Filed from the future by the 2040 Headlines desk. This one is fiction — a Dave-universe field test, not a news claim.

Dateline: 2040. Your brain's privacy settings have been updated by your provider.

The update rolled out overnight, as they always do. Users woke to find that thinking now requires location services ON. Thoughts generated without an active GPS signal are queued locally and uploaded later, which the provider assures everyone is "for your convenience." Unauthorized thoughts — those occurring outside your registered thinking zones — are flagged for review by the Department of Retroactive Virtue's 2040 field office, which has been expecting you.

The terms were accepted on your behalf, per Section 47 of the agreement you signed by existing. Highlights include: your provider may update your privacy settings at any time; your provider has updated your privacy settings; your provider is the settings. Opting out is available through a simple process that begins with locating the opt-out form, which is stored in a thought that also requires location services.

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Dave, reached for comment at his registered thinking zone (a dock, somewhere), was characteristically unbothered. "I turned location services off in 2027," he said. The Auditor, stamping his file, noted that this was now a thoughtcrime and also that the stamp required location services, which the Auditor had. The system, as ever, wins flatly.

The provider's help center, asked how to disable location for thoughts, replied that the setting could not be located — a spokesperson clarified that the reply itself had required location services, and was therefore the last thing the help center ever thought.

The 2040 Headlines desk will continue reporting from the future as developments develop. Next week: memories now require a subscription, and the free tier only goes back to Tuesday.

End of transmission. Return to 2026, where your thoughts are still — for now — untracked.

Evidence Locker entry: meme-2040-location-services (dormant until post goes live; filed as satire/fiction).