I just don’t use it, I turned off the email address and I haven’t installed the apps anywhere. I actually don’t know that I have the email address anymore, I was using Apple’s hide my email thing but than the boycott started and I started cutting back services. I went to the max with email though, got myself a domain and a service provider that could host unlimited emails and started changing my email on every thing so now I get next to no spam.

If I do get spam I decide if I really need the account and if it is a yes I create a new address and close the old one. Because I like seeing what else I can do, today I found out my vaultwarden has a leak/pwnd detector.

I've done all I am/was permitted to do, as far as I know at least. Lobbying directly tends to require registering as a lobbyist if you're pushing for government changes -- which is what it'd take to try and sort out the BC FSA's entanglements with US tech and approach to regulating in favour of mergers/big tech platforms.

By having done all I could -- an example: I was part of the system-team providing feedback to the BC FSA regarding their Outsourcing rules. I specifically, and repeatedly, brought up things like Microsoft -- the outsourcing rules spoke about concentration risks, for example, and I flagged MS immediately for obvious reasons. Both the regulators, and my peers in the CU industry, all basically said "MS doesn't count for this" to avoid the issue. I even had discussions with industry lawyers (not cheap! luckily semi pro bono!), where the lawyers essentially advised that because the legal system viewed the US law process as similar to Canadas, and Canada would hand over whatever data requested anyway, it was fine to cut out the middle man and just sorta ignore the jurisdiction issues. A position that, pre-Trump, was basically the status quo.

To push that sort of thing further, I would need to either go to the Press (and lose my job / ability to be employed in the industry -- and it'd be a non-starter as the press didn't give a shit about this pre-2025), start trying to lobby the Board of the BC FSA (again, job lost for overstepping role/function -- I'm not a CEO or anything of that level), or start lobbying the govt MLA's directly on the subject (I'd have needed funding/backing, which wasn't there as the industry was complicit/not wanting to change -- and I'd need to register as a lobbyist / effectively change careers to that full time). None of those really seemed all that viable / realistic to effect a change. I'm also not overly charismatic/obsequious, so lobbying would be a bad fit personality-wise.

And as noted, there's only 1 CU left that's got a non-US entangled back-end -- and it's likely going poof. Even the public doesn't care enough about this stuff to bring it up. Like I bet there hasn't been a single credit union AGM where the membership has stood up and asked "How sovereign is our data, and what are your plans to ensure our data and financial institution is not at risk due to American aggression?", or even a blunt "How screwed are we if America announces its "blockading" all cloud services from Canadian companies?". I doubt anyone has gone to a CU and asked how it compares on that front to their peers, or used that criteria as a basis for where to have their accounts. And an insider cant ask those questions publicly at an AGM, or else they will get fired/no longer be an insider -- that sort of question prompted to the board and management, publicly, would almost definitely get a negative response / embarrass the organization. It may even result in lost business due to the poor answers. Even more, as many times regulators are in the room at AGMs, it'd likely cause problems for the org with the regulators -- regulators who have actively declared they want to shrink the industry / force more into the cloud.

Those regulators could then essentially punish the org through punitive CUDIC fees (they control the industry's deposit insurance rates, with most of an orgs rate set by a non-transparent subjective process on the FSA's side) -- something I've seen them do, costing orgs around 10-20% of their annual income in additional 'penalties'. They basically declare a smaller CU as "risky" to the entire system, and increase those rates to try and kill the CU off. It's an absurd take though -- a CU that's less than say $500m is absolutely no risk to CUDIC as CUDIC could fully cover the CU going under (especially since everything's securitized by real estate), but a CU of Vancity's size is considered low risk because its "too big to fail", in that the CUDIC fund couldn't cover them if they flopped, and the BC Govt would need to step in. The FSA considers Vancity less of a risk to the ENTIRE financial system, than a podunk CU in some backwater.