OpenAI, Google, Anthropic and other companies developing generative AI are continuing to improve their technologies and releasing better and better large language models. In order to create a common approach for independent evaluation on the safety of those models as they come out, the UK and the US governments have signed a Memorandum of Understanding. Together, the UK's AI Safety Institute and its counterpart in the US, which was announced by Vice President Kamala Harris but has yet to begin operations, will develop suites of tests to assess the risks and ensure the safety of "the most advanced AI models."

They're planning to share technical knowledge, information and even personnel as part of the partnership, and one of their initial goals seems to be performing a joint testing exercise on a publicly accessible model. UK's science minister Michelle Donelan, who signed the agreement, told The Financial Times that they've "really got to act quickly" because they're expecting a new generation of AI models to come out over the next year. They believe those models could be "complete game-changers," and they still don't know what they could be capable of. 

According to The Times, this partnership is the first bilateral arrangement on AI safety in the world, though both the US and the UK intend to team up with other countries in the future. "AI is the defining technology of our generation. This partnership is going to accelerate both of our Institutes' work across the full spectrum of risks, whether to our national security or to our broader society," US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said. "Our partnership makes clear that we aren't running away from these concerns — we're running at them. Because of our collaboration, our Institutes will gain a better understanding of AI systems, conduct more robust evaluations, and issue more rigorous guidance."

While this particular partnership is focused on testing and evaluation, governments around the world are also conjuring regulations to keep AI tools in check. Back in March, the White House signed an executive order aiming to ensure that federal agencies are only using AI tools that "do not endanger the rights and safety of the American people." A couple of weeks before that, the European Parliament approved sweeping legislation to regulate artificial intelligence. It will ban "AI that manipulates human behavior or exploits people’s vulnerabilities," "biometric categorization systems based on sensitive characteristics," as well as the "untargeted scraping" of faces from CCTV footage and the web to create facial recognition databases. In addition, deepfakes and other AI-generated images, videos and audio will need to be clearly labeled as such under its rules. 

On Monday, OpenAI began opening up ChatGPT to users without an account. It described the move as part of its mission to “make tools like ChatGPT broadly available so that people can experience the benefits of AI.” It also gives the company more training data (for those who don’t opt out) and perhaps nudges more users into creating accounts and subscribing for superior GPT-4 access instead of the older GPT-3.5 model free users get.

I tested the instant access, which — as advertised — allowed me to start a new GPT-3.5 thread without any login info. The chatbot’s standard “How can I help you today?” screen appears, with optional buttons to sign up or log in. Although I saw it today, OpenAI says it’s gradually rolling out access, so check back later if you don’t see the option yet.

OpenAI says it added extra safeguards for accountless users, including blocking prompts and image generations in more categories than logged-in users. When asked for more info on what new categories it’s blocking, an OpenAI spokesperson told me that, while developing the feature, it considered how logged-out GPT-3.5 users could potentially introduce new threats.

The spokesperson added that the teams in charge of detecting and stopping abuse of its AI models have been involved in creating the new feature and will adjust accordingly if unexpected threats emerge. Of course, it still blocks everything it does for signed-in users, as detailed in its moderation API.

You can opt out of data training for your prompts when not signed in. To do so, click on the little question mark to the right of the text box, then select Settings and turn off the toggle for “Improve the model for everyone.”

OpenAI says more than 100 million people across 185 countries use ChatGPT weekly. Those are staggering numbers for an 18-month-old service from a company many people still hadn’t heard of two years ago. Today’s move gives those hesitant to create an account an incentive to take the world-changing chatbot for a spin, boosting those numbers even more.

The first details emerged Monday from Google’s settlement of a class-action lawsuit over Chrome’s tracking of Incognito users. Filed in 2020, the suit could have required the company to pay $5 billion in damages. Instead, The Wall Street Journal reports that Google will destroy “billions of data points” it improperly collected, update its data collection disclosures and maintain a setting that blocks Chrome’s third-party cookies by default for the next five years.

The lawsuit accused Google of misleading Chrome users about how private Incognito browsing truly is. It claimed the company told customers their info was private — even as it monitored their activity. Google defended its practices by claiming it warned Chrome users that Incognito mode “does not mean ‘invisible’” and that sites could still see their activity. The settlement was first reported in December.

