Protecting Your Privacy while Online

With all the talk about SOPA, VPPA, PIPA and all the other anti-piracy measures being pushed by the various special interest groups and big media conglomerates it is easy to forget how many of these companies make their money by using your information, either for themselves or selling it to 3rd parties.




Shouldn't you have more control over how your information is being used?

Happy New Year 2012

 

As the new year fast approaches, even faster if you live in Samoa, I'd like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Happy New Year 2012.

It has been a tough year for businesses and no doubt 2012 will be just as tough. However there have been many positive stories and plenty of new opportunities for businesses. It is now the survival of the fittest, and to be honest, that is the way it should be.

Privacy, You and Your Business - EU Directives

In May 2011, a Europe wide directive was passed relating to data protection and processing of data. The directive (Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) (Amendment) Regulations 2011 for those who are interested!) set outs how information can and cannot be used by data controllers.

As with many EU directives, there is room for interpretation but I've outlined the basics of this particular directive below. 

Facebook Changes

So Mr Zuckerberg has changed his social media site, yet again! Annoying? Slightly. But the network needs to continue to evolve for fear it would become stagnant and end up in the dusty vaults of social media history along with Bebo and Myspace.

One of the main concerns of people is of course their privacy, which is completely understandable. Changes to the network ultimately means changes to how information is spread.

Below I've outlined a few simple steps you can take to make your Facebook account more private.

Old Advertisements

In the words of Moby, We've come along way baby.

But have we?

Advertising has developed at an astonishing rate and of course regulations have tried to keep pace.

Of course we laugh at the silliness and non p.c. manner of these adverts of old but we do need to look at how we advertise today.

While the adverts below may have stereotyped women as simple domestic beings, since then there has been a trend to basically falsify images and create unachievable aims, again targeted towards women.

Even the so called beautiful women of the world are having every flaw air brushed and fixed to provide the perfect canvass on which products can be sold. If the gorgeous elite are not pretty enough to be seen unedited in magazines, then the mere mortals who are being targeted by the advertisers have no chance.

HP Touchpad Sale

So with the strike of a pen, or a a long winded email from the CEO, the fancy new HP Touchpad was given a death sentence.

Originally marketed  as a competitor to Apple's Ipad, its adoption failed to materialise leaving egg on the face of those within HP who had back it. Then came the extraordinary news that was music to the hears of consumers: the quick fire sale of HP Touchpad 16Gb and HP Touchpad 32gb. Within hours, stock was snapped up by eager bargin hunters who managed to get them at $99 a pop. A fraction of its $599 price tag when launched a couple of weeks earlier. According to sources within the larger retailers in Ireland, queues formed from 6am to try and nab the cut price Touchpad.

For the company, this is definitely not the kind of publicity they want or need, and their share price over the past 24 hours has reflected this.