Engines, AI, And The Long Fight
Over Fair Use (Roger Clarke)
2. Meta's Secret Weapon in the AI Race? All Your Personal Data
(Stephen Loosley)
3. Starlink is falling down, falling down, falling down
(Stephen Loosley)
4. Re: Search Engines, AI, And The Long Fight Over Fair Use
(Kim Holburn)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2026 12:56:28 +1100
From: Roger Clarke <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [LINK] ***SPAM*** Re: Search Engines, AI, And The Long
Fight Over Fair Use
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
On 2/2/2026 11:18, David wrote:
> On Sunday, 1 February 2026 18:24:00 AEDT Kim Holburn wrote:
>
>> Copying that works in order to understand them, extract information from
>> them, or make them searchable is transformative and lawful. That?s why
>> search engines can index the web, libraries can make digital indexes, and
>> researchers can analyze large collections of text and data without
>> negotiating licenses from millions of rightsholders. These uses don?t
>> substitute for the original works; they enable new forms of knowledge and
>> expression.
>
> "...they enable new forms of knowledge and expression" AND PROFIT.
>
> The local Municipal Library, a University Library, and the National Library
> in Canberra are all run for the noble aims the article proclaims so loudly &
> piously. But does anyone seriously think Google would have its' search
> engine if it were a loss-making venture?
>
> By indexing the content of a textbook and making it available online as a
> supposed right without negotiating payment, Google is arguably stealing the
> publisher's right to make a profit by publishing the book / periodical /
> paper in the first place. As a business model it seems ultimately
> self-defeating, but we'll see.
>
> Then there's the parallel dimension of privacy. How many people are really
> aware that every email having an originator or recipient with a "free" gmail
> address has it scanned with an AI tool?
The article may not have disentangled access and reproduction rights?
Learning how to parse grammar from content is at a different level from
republishing content that originators have sought to earn income from?
___________________
Roger Clarke mailto:[email protected]
T: +61 2 6288 6916 http://www.xamax.com.au http://www.rogerclarke.com
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
Visiting Professorial Fellow UNSW Law & Justice
Visiting Professor in Computer Science Australian National University
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2026 20:18:08 +1030
From: Stephen Loosley <[email protected]>
To: "link" <[email protected]>
Subject: [LINK] Meta's Secret Weapon in the AI Race? All Your Personal
Data
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Meta's Secret Weapon in the AI Race? All Your Personal Data
Meta's massive spending on AI in 2026 makes sense when you see how much it
knows about you.
By Katelyn Chedraoui Jan. 29, 2026 11:38 a.m. 3 min read
https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/zuckerberg-meta-ai-advantage-data-collection/
Meta reported better-than-expected financial results during Wednesday's 2025
fourth-quarter earnings call, but it was CEO Mark Zuckerberg's vision for Meta
AI in 2026 that truly stood out.
Zuckerberg said the company will be spending big to build personal
superintelligence.
It has one major edge over competitors -- troves of personal data about me, you
and everyone we know.
"We're starting to see the promise of AI that understands our personal context,
including our history, our interests, our content, and our relationships," said
Zuckerberg.
"A lot of what makes agents valuable is the unique context that they can see,
and we believe that Meta will be able to provide a uniquely personal
experience."
Meta's long-term AI goal is personal superintelligence, a kind of holy grail:
an artificial intelligence that's smarter than humans, tailored to our
individual experiences in products like smart glasses.
To get there, the company expects capital expenditures to increase
dramatically, from last year's $72 billion to $115 to $135 billion, attributing
the increase to supporting its AI labs.
That money will be spent on research in a couple of different places. Agentic
AI, which is tech that can handle tasks autonomously, is one big piece of the
puzzle. The personalized component is where Meta believes it has an advantage
over competitors.
The company has spent years collecting, analyzing and monetizing a wealth of
information from its users on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, effectively
acting as a massive data broker. Its targeted advertising business model is
structured around surveilling our online activity, and it's part of what made
Meta the tech titan it is today.
Personal AI is what the industry sees as the next step: chatbots, agents and
other products that are relatable and customized to our individual lives and
needs. As a social media giant, Meta already knows plenty about us and what we
may want to see from personal AI.
That will work in tandem with the company's plans to "merge" LLMs with the
recommendation systems that build our social media feeds.
"Soon, we'll be able to understand people's unique personal goals, and tailor
feeds to show each person content that helps them improve their lives in the
ways that they want," Zuckerberg said.