The suit initially asked for $5,000 in damages per user for alleged offenses related to federal wiretapping and California privacy laws. Google tried and failed to have the legal action dismissed, with Judge Lucy Koh determining in 2021 that the company “did not notify” users it was still collecting data while Incognito mode was active.

Engadget emailed Google for comment about the settlement details. We’ll update this article if we hear back.

The suit’s discovery included emails that, in late 2022, revealed publicly some of the company’s concerns about Incognito’s false privacy. In 2019, Google Chief Marketing Officer Lorraine Twohill suggested to CEO Sundar Pichai that “private” was the wrong term for Incognito mode because it risked “exacerbating known misconceptions.” In a later email exchange, Twohill wrote, “We are limited in how strongly we can market Incognito because it’s not truly private, thus requiring really fuzzy, hedging language that is almost more damaging.”

The court didn’t approve a class of plaintiffs for financial damages, so users would have to sue Google as individuals to try to collect compensation. Some didn’t waste any time: A group of 50 people already filed a separate suit in California state court on Thursday over the privacy violations.

The lawsuit’s trial was initially scheduled for February. The settlement still needs final approval from Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the Northern District of California before it’s official.

“This settlement is an historic step in requiring honesty and accountability from dominant technology companies,” Attorney David Boies, who represents the plaintiffs, said in a statement to The Wall Street Journal.

One piece of the settlement, the requirement that Google turn off third-party tracking cookies by default for the next five years, could already be a moot point. The company’s Privacy Sandbox initiative was already scheduled to disable all third-party cookies for Chrome users by the end of the year. It will replace them with the Topics API, a system that avoids cookies by categorizing browsing activity into locally stored topics. The new system lets advertisers target ads toward users without having direct access to their browsing data.

It’s also questionable how effective the destruction of the improperly collected data will be. Considering that the suit covers information stretching back to 2016, it’s reasonable to assume the company sold much of the data to third parties long ago or incorporated it into separate products not covered by the settlement.

Google will also have to rewrite its privacy disclosures over its data collection practices in Incognito mode. It told The WSJ it’s already begun applying the change.

If you're on the hunt for a reliable tablet not made by Apple, this is a good sale to check out. Currently, Amazon, Best Buy and Samsung's own site are selling the base-model Galaxy Tab S9 for $670. That's $130 off the list price and the lowest price we've seen yet, beating the previous low it hit a few weeks ago. The Tab S9 family is our top choice for Android tablets, thanks to their multitasking abilities, great screens and useful available accessories like keyboards.   

We like the Galaxy Tab S9 tablets because they can do everything you'd want a tablet to do, plus a little more with added productivity features. The tablet's DeX mode creates an environment similar to a PC in which you can easily flit between different apps and windows, making it easier to do more complex tasks. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processors are speedy to support all of that productivity and the OLED displays look gorgeous. One of our few concerns in recommending the Tab S9 series is they tend to be expensive, but the $130 discount takes away some of that hesitation.  

The base model that's on sale here comes with 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, an 11" Dynamic AMOLED touchscreen, an IP68 dust- and water-resistance rating and support for Wi-Fi 6E. The included S Pen can be used for taking notes by hand, doodling and making art. Other accessories, like the keyboard case, are sold separately, and we can't help but notice the current price of that add-on is nearly the same as the discount on the tablet. 

For a less expensive tablet, it's worth noting that the budget recommendation from our Android tablet guide is also on sale. The Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+ 11” Tablet is $50 off and down to $220 at Walmart. The Google Pixel Tablet with charging speaker dock, which we think is the best pick for a tablet that doubles as a smart display, is 20 percent off and down to $399 at Amazon. That matches its all-time low. 

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The great North American solar eclipse will darken the US, Canada and Mexico on April 8th, as you’ve no doubt heard. It’s a significant astronomical event, the first since August 21, 2017 and the last one that will be visible on the continent until 2044.

Parts of all three countries will experience “totality” or a full blocking of the sun by the moon. Those lucky folks may even see the sun’s corona and a “diamond ring” — both rare and dramatic sights. Other regions will experience partial eclipses, with the level depending on how close you are to totality. Watching the moon eat into the sun, even a bit, is still a spectacular sight.

