Aegon and the Great British Pension Robbery

Aegon expects you to have read its terms and conditions.  In fact if you haven’t read their terms and conditions they’ll refuse to enrol you into their schemes.  Now we all know that people don’t usually read the t’s and c’s – we all just tick the box – especially as companies don’t make their t’s and c’s user friendly – they’re usually full of legalese and cross referenced – I’m sure that corporate lawyers can understand them but – you and I – the people who are supposed to be protected by them – can’t!

I recently tried to combine my workplace pensions (my company decided it would be a good thing – for them – to change the pension a few years ago) and on my second telephone call (plus emails btw) I was asked had I read the terms and conditions.  I was informed that they ran to 180 pages – I kid you not – I asked her to repeat this figure several times – and because I said obviously I hadn’t read them she refused to do what I had requested – so I’m moving my money elsewhere – to hell with them.

Now I have already identified that the wording of these terms and conditions will be painful for the average human being to read AND then understand what they mean to him or her so here is a list of books – yes that’s right whole books – some of them classics which are under 200 pages….

Here’s just a few of them, how about:

• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Animal Farm by George Orwell
• The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

I’m sure a lot of us will have read one of more of these books – but just how long did it take, did you have to go back and re-read bits, did you understand what was going on whilst you were reading a passage or did you have to look elsewhere before you could fully understand it?

…and these were primarily for entertainment, your pension and future life wouldn’t be impacted if you failed to grasp the subtle meaning of a phrase here and there…

I’m going to try and find the document/s that make up this 180 pages and post them here for your enjoyment.  But in the meantime here are some short stories to keep you going…

Here’s just a few of their documents they expect you to have read.

• For customers | Aegon Retirement Choices – 94 pages
• For customers | One Retirement – 76 pages
• For customers | The Aegon Platform – 55 pages

…and there are loads – and of course every so often they update them – it is beyond the wit of man to keep up with them – but of course that’s exactly what they want!

I shall return to this topic once I have completed my download task!!

Watch this space!!

Things the world can do without – part 2

Profiteering

Disproportionately large or grossly unfair profit, generated often through manipulation of prices, abuse of dominant position, or by exploiting a bad or unusual situation such as temporary scarcity. There is usually no governmental control over profiteering unless it involves illegal means or the government can be arsed to sort it as it benefits their cronies!!

Think about the privatisation of power supply – I mean how has that benefits us, the masses?  Answer not one iota!  You’ve got the likes of Scottish Power and their friends constantly claiming that costs need to rise (presumably so they can pay their own bonuses) yet the service that you and I receive is appalling.

Apple is another company that has promoted profiteering – and sadly the rest of the mobile industry has caught on – I mean when you can buy a touchscreen 15″ laptop with shed-loads of memory (RAM and ROM) and a whole host of components and that massive screen for around £300 – why does a phone have to cost £1,500?  Simple – so Tim Apple can sit on a $285Bn cashpile – that’s why!

 

 

Donald Trump aka f**kwit!

Donald Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States on Nov. 8, 2016. He has been a real estate developer, entrepreneur and host of the NBC reality show, “The Apprentice.”  Trump’s statements were awarded PolitiFact’s 2015 and 2017 Lie of the Year.

Born and raised in New York City, Trump is married to Melania Trump, a former model from Slovenia. Trump has five children and eight grandchildren. Three of his children, Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric, serve as executive vice presidents of the Trump Organization.

Basically he’s a self-publicist and a liar!  Here are some of his lies…

• “The Democrat(ic) position on abortion is now so extreme that they don’t mind executing babies AFTER birth.”
• California’s deadly wildfires “would never happen” with “proper Forest Management.”
• Says 3,000 people “did not die” in two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. That death toll estimate was “done by Democrats.”

He claims to know more about almost anything than anyone else and that he is an extremely (perhaps the most) successful businessman ever…really?

Well here are some of his business failures:

• Trump Airlines
• Trump beverages
• Trump the game
• Trump casinos
• Trump magazine
• Trump mortgage
• Trump travel site
• Trumpnet
• Trump University

Yeah basically he’s the son of a successful businessman who is pissing his father’s inheritance up against the wall – and sadly forcing us to watch.

Putin’s calendars

One month, there’s Vladimir Putin topless in the woods with a gun. On the next page, he’s fishing in a white button-down shirt and trousers. No, they’re not pictures from the Russian president’s eHarmony page.

