Dumpling in a Hanky

On the 21st of this month, I received an email from a company*, advertising their upcoming online seminar, and various other online courses they ran, including ones on the Data Protection Act, and information security. Since I wasn't interested in their courses, and didn't remember signing up to receive any marketing materials from this company,  I clicked on the unsubscribe link. However, when the unsubscribe page opened, the name and email fields were already completed...and none of the information was mine. In fact, the email address was for a Junior School in Portsmouth (edited version below). This is not great, in terms of information security...you know, that thing they're running online courses on? So, I replied to them within an hour, pointing out that the information in those fields was not mine, and they might want to do something about that. To date, I've not received an acknowledgement of my email, or any form of response. I was also not alone in r...

Quite literally, the small print. I wanted to try and download voicemails from my phone (call me sentimental, but in years to come, I might be happy to still be able to hear my Mum leaving rambling messages about what insane item she's found for me on eBay today), which appears to actually be quite a difficult thing to do. Multiple forums recommended various techniques involving cables, computers, headphones and microphones, but that's all a bit complex for me, and I decided to try one of the free apps that claimed to be able to manage voicemails. I did the sign-up, email, password etc, but I thought "hey, since this mini-computerabob that I'm carrying everywhere has access to a LOT of information about me and my life...maybe I'd better actually read the terms and conditions that I have to confirm that I agree with?". After all, there's plenty of stories about w hat can happen if you allow apps or services access to your phone without considering it. ...

So, it's safe to say it's a Bad Thing when there's a breach of security and confidentiality in a meeting between a solicitor and client. So when a technician from Cable and Wireless intruded into a client meeting by popping up on a monitor int he meeting room, that can't exactly have put a smile on many faces... However, I personally like to imagine the technician popping up, and doing this:

So, I bought a can of Coke. It had a code under the ring pull, that advised you to either text (for a cost), or visit the Coke Zone website, to see if you'd won a prize. So, I toddled off to the website, entered the code, and hit return. Oh. I got a pop-up, telling me to log in if I was a member, or register if I was a new user. It wouldn't tell me if I'd won anything without me being a member. Which is annoying - I don't mind giving my details in exchange for certain things, but in order to find out if I'd maybe won a prize? No ta. So I decided to look at the Coke Zone privacy policy (which you must agree to in order to register with the site). I ran into a problem here - when I clicked on the link, I got nothing. Well, I got a page, with a big expanse of white where the content should be. I was using Chrome, so I decided to try Internet Explorer....yay! The content was all there! So I wondered if it was just me and Chrome that had issues viewing the content...nop...

I knew it was a bad idea signing up to that thing! :-) I did know about not being able to delete your account , but it's one of those things, you only want to be able to do it in concept, you want the option, but might well never use it. I know I wouldn't actually bother deleting my MySpace, Bebo or Facebook accounts, mainly because I occasionally get contact from people through them, there's nothing on them that's 'dodgy', and they're an amusing way to while away some time sometimes (but would people puhlease stop trying to turn me into a vampire on Facebook?!!?). But what about those people who signed up with their 'proper' name, then reconsidered their membership later? I know of people who've adopted a child, and don't want the childs 'interesting' family to be able to find them after...how do they get themselves off it? Or the people who've unfortunately become the object of some over-attentive online friends obsession? I as...

Honestly, I'm not obsessive, really, they just seem to be pretty active just now! Google have opened up their internal blog on their public policies , to allow users to see what their views are on various important areas such as privacy, content regulation etc. Which is pretty interesting, but I've got to say, I'm not sure I entirely trust any organisation when they say 'look how honest and open we're being'...probably cos I know there are very, very few of them who will be! But it's a pretty good attempt to make more transparent the internal workings of a section of a massive corporation.

So, I confess my dirty librarian secret: I really like Google. I know I'm meant to be an expert online, using the most appropriate search engine for whatever information I'm looking for (I keep meaning to try to use Sputtr for that too, even though the name sounds like it's an asthmatic with a cold, but never quite remember), but... Google works so WELL! And it allows you to personalise it with iGoogle , and narrow searches to UK only, and that's lovely! But, I do worry about what they do with my data. After all, to personalise to iGoogle, you must be logged in. Which means every search you do is logged against your user name / ID, and whatever other information about yourself you've given them. Even if you've not said where you live, your searches are likely to do that. Been on holiday recently? Researched that on Google when logged in? That data's been recorded too. Looked for recipes? Childcare tips? Been looking for a new job? Snap. Although it may be a...