So, which cities and regions will experience totality? When will it happen? What’s the weather forecast in those areas? And if you do have a clear view, how can you safely watch and record the event? Read on to find out more.

Where in the US will you experience the solar eclipse totality, and when?

The good news is that many major centers are in the 100-mile-wide band of totality, so millions of people will be able to see a full solar eclipse. It follows a northeast path, so Mexico’s Pacific coast will get the first views in Mazatlan starting at around 10:57 AM PDT (total eclipse starting at 12:07 PDT), followed by the city of Torreón (all times local).

The total eclipse moves into the United states at 12:10 PM CDT (Eagle Pass, Texas), then hits Austin, Fort Worth and Dallas — three out of five of the most populous Texas cities. From there, it moves into Little Rock, Arkansas, followed by select parts of Missouri, Illinois and Indiana (including Indianapolis).

NASA

Ohio cities Dayton, Toledo and Cleveland get the full show, followed by Erie, Pennsylvania, then Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse in New York along with Maine. Canada is in on the fun too, with parts of southern Ontario (Hamilton, Niagara Falls) and Quebec (Montreal) getting the totality, along with New Brunswick, PEI and finally, Bonavista, Labrador at 4:03 PM NDT (Newfoundland Time).

If you’re elsewhere on the continent and can’t travel, know that the closer you are to the band of totality, the more the sun will be obscured by the moon (this map shows how much of the eclipse you’ll get depending where you are on the continent).

An impressive list of major centers are within 200 miles of totality, so they’ll get a 90 percent or better eclipse (Houston, St. Louis, Memphis, Nashville, Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit, Toronto, New York, Boston).

Anyone in the US south, midwest and northeast should get a decent spectacle, as will folks in Canada’s southeast and Atlantic coast. Even if you’re not in those regions, you might still see (and can capture) a mini eclipse.

How long with the 2024 solar eclipse last?

From the beginning when the moon first starts to cover the sun (partial eclipse) until the end when the two bodies part ways is a good long time – up to two hours and forty minutes in Dallas, and 2:18 in Caribou, Maine.

However, totality itself is brief, with the duration dependent on how close you are to the center of the totality band and the time of day. It’s at just under four minutes in Dallas, less than three minutes in Presque Island, Maine and a mere minute and 12 seconds in Montreal. As such, you’ll need to be ready and hope that the skies are clear during that brief window.

What’s the weather forecast in my area?

It’s still early for an accurate forecast, but a week is enough to get a general idea by region. Suffice to say, April isn’t the ideal month for clear skies. That said, an eclipse can still be visible through light cloud cover, and even if it’s thick, the sky will grow dramatically dark.

Unfortunately, the odds of precipitation are indeed above average across most of the band of the eclipse. Forecasts predict that the chances for clear skies are better the farther northeast you live, the opposite of historical trends.

To wit, Dallas has showers forecast throughout the day (58 percent), which would mean continuous cloud cover and no clear view if that holds. That improves a bit when you get to Indianapolis (partly cloudy, 24 percent chance of rain), with things better still in Buffalo, New York (partly cloudy, 11 percent).

Things are looking good right now in Montreal, though, with mostly sunny skies and only a 9 percent chance of rain, and the same goes for Fredericton, New Brunswick.

Niagara Falls also figures to have decent weather during the eclipse (mostly sunny, 18 percent) and is in the path of totality, which has led to the city declaring a state of emergency out of caution. Officials estimate that a million people could pour into the area, creating potentially dangerous crowds.

How can I watch the solar eclipse at home?

Staring at the sun is obviously dangerous for your vision, and doing so during an eclipse can be just as harmful. Even though you may not feel discomfort immediately, you may damage your eyes via an affliction called solar retinopathy. That can lead to serious consequences like eye pain, blind spots, blurred vision and more.

American Astronomical Society

To view it safely, you must purchase a pair of approved solar eclipse glasses based on an international safety standard called ISO 12312-2 (regular sunglasses won’t do). That dictates the maximum luminous transmittance, along with the range of permissible wavelength transmittance (UVA, UVB and infrared).

There’s certainly still time to grab a pair if you don’t have them already. The American Astronomical Society (AAS) has many recommendations for manufacturers and vendors, both online and at retail chains.

Warby Parker, for one, is offering free glasses (limit two per person while supplies last). You can also find them at Staples, Lowes and Walmart, or online at B&H and multiple science and astronomy stores.