They’re from a calendar devoted to pictures of Putin that make him look strong, yet likeable. P-lease!

Enough of this fake fandom – this is an odious individual with a personal image complex.  We do not need to see images of Vlad topless (unless he’s missing his head that is) nor on horseback, nor cuddling leopards, holding up gigantic fish or even petting fluffy (but sufficiently manly large) dogs!

And of course it’s only going to get worse.. Those man-boobs are going to sag further, the bingo wings will develop and the comb-over will slide further and further back.  Vlad it’s not going to look pretty so just stop it please.  you know it makes sense!

Brussel Sprouts

“19 things you didn’t know about Brussel Sprouts”, yep somebody (Olivia Parker) actually wrote an article in the Daily Telegraph on that very subject – and some of them defy belief – powering Christmas trees ffs??

I can tell you a number of things about sprouts – they are, most definitely, the spawn of the devil, not only do they smell disgusting when being cooked they taste disgusting too.  Any recipe which includes sprouts as one of the ingredients like Brussel Sprouts with Bacon & Chestnuts will ruin those other ingredients – instantly!

Frequently sprouts are boiled to the consistency of Ulva Lactuca – otherwise known as Sea Lettuce – it’s an algae and frankly pretty gelatinous once cooked.

They’re now an integral part of Christmas – though lord knows why – some have suggested that it appears to be a case of timing. Not only is sprout season slap bang in the middle of Christmas, but the modern roast dinner was invented around the same time that sprouts were first imported to a large scale.

Either way they’re disgusting and we don’t need them – I’ll get my vitamin C from an orange every time!

 

Trophy Hunters & Poachers

Trophy hunters, those who kill animals for recreation rather than out of necessity, imported more than 1.26 million trophies to the U.S. in the decade from 2005 through 2014, according to an analysis of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s import data by Humane Society International and the Humane Society of United States. That’s an average of 126,000 trophy imports a year, or 345 a day!  And that’s disgusting!

I’m delighted to see that there’s a Facebook page dedicated to publicising the morons who think that killing animals for sport is perfectly acceptable thing to do!

Poachers are doing the same thing put this time for money, think of all the elephants and rhinos that are systematically slaughtered for some ludicrous alternative therapy or for the vanity of many around the world.

An estimated 100 African elephants are killed each day by poachers seeking ivory, meat and body parts, leaving only 400,000 remaining. An insatiable lust for ivory products in the Asian market makes the illegal ivory trade extremely profitable, and has led to the slaughter of tens of thousands of African elephants.

In just a decade, more than 7,912 African rhinos have been lost to poaching.

Enough is enough people!

Middle lane dawdlers

The British really do have some appalling diseases and this is one of their worst, an almost pathological fear of being in the inside lane on a motorway.

New fixed penalties were intended to reduce the number of people lane hogging and carrying out other acts of careless driving on UK motorways, but it’s still prevalent today.

With the number of traffic police falling, it’s increasingly difficult for police to fine lane hoggers, and it’s not something that can be monitored using cameras in the same way speeding can.

Education, rather than punishment, is a more viable way of reducing the number of lane hoggers in the long term.

The Government has announced motorway lessons for learner drivers will be an option from 2018, but they will not be mandatory. If learner drivers were given practical lessons in lane discipline, this would help reduce the number of lane hoggers.

Wasps

Not the rugby club, nor even the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants but the annoying stingey, stripey things that appear to serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever.  Wasps aren’t just annoying – if you are unlucky, you might end up with a sharp reminder that wasps, like their close relatives the honeybee, pack a powerful sting. That combination of nuisance and pain makes wasps many people’s least favourite animals.

Unlike bees, the vast majority of wasps play no role in pollination – at all – however according to scientists from University College London (UCL) and the University of Gloucestershire a world without wasps would be a world with a very much larger number of insect pests on our crops and gardens!

Apparently the social wasps that irritate us sooo much consume 14 million kilograms of insect prey across the summer!  Hmm I’m still not convinced that I think there’s a better way!!

Right – that’s enough for part 2.  In part three we’ll finally get to topics such as whaling, Irish pubs, Scottish Power, tattoos and yes, RyanAir!!

