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15 February 2014

Discussing digital privacy for Hitachi Data Systems

Australia’s new privacy laws come into force on 12 March. On 12 February, four weeks before the new laws come into force, I hosted a panel discussion on dealing with these new law for Hitachi Data Systems.

The panelists were lawyer Alec Christie, a partner in the intellectual property and technology practice of global law firm DLA Piper; Jodie Sangster, chief executive officer of ADMA, the Association for Data-driven Marketing and Advertising (which used to be called the Australian Direct Marketing Association); and Adrian De Luca, chief technology officer for Hitachi Data Systems in the Asia-Pacific region.

Over the fold is the full 58-minute video. This was done as a Google Hangout, and since there were some internet glitches the video is a bit glitchy too, but the content itself is great.

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10 February 2014

Weekly Wrap 192: Calm, too calm, too quiet

My week of Monday 3 to Sunday 9 February 2014 was, as I predicted last week, a quiet one, thanks to what now appears to be a distinct monthly cycle. We shall have to do something about that.

I shan’t list all the empty sections to this post, revealing that there weren’t any final media outputs — except of course for the daily 5at5 email letter, as I’m calling it. Why I started doing a new thing that generates no revenue is beyond my understanding. I mean, I explained it last week, but the explanation doesn’t make any sense.

However I did do quite a bit of preparation for the coming week…

The Week Ahead

I’m likely to be in the Blue Mountains through until Friday or Saturday, but as always that might change at very short notice.

There’s two key structuring events this week. On Wednesday I’m moderating a panel discussion on Australia’s new privacy laws for Hitachi Data Systems. That’s at 1200 AEDT, and it’s a Google Hangout so you can watch from wherever you are. And on Sunday I’m heading to the Gold Coast for the annual Kickstart Forum, where my tech press co-conspirators and I will be propagandised for three days.

Somewhere in there I may construct some paragraphs for money.

31 January 201405 February 2014

Adventures in Identity: Still struggling with Google+

On Wednesday I decided to see if I could finally sort out my Google+ profile, which was suspended around two and a half years ago. I didn’t really get anywhere, but I did discover some new and different frustrations.

First, the back story…

Google+ screenshot 1: see text for a description

As the first screenshot (above) says, “Your profile [that is, my profile] was suspected because it violates our names policy.” That’s because back in 2011, Google required that names consist of at least two words. To get something that looked close to my single-word name (a “mononym”), I’d entered it as “Stilgherrian .” But the full stop (“period” for American readers) isn’t allowed, and the profile was suspended.

I was so frustrated by that, and even more so by Google’s arrogant-seeming error messages, that I wrote an infamous expletive-filled blog post — which got more than 100,000 unique viewers on the first day. Even now, two and a half years later, it sometimes gets a couple hundred readers a month.

Since then, Google had supposedly started allowing people to display their “nicknames” (that is, pseudonyms”), at least in some contexts, so I figured that I’d give it another go. It wouldn’t worry me too much if I was “Stilgherrian Stilgherrian” under the hood, as long as my name was displayed properly.

So I clicked on “Take action”…

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27 January 201427 January 2014

Talking digital privacy and Apple refunds on 1395 FIVEaa

I continue to be pleased that digital privacy issues are getting more and more coverage in the mainstream media — such as the interview I did last Monday 20 January with radio 1395 FIVEaa in Adelaide.

Presenter Will Goodings had spotted the story of Turnstyle Solutions in Toronto, who can track people around town via their smartphones and use that location data for marketing.

Rather stupidly, I talk about Australia’s Privacy Act being “under review” when in fact that review is well over and the new Privacy Act comes into force on 12 March.

We also spoke about the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) forcing Apple to refund $35 million to customers who’d had their kids make what they felt were unauthorised in-app purchases on their iDevices.

It’s something the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has been concerned about too, and they have a page to explain how you can block in-app purchases or complain to Apple or Google.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (5.3MB)

27 December 2013

Most popular posts of 2013

As we approach the end of 2013, I’m going to do my usual series of blog posts looking back at what actually happened on this little planet. This is the first, being a list of the most-read posts on this website.

There hasn’t been a lot to choose from in the last couple of years, because most of my writing is done elsewhere these days. That means some rather mundane pieces of writing, such as Weekly Wrap posts, end up on the list. That’s possibly an argument for abandoning this little exercise.

Catchup posts within 36 hours was the most popular post of all, which makes no sense whatsoever because it’s routine administrivia. I suspect the visitor count has been artificially inflated somehow, though supposedly the traffic generated by spambots has already been removed.
My tweets from TechEd Australia 2012’s keynote sessions, a post that was linked to from news stories that reported me having been banned from attending Microsoft’s TechEd conference. My own blog post on this issue is coming up at number 5.
Guardian Australia not the droid you’re looking for, being my reaction against all the excitement generated in January 2013 by the announcement that there would soon be an Australian edition of this news masthead.
My fish are dead: the black dog ate them (an explanation?), being my rather idiosyncratic announcement and discussion of the fact that I’d been dealing with a severe depression episode, published in July.
Microsoft has banned me from covering TechEd, which is self-explanatory.
Choosing my next media directions: you’re doing it, OK?, from May.
Vodafone Australia’s new 4G network ain’t bad, being the write-up of my trial of the network which led to that conclusion.
Weekly Wrap 152: LulzSec, Optus, radio and thinking stuff, which I suspect is only in the Top 10 because it mentions LulzSec.
Weekly Wrap 155: Chemtrails, elitism and much thinking, ditto, chemtrails.
Sydney Harbour “giant gambling den” bullshit reportage, from January.

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24 December 2013

Talking Google and privacy on The Project

Screenshot from The Project, 13 December 2013 On Friday 13 December I recorded some grabs for the Channel TEN program The Project, which were used that night in a story about Google’s idea of putting microphones in your house so that their “digital assistant” software could figure out how it could help you next.

I was amazed that Google would even suggest this idea so soon after they were linked to Edward Snowden’s revelations about the US National Security Agency (NSA). But then again, Google is a many-headed hydra of an organisation. It can walk and chew gum at the same time. Badly.

The Project only ended up using two of the grabs, but over the fold you’ll find the video of the entire four-minute segment — including some guy called Mark Pesce in the studio, talking to the panel.

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