The AAS advises against searching for the lowest price on Amazon or eBay, however, in case you get a bad knock off. “Before you buy a solar viewer or filter online, we recommend that you make sure that (1) the seller is identified on the site and (2) the seller is listed on this page,” it says on its Solar Eclipse Across America site.

How to watch the solar eclipse safely without glasses

Canadian Space Agency

It’s possible to view an eclipse without glasses via indirect means, as well. The simplest way is by punching a small round hole in a piece of thick paper or cardboard, then positioning it so the sun shines through the hole onto the ground or a flat surface (you can also attach a piece of foil with a hole, as NASA shows here). That will project an image of the Sun's disc, letting you see the eclipse in real time.

The same pinhole principle would let you use anything with perforated holes, like a colander, projecting dozens of tiny eclipses on a surface. Trees can do the same thing, casting weird leaf shadows with little solar eclipse chunks out of them.

Benjamin Seigh/Wikimedia

For a bit better experience, you can build a crude box projector. With that, the sun shines through a hole in tin foil onto a white card, and you can look through a larger hole at the card, with the sun behind you. The Canadian Space Agency explains exactly how to make that.

Never, ever view an eclipse directly through a pair of binoculars or a telescope, as that’s a guaranteed way to damage your eyes. That said, you can use a pair of binoculars or a telescope to project the sun onto a piece of paper, as shown in this video.

How to take photos or video of the solar eclipse

Unfortunately, you can’t just point your smartphone or camera at the sun to record the eclipse, as the brightness will overwhelm the sensor and ruin the image (and possibly damage the sensor). Luckily, you can shield your camera just as you do your eyes.

The cheapest way to do that is to buy an extra set of eclipse glasses, then cut out an eyepiece from one and tape it over the smartphone (or other camera) lens. That will reduce the light levels enough to see detail in the sun throughout the partial eclipse and totality.

You can also purchase dedicated smartphone solar filters like the VisiSolar Photo Filter, which are designed for cameras and not direct viewing. Another choice is the Solar Snap Eclipse App Kit, which also offers an app that aids in photographing the eclipsed sun. It’s advisable to also wear solar glasses when setting up your smartphone or camera to protect your eyes.

If you’re shooting the eclipse with a dedicated mirrorless or DSLR camera, you’ll need either a mylar, 16-stop ND (neutral density) or hydrogen alpha solar filter. Again, do not look directly into a DSLR’s optical viewfinder at the sun if the lens doesn’t have one of those filters attached (the electronic viewfinder on a mirrorless camera is safe).

To photograph the eclipse with a smartphone, turn the flash off and put the camera into ultrawide or wide mode so it stays in frame. Do NOT look directly at the sun to line up your camera if you’re not wearing solar eclipse glasses.

Don’t use the digital zoom to try to make the eclipse bigger, as you’ll lose resolution (you can zoom in later in your photo editing app). Once focus is set on the sun, use your smartphone’s focus lock feature so that it doesn’t “hunt” for focus and blur the eclipse.

During totality, the “diamond ring” effect only lasts a split second, so use the burst mode of your camera or you’ll likely miss the shot. And try to capture RAW (rather than JPEG) images to keep the maximum detail possible for later editing. Some iPhone and Android smartphones have RAW capability built-in, if not, you can use a third-party app.

If you decide to capture video, you’ll need a filter as well, of course. But you should also use a tripod, as shooting handheld will induce blur and result in a shaky video. Even a cheap tripod will do the trick, along with a simple smartphone holder. Capture the highest resolution you can (4K or even 8K) at the highest quality possible. You’ll also capture any cheering, shouting, etc. — a precious souvenir you can look back on again and again.

More resources

There are plenty of government and private sites with more information about the eclipse, starting with the AAS’s eclipse site, detailing things like eye safety, imaging, resources and even a totality app — an “interactive map that shows what you’ll see at any location in North America for the total solar eclipse of April 8, 2024.”

NASA also offers a dedicated site for the North American Eclipse, as does the National Weather Service and National Solar Observatory. A private site called Great American Eclipse is largely commercial, but does have a very useful map showing the band of totality and how much of the eclipse you’ll see depending on location, along with a comprehensive list of eclipse times and durations by city.