 

 

Things the world can do without – part 1

This is in no particular order – other than that’s the order I wrote them down in initially – I was having a coffee at Wisley – the Royal Horticultural Society’s gardens in surrey when the idea/s came to mind.  This list is definitely not exhaustive – I’m sure more will come to mind as I’m writing it – and yes maybe it is cathartic – so ignore what some people might say – when it is done it is sorted, packaged and filed away – and the world is once again a pinker and fluffier place 🙂

So let’s get stuck right in:

Nigel Farage

Let’s be honest – what a twat!  A lying, self publicist who slags things on one hand whilst trousering their dollars with the other.  Like Boris Johnson (see later) he shifts his position with the wind.  He’ll spin a story, bend the truth, hide the evidence and generally slither around like the odious piece of human excrement he resembles.

One of these days the media is going to realise that he’s a clown, and deny him the air of publicity he thrives on.  Go on Nigel bugger off – for good!

Christopher Chope

Like Farage before him this man also smells of shit.  But this one is actually worse. This insane individual who believes that he is really helping by blocking the sort of legislation that needs to get through Parliament asap because there is some itty-bitty technical misspelling or something needs to be de-selected as a matter or urgency.

He claimed £136,992 in parliamentary expenses in 2007-8.

He helped to lead backbench support for the motion calling for a referendum to leave the European Union.

He voted against the legislation for same-sex marriage in 2013.

He voted against requiring all companies with more than 250 employees to declare the gap in pay between the average male and average female salaries.

He objected to the second reading of the Alan Turing (Statutory Pardon) Bill.

He blocked the passage of a private member’s bill that would have made upskirting a specific offence.

He objected to a bill which would have amended the Children Act 1989 in order to increase the protective power of courts over girls at risk of female genital mutiliation.

He really is a self-centred nasty, mean minded individual.  We need him out of our lives – pronto!!

Chris Grayling

This one is more dangerous as he has more power (unbelievably).  He’s held any number of high level government posts – yep at Ministerial level.  but there’s one thing that marks his tenure at each of these and that’s his complete incompetence.  He really is a fuckwit!

The list of his cock-ups is legendary, Owen Jones, writing in the Guardian sets them out far better than I could 🙂

The following is a direct lift from his wikipedia page:

He published a number of books as well as working for the BBC and Channel 4 before going into politics. A member of the Social Democratic Party until 1988, he then joined the Conservatives. First elected to Parliament in the 2001 general election for Epsom and Ewell, he was appointed to the Shadow Cabinet of David Cameron in 2005 as Shadow Secretary of State for Transport.

From 2007 he became the Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and in 2009 he was appointed Shadow Home Secretary. Following the 2010 general election and the formation of the Coalition Government, Grayling was made the Minister of State for Employment.

In September 2012, he was appointed to the UK Cabinet as the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice from 2012 to 2015. He was the first non-lawyer to have served as Lord Chancellor for at least 440 years. He was the Leader of the House of Commons and the Lord President of the Council between 2015 and 2016.

I’m flabbergasted….how can this happen?

Momentum

Momentum describes itself as a new kind of politics.  Really?  Seems pretty Stalinist to me – with its attempts to erase any form of alternative viewpoint than Saint Jeremy’s anaemic view of the world.  Hmm what it has actually done is to polarise things. So rather than build momentum behind getting rid of the Tories and installing a decent Labour government it has alienated a large chunk of the centre Labour vote.  so much so that even this ludicrously incompetent Tory government is still ahead in the pools after all the crap they’ve dumped on the British public- it really beggars belief!

Infuriatingly Saint Jeremy has contributed to this by basking in their fawning glory and refusing to have any sensible opinions of his own!!  Twat!

Momentum isn’t all bad – getting everyone eligible to vote on the list is a good thing, as is opposing the Tories per se but they’ve just gone about a lot of things the wrong way.  We don’t need them.

Racism

I’m sorry but I really really don’t understand why the colour of a person’s skin should make any difference what so ever.  People are people – some are nice, and some are nasty, some are funny – some aren’t, some are criminals – some aren’t. In fact it clearly isn’t just the “colour” of your skin it’s the “shade” of the colour of your skin.

This is getting ludicrous.

I’m white and I’ve experienced racism and it isn’t good – but that was a single occasion and it was over fast.  I can’t imagine what it must be like to experience it – day in, day out.  But focus on the core issue not some spurious argument based on tribal differences.

 

Religion

Where do I start? Look I get it, some people need a “religion” to enable them to make sense (or rather abrogate any intelligent thought on the matter) of their place in the universe. It’s a scary thing to try and get your head round the ultimate question – no not that one – the other one “Why am I here?”