Even if Meta hadn't been collecting all our data for decades with its social
media platforms, it could still have an edge. Meta AI is everywhere on Facebook
and Instagram, and the company doesn't let you opt out of model training or
turn it off. (You can mute Meta AI, though.)
YouTube and LinkedIn are almost certainly helping their parent companies,
Google and Microsoft, too. Yet Meta has a first-in-class, proven track record
of turning personal data into products and monetization. That's not necessarily
a win for us. Meta's previous AI integrations in WhatsApp and its plans to use
AI interactions for personalizing ads sparked backlash. The battle for data
privacy amid the development of data-hungry AI models is an ongoing fight.
Meta's AI development in 2025 was studded with epic highs and lows. It made
waves over the summer when it hired a series of top AI researchers, poaching
some of them from other bigwigs like OpenAI and Apple.
But reports of internal strife and conflicting strategies between the new hires
and Meta's existing FAIR lab quickly followed, stalling any major public
releases. Meta eventually laid off hundreds of employees from its AI units.
Yann LeCun, one of the foremost pioneers in AI, left his role as chief AI
scientist at the end of last year.
While Meta struggled to find its footing, competitors were busy pumping out new
models and innovations.
Google's most recent model, Gemini 3, showcased industry-leading reasoning
abilities. OpenAI, in a bid to catch up to Google, released GPT-5.2. And
Anthropic's Claude took a turn in the sun with its easy vibe coding abilities.
Google also recently released a version of personalized intelligence in Search.
Don't miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as
a preferred Google source.
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2026 23:51:18 +1030
From: Stephen Loosley <[email protected]>
To: "link" <[email protected]>
Subject: [LINK] Starlink is falling down, falling down, falling down
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Starlink is falling down, falling down, falling down
Email inbox: Stephen Chen, SCMP <[email protected]> Unsubscribe
Jan 31, 2026, 12:32?PM (3 days ago)
Starlink is falling down, falling down, falling down
Nobody thought Starlink could be touched. Nearly 10,000 satellites are already
aloft, making anti-satellite missiles toys.
The PLA is throwing billions at developing countermeasures: lasers, microwaves,
particle beams ...
Then it happened.
One Chinese satellite was launched quietly, moving fast, coming too close for
Starlink to dodge. SpaceX let out a gasp.
Then they ran.
Some 4,400 Starlink satellites are now dropping their altitudes hard, deeper
into the atmosphere, where the drag bites, and one bad solar storm could
deorbit them in a death spiral.
But SpaceX did it anyway.
Chinese scientists had sketched this play. Maybe a small swarm of satellites
could rattle Starlink. But one satellite forcing more than 4,000 to duck and
cover? Wilder than their wildest dreams.
More and more people in China have now come to realise that Starlink was not
built by generals. It is a business. And business reels when the heat gets
real.
Some teams are now digging into SpaceX?s supply chain to find the weak spots.
Rare earths, magnets, the guts of rockets and satellites that are all flowing
through China. A list of suspect suppliers is floating on Chinese social media
platforms.
Could China kill SpaceX? Probably.
But it won?t.
Chinese space start-ups are lining up for IPOs. They need SpaceX?s story, a
good story, to attract investors. Beijing needs those start-ups to close the
launch capability gap.
It will watch. Let SpaceX keep flying. Keep selling dreams. As long as Elon
Musk keeps his distance from the Pentagon. As long as the line doesn?t get
crossed.
Cheers,
--
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2026 10:05:30 +1100
From: Kim Holburn <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [LINK] Search Engines, AI, And The Long Fight Over Fair
Use
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
On 2/2/2026 11:39 am, David wrote:
> Sorry about this Kim, but I neglected to state that you were quoting from an
> article in
> https://www.techdirt.com/2026/01/30/search-engines-ai-and-the-long-fight-over-fair-use/
Which was itself a republished article from EFF
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/01/search-engines-ai-and-long-fight-over-fair-use
>
> On Monday, 2 February 2026 11:18:49 AEDT I wrote:
>> On Sunday, 1 February 2026 18:24:00 AEDT Kim Holburn wrote:
>>> Copying that works in order to understand them, [...]
> _DavidL_
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Link mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
--
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
+61 404072753
mailto:[email protected] aim://kimholburn
skype://kholburn - PGP Public Key on request
------------------------------
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