Open Roads is an easy game to get lost in. It tells a twisting tale about generational trauma — the tension, lies and love between mother and daughter — with all the comfort and warmth of an early 2000s network drama like Gilmore Girls or Charmed. As a former suburban teen myself, this game left me feeling equally exposed and understood.

Open Roads is set in 2003, and through environment and character design alone, it captures an authentic slice of life in this post-9/11, pre-Razr era. In the early aughts, I spent my teen years bouncing between Dad’s apartment on the outskirts of the city and Mom’s house in a dusty development site surrounded by grocery stores and Blockbuster Videos, and I had big dreams of escaping both. All this is to say, I relate to Open Roads' main character, Tess, who’s finishing up high school and planning a future in the hot new market of webpage design. Her parents are newly divorced and she’s been living with her mom, Opal, and grandma, Helen, outside of Detroit. Helen recently passed and her home is being sold against Opal’s wishes, so she and Tess are begrudgingly clearing it out and looking for a new place to stay.

Open Roads Team

The details of Tess’ family history are slowly exposed as she explores Grandma Helen’s home, told in old newspapers, photographs, books, postcards, heirlooms, phone calls and pottery-making materials. Tess and Opal eventually discover a suitcase hidden behind a false wall in the house, and it spurs them to embark on a road trip to long-lost locations from Opal’s past. Helen was a popular advice columnist and writer similar to Dear Abby, and her leftover letters, scattered around each environment, steadily peel back the layers of secrets that have enshrouded her, her daughter's and granddaughter's lives.

Every character in Open Roads has something to hide. I actually clocked the big twist about halfway through the game, but there was enough drama, doubt and emotional heft to keep me invested in the narrative regardless. Do yourself a favor and don’t look up any story spoilers — just enjoy the Open Roads ride.

Open Roads Team

This is exceedingly easy to do. Open Roads has expertly written dialogue, and its characters are infused with rich histories and complex motivations. The back and forth between Tess and Opal feels genuine for a teen daughter and her mother who’ve been trapped together in a car for hours on end: They quickly spark to anger and reconciliation, and just as easily act supremely silly around each other. A foundation of tenderness underlies their interactions. The voice acting, provided by mainstream television actors Keri Russell and Kaitlyn Dever, is superb, adding to the game’s immersive pull.

Open Roads uses a mix of 3D and 2D art — the backgrounds and interactable objects are 3D, while Tess and Opal are animated in hand-drawn 2D, moving in a floaty manner that reminds me of the early Disney classics. The styles work well together, for the most part. I found the visuals jarring in one section, when Tess and Opal were having a conversation in direct sunlight and the brightness of the scene made their 2D avatars look unfinished, unblended with the setting. Generally though, Open Roads is filled with engaging environments and beautiful details, with plenty of items to investigate and small puzzles to solve. The story unfurls naturally with every action prompt, and dialogue choices alter Tess and Opal’s trajectory throughout the game.

Open Roads Team

The sound design in Open Roads is particularly spectacular. Each object that Tess interacts with has a sound specific to its texture and weight. When Tess sets a cookie tin down on a kitchen countertop, it sounds like hollow metal scraping against wood; when she picks up a discarded cigar, the audio cues are soft and papery; Tess’ footsteps sound distinct on bare floorboards, carpet and rugs, with changes in density, bass and sharpness for each new material. Picking up Tess’ flip phone to text her BFF, I can hear the groaning of thick plastic hinges and the padded creaking as she rapidly presses down on the number pad. These sounds are crucial aspects of the game, louder than the bed of acoustic guitar or light synth that make up the soundtrack, and I’m entirely here for it. Open Roads is proof that ASMR exploration games should be a thing.

The features that will stick with me after finishing Open Roads are its sound design and its authenticity. There aren’t many games focused on the everyday lives and conversations of women, let alone mothers and daughters, and Open Roads is a testament to the power of these stories. The game oozes warmth and camaraderie, and its writing displays an abundance of respect toward the characters that drive its narrative. Every person with a voice in Open Roads is a woman, and Tess, Opal, Grandma Helen and Aunt August are each dynamic, sympathetic and flawed in unique ways. Considering the developers of this game broke free from a studio whose co-founder was reportedly hostile toward women, this accomplishment is even more significant.