But if we were to say, outside of any religious connotations, that we had an imaginary friend, who spoke to us we’d be carted off to the funny farm or dosed up with chemicals to manage the medical diagnosis of schizophrenia.

Worse than that the people who claim to be “holier than thou” are actually a bunch of money grabbing, misogynisitic, paedophiles!!

You might argue that Buddhism is a nicer religion but it’s still based on beliefs which cannot be proven scientifically – so I’d argue it’s just safer to steer clear of them – all of them!!  They just cause too much trouble.

Anyone who voted for Brexit!

You are all complete idiots.  see definition of idiots

• noun: very stupid person, or alternatively fool, jerk, moron, nitwit, stupid, twit, blockhead, bonehead, cretin, dimwit, dork, dumbbell, dunce, ignoramus, imbecile, kook, muttonhead, nincompoop, ninny, pinhead, simpleton, tomfool, out to lunch.

 

In part 2 read what I think about topics such as profiteering, Donald Trump, Putin’s calendars, trophy hunters and RyanAir – amongst others 🙂

 

Bravo Mr Bezos

Ok for starters, let me say upfront, that playing away from home when in a relationship is not a good thing. It’s often symptomatic of a relationship that is already broken. However in this particular instance the are others issues, issues that impact on many more people that take priority over any moral indignation.

I’m referring to the recent public admissions of infidelity by the head honcho of Amazon, Jeff Bezos.

in this instance AMI, the publishers of the National Enquirer, had managed to get hold of some intimate texts and “dick-picks” that the Mr Bezos and his paramore had been sending to each other. AMI has been trying to use these to blackmail Bezos into stopping an investigation into how the tabloid obtained text messages exposing his extra-marital affair.

Federal investigators and legitimate media have of course suspected and proved that Mr. Pecker has used the Enquirer and AMI for political reasons. And yet AMI keeps claiming otherwise:

“American Media emphatically rejects any assertion that its reporting was instigated, dictated or influenced in any manner by external forces, political or otherwise.”

Of course, legitimate media have been challenging that assertion for a long time.

AMI threatened to publish the pictures and the texts thereby embarrassing Mr Bezos into stopping this investigation.

However, rather than capitulate to the blackmail, Mr Bezos decided to go public about it and has published the specific details of what AMI have actually said, including the detailed descriptions of the texts and images!

Well done Mr Bezos, in this instance – even though some might argue that being one of the richest men in the world he has an ego similar to that of Vladimir Putin and the idea of people seeing him as some kind of Lothario, at his age, might just give him a semi!!!

But well done anyway for exposing the extortion, the corruption and the hypocrisy that exists in Trump’s America.

But not so much well done in the infidelity bit!!

The folly of phone design

So, tell me, why after the development of phone design over the past 20 years that has claimed to make them so robust e.g. Gorilla Glass, ceramic backs and the like are they so bloody fragile?

My Samsung Galaxy S8+ is actually cracked in 2 places on the front and the back has several cracks running the full length.   I was quoted £250 to replace them but as it turns out to be an “International” version the company wouldn’t touch it.  I’m not even aware of how it got so damaged.  The only thing I can think of is that it came into contact with something else in my trouser pockets – possibly a key or possible a coin.  I’ll admit to having dropped it a couple of times but on both occasions it has either been fine or been protected by the case I have had to purchase to protect it since it got cracked!!

This from Tom’s Guide – Phone Drop Test results 2018:

Good news: Chances are, your phone will survive a 6-foot fall onto wood and, if it’s lucky enough to land on its edge, withstand drops onto concrete with minimal damage.

Bad news: If you don’t have a screen protector, there’s a really good chance something’s going to break.

It seems that the Motorola Moto Z2 Force was the winner – in fact, Motorola guarantees that the screen on the Moto Z2 Force won’t crack – and in Tom’s test’s – it didn’t! – but the rest suffered in varying degrees.  Sadly they aren’t planning on producing a Force version of the Moto Z3 – shame on you Lenovo!

So what else is happening in the world of screens and screen protection – improving that area is absolutely key.  Well the current leader in this area has to be Corning and their “Gorilla Glass” product which has been lauded around the globe by just about every phone manufacturer.

Visually stunning, incredibly tough Corning® Gorilla® Glass enables today’s sleekest smartphone and tablet designs, while providing exceptional damage resistance to the scratches and bumps of everyday use. Gorilla Glass is sensitive enough for today’s most sophisticated touch applications, and is available with an easy-to-clean coating.

