I’d guess their concern is their user’s data that is probably part of providing the AI features.

I can't think of any e2ee app that's banned in the EU. I know Signal and WhatsApp are not.

I wonder how little time "immediate" means though. They probably have an overwhelming amount of incoming - from journalists, security service providers, and opportunist scammers posing as both of those groups among other things.

I assume they sent the email at least one minute prior to publishing the article when the sentence is phrased like that, it doesn’t really mean anything other than “We have asked them a question and have yet to receive any reply”. The waiting period could actually be a single minute and still be truthful.

I can understand how that causes issues, but surely it also shows that alerts don't work either? These companies were presumably missing/ignoring alerts with scary messaging that they're about to get shut off, and would also miss/ignore alerts with scary messaging that their bill is getting too high.

Ignored alert works exactly as the provider wants it to work. It makes them earn more money.

It works best when coupled with spam of other irrelevant alerts, to maximize the chance of higher earnings.

Ya, especially on the open internet where the time between the first alert and bankruptcy could be minutes.

I agree with this to the extent that it works. As a non-American the ESTA system is the main way to get phished, google it on a bad day and you get endless scams in the ad slots. “Check ESTA status” here links you to the CBP site, which is enormously better than Google.

They probably need to teach it the keyword though, I started with “ESTA” and it replied to me in Spanish telling me to ask it a question :)

In the UK the captcha uses crosswalk, which isn’t the common name here.

Also a declining problem because any recent LLM can solve them all for you. FWIW though I don’t know anyone in the UK who uses the term crosswalk, though I think most would probably understand it in context.

I've noticed that "Santa" is really starting to displace "Father Christmas" in British English. When I was a kid if you said "Santa" you'd have been scolded for using the American name, but listening to kids now I hear them say "Santa" all the time. I blame TV.

"Crosswalk" sounds extremely American to me and I've never heard anyone say it in Britain, but maybe I'm just getting old.

That’s a fair example, I think I’ve always seen Santa and Father Christmas as interchangeable and wouldn’t necessarily associate one of them with being the American one. A hypothesis I’d be curious about - I wonder if there’s a correlation between how commercialised something is and how Americanised it becomes. In that case I guess we won’t be calling them crosswalks any time soon.

Interestingly, Santa is an American thing because of the early Dutch influence using Sinterklaas.

The modern folklore (comes down the chimney, rides reindeer etc) is an American invention that came to Britain in the 19th Century. “Father Christmas” was an older British folk figure who got merged into the American tradition.

I actually thought they’d dropped this because I feel like I’m still hearing about Claude being used in the US military. Don’t they have Mythos?

There are very few things that would cause banking apps to stop working while their websites continue to function.

Presumably it'd be the loss of mobile service and/or GPS that would cause every banking app in the UK to fail, but I'm a bit skeptical that either one of those is a strict requirement.

I’m in my early 30s and I don’t think I’ve ever written one. When I had my first bank account when I was maybe 10 I was given a cheque book, I don’t know where I’d get one now. I did recently receive a cheque for $12.99 or something like that from an Amazon settlement that I think is probably legitimate. Apparently Monzo can cash a cheque through their app so I’ll try that at some point. I’m guessing it won’t work with an international one though.

> when I was maybe 10 I was given a cheque book, I don’t know where I’d get one now.

I'm guessing you'd walk into your bank and ask for one. You can probably order one from their app somewhere.

I’m older (not in UK, in EU) and cheques are something weird from old movies. Never seen one in real life and concept is really strange.

A couple of years ago during lockdown, I was working with someone definitely qualifying as a boomer, to start up an e-commerce site for him. He was proudly showing me his ledger book of checks that he had to shell out $200 to receive while declining a debit card. On a couple of occasions, I went with him to get cash by driving to a bank branch, writing a check, and having the teller cash it for him. It took months to convince him that he absolutely needed a debit card when people were constantly asking if they could use Venmo/CashApp/etc to pay for products.

So we're still in a transitional stage where some people are still stuck on using checks.

At least I see them being used less often in stores. Also how on earth was he paying $200 for checks? You can get them for < $15. Here's a book with a fish on it, and a ledger, and a cover for under $25 https://www.checks.com/p/856/wonders-of-the-sea-checks

Man, don't get me started. However, business accounts are more expensive than regular accounts. Also, why are you surprised that a bank has found a way to charge more fees?

Check processing I think, not writing them

No, the ~$200 fee was for the book ledger and blank checks. I have no idea what kind of monthly fees the bank was charging for the account. He was also getting raked over the coals on his merchant account to process credit cards because it was deemed a high risk business so most reputable places would not accept the business.