My suggestion for fully enjoying Open Roads is to set aside a lazy afternoon, grab your favorite drink and some snacks, and make sure your headphones are on nice and tight. Turn up the volume so you can hear every plunk and tap of Tess’ world, and don’t try too hard to decipher the game’s secrets. Trust in the story and take it slow. This is a game worth savoring.

Open Roads is out now on consoles and PC, and it's part of the Xbox Game Pass library. It comes from Open Roads Team, published by Annapurna Interactive.

Here's a good deal if you need a big chunk of storage space for a Nintendo Switch, Raspberry Pi or any other device that still accepts microSD cards: The 1TB version of Lexar's Professional 1066x card is now down to $76.49 on Amazon. That's the lowest price we've tracked for this model and roughly $9 off the card's typical street price. The discount comes as part of a wider sale on Lexar storage gear that started on Sunday for World Backup Day, a commemorative date that intends to raise awareness about data protection and preservation. (Seagate, Crucial and other storage manufacturers are still running sales as well.)

The Professional 1066x is not a formal pick in our microSD card buying guide, as it's a bit slower than our top choices, Samsung's Pro Plus and Pro Ultimate, particularly in terms of sequential read speeds (which matter when you want to access large files stored on the card). Still, neither of those cards are available in a 1TB capacity — the Pro Plus will be, but not until later this year — and the Lexar model wasn't drastically far behind in our benchmark tests. For devices like the Switch or Steam Deck that cap microSD cards to standard UHS-I speeds, or even for capturing 4K video more casually, it'll be good enough. We'll note that there are some 1TB cards available for less, but among the models we've tested, this is a solid value for those who need a high capacity above all else.

If you need a standard SD card, meanwhile, this sale also brings the SD version of the 1TB Professional 1066x down to $110. That's another all-time low and about $15 off that model's usual going rate.

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If you've missed picking up the latest Apple Watch in past sales, now's your chance. The Apple Watch Series 9 is back down to its record-low price thanks to a 25 percent discount. The 41mm smartwatch is on sale right now for $299, down from $399. The deal is only available on the model with a Midnight aluminum case and a matching nylon sports loop.

The Apple Watch Series 9 debuted last September and garnered a 92 in our review. We even named it our pick for 2024's best overall smartwatch. One of the biggest changes for the Series 9 was the addition of Double Tap. This feature allows you to bring your thumb and index finger together (on the watch-wearing hand) to activate controls like hanging up a call. The Apple Watch Series 9 is also the first in its lineup to offer on-device Siri. This shift means Siri works a bit faster and is also available even when your watch is offline.

The Series 9 smartwatch offers a comprehensive range of health features, including a heart rate monitor, sleep monitoring and cycle tracking. Plus, as an added bonus, the Apple Watch Series 9 is carbon neutral, so you can feel a little better about buying another device.

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Long before Gmail became smart enough to finish your sentences, Google’s now-ubiquitous email service was buttering up the public for a fate that defined the internet age: if you’re not paying for the product, you are the product.

When Gmail was announced on April 1, 2004, its lofty promises and the timing of its release reportedly had people assuming it was a joke. It wasn’t the first web-based email provider — Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail had already been around for years — but Gmail was offering faster service, automatic conversation grouping for messages, integrated search functions and 1GB of storage, which was at the time a huge leap forward in personal cloud storage. Google in its press release boasted that a gigabyte was “more than 100 times” what its competitors offered. All of that, for free.

Except, as Gmail and countless tech companies in its wake have taught us, there’s no such thing as free. Using Gmail came with a tradeoff that’s now commonplace: You get access to its service, and in exchange, Google gets your data. Specifically, its software could scan the contents of account holders’ emails and use that information to serve them personalized ads on the site’s sidebar. For better or worse, it was a groundbreaking approach.

“Depending on your take, Gmail is either too good to be true, or it’s the height of corporate arrogance, especially coming from a company whose house motto is ‘Don’t Be Evil,’” tech journalist Paul Boutin wrote for Slate when Gmail launched. (Boutin, one of its early media testers, wrote favorably about Google’s email scanning but suggested the company implement a way for users to opt out lest they reject it entirely.)