Hmm the scratches and bumps of everyday use…I’d like to see their definition of that!  As millions of phone owners will testify Gorilla Glass is about as robust as a paper bag! Samsung did announce in July 2018 that they’d developed a bendable and unbreakable screen – I’d settle for unbreakable – the folding phone is interesting but not essential – an unbreakable screen IS essential!  and why do I say that?  Well it should be obvious – just look at the sumptuous photo shots that are being used to sell us this year’s latest phone – just check out those curves – I mean phaaw, c’mon!  Manufacturers have invested billions in designing “sexy”, “cool”, phones but sadly they also appear to have built in “built in obsolescence” as well.  I shouldn’t really be surprised.  However as the price of these phones skyrockets it is inevitable that replacement cycles will grow longer – so c’mon guys make the bloody things last better!

In some products’ life-cycle the manufacturers can make as much profit from marketing the accessories as they can from the main device itself but the ludicrously high cost of today’s phones (and no I don’t buy the precious metals argument I bit!) is such that it wouldn’t be worth the issues of product inventory management – lots of low value accessories is a real pain to manage!!  And easy to get wrong!

So please, will someone get the cost of producing Micro-LED screens down so we can start using them, thus saving power (and therefore eliminating the current issue of running out of juice) and at the same time due to their power efficiency and increased brightness can we have plastic coating applied which stops them cracking so damned easily – please?

What are Micro-LEDs I hear you ask? Well this – thanks to Anroidpit.com for the words!

Micro LEDs is a new technology still in its infancy, but it has great potential to become the next big thing on the display market. Micro LED displays work similarly to OLED panels, but are even thinner. They consist of inorganic semiconductors, specifically a gallium-nitrite combination. Like OLEDs, these are light-emitting diodes, but they are much smaller.

Backlighting is not necessary with micro-LEDs, nor is a polarization filter required. The glass layer above the panel can also be slimmed even further. The brightness per watt, which simplifies the efficiency of the displays, is even better than that of OLED panels and beats LCD by far. With the same brightness, a micro-LED display requires only half as much energy as an OLED screen, in some cases even less. The extremely small diodes also allow higher resolutions on the same surface – a 4K smartwatch would be conceivable with micro LEDs. Last but not least, micro LED screens are not as susceptible to pixel burn-in as OLED displays.

And as wireless charging is the de facto standard these days let’s just make sure that the phone back will allow inductance charging, avoid unnecessary fingerprint smearing and oh yes – stop bloody cracking!!

So c’mon Lenovo, Samsung, OnePlus etc etc – let’s see all of this in the new Z4, S10, 7T etc etc- I know it’s CES time – so go for it guys!

Technology is great – when it’s smart and when it works!

I’m not sure if it’s because there’s tech all around us and we’ve had years and years of “plug and play” but I’d really like to understand the frustration I experience shortly after I get some new tech.  I mean why does so much tech take so much effort to get it working properly?  Well from research undertaken, whilst I was having my lunch, it appears that there are a range of factors/aggregation of said factors that can make human blood boil…

1. Why doesn’t everybody use the same damn standard?
2. Why is it sooooo difficult to set these things up in the first place?
3. Why does the damn device keep losing its connection?
4. Are things getting too complicated?
5. Am I stupid?

For starters why is this so important?  Well…According to the report, “2018 Global Smart Home Market Forecast”, worldwide consumer spending on smart home devices, systems and services will total nearly $96 billion in 2018 and grow at 10% CAGR over the forecast period (2018 to 2023) to $155 billion. Adoption of smart speakers from Amazon and Google is boosting the market. – yikes!!

Now whether this is driven by the desire for us humans to have an easy life and achieving this by automating many of the hugely labour intensive chores at home (like playing music of turning on/off lights – Hey Alexa/Siri/Cortana/OK Google et al) or if it’s some quasi-ethical, anti-fossil fuel, tree-hugging instinct to monitor your energy use that is emerging (possibly only really amongst “millenials”) it appears to be a fact – the smart home market is growing apace!!

But what proportion of the population considers themselves to be “techies”?  I dunno -but back in 2013 IDG helpfully offered the following “10 Signs You’re Probably a Techie” – check your selves out – be my guest.  I consider myself to be one, I’m an early adopter who loves the latest “shiny-shiny”; gadgets and “cool-tools” – but I still find it a challenge to integrate my latest fave piece of tech!

