My rector was a military man for over 30 years. He’s told us many times that two principles for effective leadership were drilled into him above all others:

1. Lead from the front; &
2. Give a damn.

The second principle is the hardest because it requires prioritization. 1/

One can’t care about everything equally. There’s simply not enough mental and moral energy to go around. And one shouldn’t care about all things equally.

Part of the reason that so many are on a diet of Rolaids and Pepcid is because they care too much about the wrong things. 2/
This is one reason I stopped watching the news well over a year ago. Most of what made the veins on my forehead beat like a kettle drum consisted of things I couldn’t change and shouldn’t even be worrying over. 3/
Instead, I decided to focus on my interior life and my church and family. I think all three are better for it.

St. Paul tells us to concern ourselves with cultivating personal virtue as an antidote to anxiety (Phil. 4:6-8). 4/
To think on such things is hard work. It requires guarding ourselves against the transitory and ephemeral distractions that do nothing but distract us and destroy our peace. Ultimately, to care rightly, we can’t care about most things. 5/
This seems counterintuitive but I suggest that it is an act of faith. It is an admission of our finitude (we really can’t pull the world up by its bootstraps if we worry enough), and a confession that God is God and we are not. So we pray and leave Him to do the heavy lifting. 6/
For our part, we study to be quiet and to do our own business and to work with our own hands in our own back yards.

In this way we are able to care about those things that need the greatest care, and will be able to “lead from the front” and truly “give a damn.” Fin/

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Recently, the @CNIL issued a decision regarding the GDPR compliance of an unknown French adtech company named "Vectaury". It may seem like small fry, but the decision has potential wide-ranging impacts for Google, the IAB framework, and today's adtech. It's thread time! 👇

It's all in French, but if you're up for it you can read:
• Their blog post (lacks the most interesting details):
https://t.co/PHkDcOT1hy
• Their high-level legal decision: https://t.co/hwpiEvjodt
• The full notification: https://t.co/QQB7rfynha

I've read it so you needn't!

Vectaury was collecting geolocation data in order to create profiles (eg. people who often go to this or that type of shop) so as to power ad targeting. They operate through embedded SDKs and ad bidding, making them invisible to users.

The @CNIL notes that profiling based off of geolocation presents particular risks since it reveals people's movements and habits. As risky, the processing requires consent — this will be the heart of their assessment.

Interesting point: they justify the decision in part because of how many people COULD be targeted in this way (rather than how many have — though they note that too). Because it's on a phone, and many have phones, it is considered large-scale processing no matter what.