There was immediate backlash from those who considered Gmail to be a privacy nightmare, yet it grew — and generated a lot of hype, thanks to its invite-only status in the first few years, which spurred a reselling market for Gmail invitations at upwards of $150 a pop, according to TIME. Google continued its ad-related email scanning practices for over a decade, despite the heat, carrying on through Gmail’s public rollout in 2007 and well into the 2010s, when it really started gaining traction.

And why not? If Gmail proved anything, it was that people would, for the most part, accept such terms. Or at least not care enough to read the fine-print closely. In 2012, Gmail became the world’s largest email service, with 425 million active users.

Other sites followed Google’s lead, baking similar deals into their terms of service, so people’s use of the product would automatically mean consent to data collection and specified forms of sharing. Facebook started integrating targeted ads based on its users’ online activities in 2007, and the practice has since become a pillar of social media’s success.

Things have changed a lot in recent years, though, with the rise of a more tech-savvy public and increased scrutiny from regulators. Gmail users on multiple occasions attempted to bring about class-action lawsuits over the scanning issue, and in 2017, Google finally caved. That year, the company announced that regular Gmail users’ emails would no longer be scanned for ad personalization (paid enterprise Gmail accounts already had this treatment).

Google, of course, still collects users’ data in other ways and uses the information to serve hyper-relevant ads. It still scans emails too, both for security purposes and to power some of its smart features. And the company came under fire again in 2018 after The Wall Street Journal revealed it was allowing third-party developers to trawl users’ Gmail inboxes, to which Google responded by reminding users it was within their power to grant and revoke those permissions. As CNET reporters Laura Hautala and Richard Nieva wrote then, Google’s response more or less boiled down to: “This is what you signed up for.”

Really, what users signed up for was a cutting-edge email platform that ran laps around the other services at the time, and in many ways still does. It made the privacy concerns, for some, easier to swallow. From its inception, Gmail set the bar pretty high with its suite of free features. Users could suddenly send files of up to 25MB and check their email from anywhere as long as they had access to an internet connection and a browser, since it wasn’t locked to a desktop app.

It popularized the cloud as well as the Javascript technique AJAX, Wired noted in a piece for Gmail’s 10-year anniversary. This made Gmail dynamic, allowing the inbox to automatically refresh and surface new messages without the user clicking buttons. And it more or less did away with spam, filtering out junk messages.

Still, when Gmail first launched, it was considered by many to be a huge gamble for Google — which had already established itself with its search engine. “A lot of people thought it was a very bad idea, from both a product and a strategic standpoint,” Gmail creator Paul Buchheit told TIME in 2014. “The concern was this didn’t have anything to do with web search.”

Things obviously worked out alright, and Gmail’s dominion has only strengthened. Gmail crossed the one billion user mark in 2016, and its numbers have since doubled. It’s still leading the way in email innovation, 20 years after it first went online, integrating increasingly advanced features to make the process of receiving and responding to emails (which, let’s be honest, is a dreaded daily chore for a lot of us) much easier. Gmail may eventually have changed its approach to data collection, but the precedent it set is now deeply enmeshed in the exchange of services on the internet; companies take what data they can from consumers while they can and ask for forgiveness later.

In October, Microsoft unbundled Teams from Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites in the European Union and Switzerland to avoid potential fines. Now, the company is expanding this offering, selling Microsoft Teams separately from Microsoft 365 and Office 365 worldwide, Reuters reports. "Doing so also addresses feedback from the European Commission by providing multinational companies more flexibility when they want to standardise their purchasing across geographies," a Microsoft spokesperson told the publication.

Current users can now choose to keep their current deal or switch to one of the separate offerings — especially helpful for anyone who uses the Office suite but prefers another communication service like Zoom or Google Meet. Commercial customers new to Microsoft's offerings can pick up Teams on its own for $5.25, while Office sans Teams is going for anywhere from $7.75 to $54.75.

Microsoft's journey to unbundling Teams and Office started in 2020 when Slack filed an antitrust complaint with the EU. The now Salesforce-owned company alleged that it was illegal to include Teams in the Office suite and that Microsoft was blocking customers from removing the chat platform. The European Commission has subsequently been investigating this matter, with Microsoft announcing in April 2023 that it would separate Teams from Microsoft 35 and Office 365. Though the move went into effect last fall, Microsoft is still at risk of owing the EU a hefty fine if found to have broken antitrust laws.