Standards:

When I worked in the hi-fi world (hold on to your horses but we’re talking in the last millenium – yikes I’m old!!) there was a term that was used – “super-compatability”.  This meant that your devices not only connected up, but they played together – beautifully.  Sonic perfection with the minimum of fuss (although a not insignificant level of expenditure was required to achieve this aural nirvana). However, today we have a plethora of disparate operating standards across multiple operating systems and each designed to maximise the profitability of each brand’s “eco-system”!   Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, Xiaomi, ZigBee, Philips, the list just grows and grows. Allegedly you can get some of these to talk to each other – you note I say allegedly!!

In fact it is far more complex than just that.  The Internet of Things organisation in the UK has helpfully provided a wealth of information for those of you who are the true connected home nerds:

Powered by Digital Catapult and Future Cities Catapult, IoTUK was a programme of activities that sought to advance the UK’s global leadership in the Internet of Things (IoT) and increase the adoption of high quality IoT technologies and services throughout businesses and the public sector.

IoTUK was a national programme designed to accelerate the UK’s Internet of Things (IoT) capability, launched as part of the Government’s £32m investment in IoT.

Just check out their “IoT Standards and Protocols” – an overview of protocols involved in Internet of Things devices and applications. Help clarify with IoT layer technology stack and head-to-head comparisons. Yep, that’s what I thought too!  No wonder it’s difficult.

Difficult to set up

Remember Plug n Play?

Plug and Play (PnP) is a capability developed by Microsoft for its Windows 95 and later operating systems that gives users the ability to plug a device into a computer and have the computer recognize that the device is there. The user doesn’t have to tell the computer.

Yeah right, that sounds cool.  Sounds perfect for the non-coder early adopter such as myself!!  And maybe, just maybe, you can connect your new device to your home wifi network without too much problem – although if like me you’ve wasted money on TP-link smart plugs you’ll know that’s not a given – just check out those reviews – ouch!  Even if you’re fortunate to achieve that there’s no guarantee that, just for the hell of it, the device won’t suddenly decide it can’t be arsed to work and whatever you try it will just sullenly refuse to re-connect.  Shocking waste of money team – don’t do it.

Even Amazon – the accepted leader in the home automation world – still doesn’t make it easy on you.  Have you read my earlier post on the subject – or this one – they don’t like being criticised, do they?    I’ve got plenty of Echo devices, fire Sticks etc etc but if I wanted them to control the turning on and off of my TV/satellite box I need something else – a Harmony Hub. so I’ve got one but it was so damn difficult to get it to stay connected I switched it off.  Plus you had to say stuff like “Alexa, tell Harmony to turn on the TV”!

Here are the instructions for setting up your Harmony Hub…

#update!!!  I have just discovered that as of November 10th (no idea which year!)…

 On Friday November 10th, Logitech Harmony introduced a deeper and more natural integration with your Amazon Alexa voice experience. Play, pause, stop, fast forward, adjust the volume and tune to channel numbers, all without having to say, “ask Harmony to”. Update to the “Harmony” Alexa skill to make use of these new features.

Well I’ll just have to try switching it back on and see 🙂 apparently all you have to say now is….

“Alexa, turn on sports” to power on your TV, set your stereo to surround sound, lower your window shades and even set your table lamps to your team colors.

Stable connections

I’ve already highlighted the propensity of the TP-Link “smart” plug to lose the plot but that’s not all – my broadband router, as supplied GigaClear offers the poorest of home wifi capability, although it does offer guidance on how to improve things via its website.

1. Powerline ethernet:  I tried that and as soon as I switched it on the router just dropped ALL internet connectivity – thanks for that one!
2. Direct ethernet connection: Er, isn’t wifi supposed to be much easier, and no messy cables around the house…
3. Wireless access points.  They actually suggested I purchased and intalled a slave router.  I did. Trouble was every time we had a power cut (I live in a rural area…with no good BT broadband…hence using fibre from GigaClear…) the slave router was quicker faster and betteer than the GigaClear one so..all the wifi devices connected ti ti – but of course it was a slave so it didn’t have it’s own internet connection – doh!
4. They said avoid wifi extenders – I haven’t and thank god I didn’t although I still get the odd drop out
5. Their final option was using a different router – see 3!

So it’s clear that much of the issues are a mix of crap tech (the product) or crap service (broadband/electricity).  If you thought that broadband over fibre was stable – think again.  Here’s how Virgin Media and BT have been doing over the past 24 hours (live data so it will change) – so there’s still a way to go to provide the kind of stability that is required to cope with the flaky technology that we’re being sold!!

Too complex

At the beginning of this year (2018) Nilay Patel wrote a piece on the Verge called “Everything is too complicated” and in it he said:

Think of the tech industry as being built on an ever-increasing number of assumptions: that you know what a computer is, that saying “enter your Wi-Fi password” means something to you, that you understand what an app is, that you have the desire to manage your Bluetooth device list, that you’ll figure out what USB-C dongles you need, and on and on.

And you know what?  He isn’t the only one!

• 52 Insights.com
• Electronic Component News
• Quora
• Aeon Essays
• Wired

I could go on…and on, and on, and on!

Too stupid?

Am I really the reverse of Marvin the Paranoid android?  Do I have a brain the size of a pea?  I think NOT!

“Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and they tell me to take you up to the bridge. Call that job satisfaction? ‘Cos I don’t.”

Don’t get me wrong-  I’m no genius – but I’ve got an above average IQ (c.140 – whatever that means!) and I can grasp quite complex concepts like “Cognitive Dissonance“, “Bounded Rationality” and “Black Holes” and answer equally difficult questions such as “Why am I here?”, “Who is Linda Clayton?” and “What is The Infinite Improbability Drive” so I’m not a total idiot – I just have problems getting my tech to talk to each other and the outside world!

The answers are, btw, a. Because I damn well am, b. a figment of someone’s imagination and c. an example of Douglas Adams’ genius.

 

 

 

 

 

Bloated apps or developer diets?

Here’s a thought – have you seen just how much of your phone’s memory is taken up by your apps?  I think you may be staggered to see that it’s a pretty big chunk of your total available memory!  In fact have you noticed how big some of these apps are getting?  Here’s just a selection of the “A” apps on my phone.

• Adobe Clip – 108MB
• Amazon Alexa – 271MB
• Amazon Shopping – 191MB
• Anchor – 142MB
• AutoTrader – 95MB

5 apps accounting for 807MB – pretty bad, but it get’s worse, much worse!

• Chrome – the web browser from Google accounts for 730MB – on it’s own,
• then there’s Google, the search bit – another 606MB!!
• But of course the real memory hogger is, yes you’ve guessed it, Facebook:
  • 1.12GB, for the Facebook app itself,
  • 1.38GB for Instagram – and then there’s the separate Messenger app
  • at this point I went ballistic and installed the Messenger Lite version – a mere 43MB – hooray!!

Just doing some research on Google and discovering that back in the deep, dark , past of 2010, (yikes – very much the dark ages!!) most Android apps were approximately 2MB – yes you read that right 2MB!!  It seems that as phones have “improved” over time apps have expanded to take up the available space….

It’s getting crazy and, boy oh boy, the almost continuous updating of apps is sucking up my bandwidth – 23 apps recently updated!  Just look at Facebook’s history – here is its timeline as detailed by Wikipedia – boy was 2017 a busy year, and just checking on my mobile to discover that I’m on version 198.0.0.53.101!!

I wonder if these app developers have a deal with the mobile networks.  you know they get a cut of the data charges!

If they’re not then they’re missing out on a trick AND a load of dosh!  I also find it very interesting that at a time when Google is penalising websites for the time it takes them to load it is also producing massively bloated mobile apps that do just that – take a long time to load!!

I wish….there’s another trend that is irritating and that’s the decision by some of the major device manufacturers to embed some apps into the OS – so you can never fully delete them, only stop them from functioning – they’ll still hog your memory though!  I moved away from Apple ,many years ago because of their walled garden approach but Samsung you’re doing it too now!!

So, is that it?  Are we destined to a life of feature-rich, over-bloated apps that continuously update – or is there another way?  Thankfully there is!!

I’ve already mentioned that I installed the Messenger Lite app – it does the job perfectly well and takes up a fraction  of the memory of the full-fat version.  So when i found this list I thought – yippee…

• Google Go
• Gmail Go
• YouTube Go
• Files Go
• Facebook Lite
• Messenger Lite
• Skype Lite
• Twitter Lite
• LinkedIn Lite

But sadly the Google apps aren’t compatible with my device, in fact none of my devices!  Hmm I smell a rat here- but actually I’m just misinformed – these apps are for Android Go devices – bummer!  If I can run a Facebook or Messenger Lite app on my Samsung Galaxy S8+ why doesn’t google step up?  I think we should be told!!

More digging and finally some progress…here’s a starter for 10 – a browser with a size of just 400-500Kb – sign me up!!  Now I’m on the hunt for a few more small footprint apps…email, other social media apps…. and some more…

So now it’s time for a play, to see if any of these small footprint apps can deliver a suitable user experience…

 

 

Opting out – it’s an omnishambles

Royal Mail is an omnishambles! GDPR is an omnishambles and together they’re just ludicrously inept!

I continually get unsolicited direct mail popped through my letterbox by my lovely postie – he’s a really nice bloke and this is nothing about the excellent service that he provides (in shorts) all through the year.  Now I’m pretty sure that I’d already opted out and when I explore things – guess what?  I had!  But that over 2 years ago and apparently you have to renew your opt out – every two years!  I wonder if that applies to GDPR compliance?  I’ll need to check – it would seem logical that one rule would apply to all – wouldn’t it?

Here’s the guidance that Royal Mail offers and you may wish to cut to the quick by reading the headline below and then scrolling down to the headline that’s in red. Because the bits in between are directing you to external sites – or as I would put it examples of the Royal Mail, abrogating responsibility for what they stuff through your letterbox.

How do I opt out of receiving any leaflets or unaddressed promotional material?

“We are legally obliged to deliver all addressed mail, which includes mail that is addressed “To the Occupier” (or with any other generic recipient information), as well as mail that is personally addressed to you by name.

Opting out from Royal Mail Door to Door stops all unaddressed items from being delivered by us (although we do work with Government to get a message to every UK address in exceptional circumstances where delivery of the message is deemed to be in the national interest).

Things you need to know before choosing to ‘opt out’:

• It is not possible for us to separate material you don’t want from those you do want. For example: advertising offers or leaflets from material from Central and Local Government and other public bodies.

• Opting out means no one at your address will receive unaddressed mail items.

• We deliver a minority of the total volume of unaddressed mail items in the United Kingdom. Our opt out does not cover any other distributors, who will continue to deliver unaddressed mail items to your property. Opting out of Royal Mail Door to Door deliveries will not necessarily reduce by a significant amount the number of items you’ll receive.

Opting out from other unaddressed mail deliveries

To opt out from deliveries from other unaddressed mail distributors you may wish to register with the ‘Your Choice’ preference scheme run by the Direct Marketing Association.

They can be contacted at:
‘Your Choice’ Preference Scheme
Direct Marketing Association (UK) Ltd
DMA House
70 Margaret Street
LONDON
W1W 8SS

Telephone: 0207 291 3300
Fax: 0207 323 4165
Email: yourchoice@dma.org.uk

If you would like to stop any other unwanted communications please visit The Mailing Preference Service www.mpsonline.org.uk  , which provides details on all other preference services, or call the Mailing Preference Service on 0845 703 4599

Opting out of receiving charity appeal communications

The Fundraising Preference Service is a website-based service that can help members of the public control the communications they receive from charities.

By registering your details with the Fundraising Preference Service you can choose to stop email, telephone calls, addressed post and/or text messages directed to you personally from a selected charity or charities.

To find out more and register please visit the FRS website  or call their helpline on 0300 3033 517.

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Opting out from Royal Mail Door to Door” – that’s another link by the way and finally…

Opting out from Royal Mail Door to Door

If you still wish to opt out of receiving Door to Door mail items please complete our opt out form and return it to us at the address shown.

Royal Mail Opt out form – English
Royal Mail Opt out form – Welsh

We’ll action your request within six weeks of receiving your completed form. Your opt out will last for a period of two years. During this time every effort will be made to prevent the delivery of Door to Door items by Royal Mail.

At the end of the two year period, in order to continue with your opt out, you will simply need to repeat this process and complete a new application form to confirm that you are still resident at the address and wish to continue opting out of Door to Door deliveries.

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So you have to fill in a form, every two years, that can only be posted – not completed online nor done over the phone….and on it the form has the following weasel words.

• I confirm that I have read and fully understood your letter advising me of the implications of
  “opting out” of receiving deliveries by Royal Mail of unaddressed Door to Door mail items to
  my address.
• I understand that I may miss important information from local or national government or
  other publications that are sent using this service.
• I understand that I will continue to receive unaddressed material delivered by companies
  other than Royal Mail.

First off, where’s this letter?  I haven’t received a letter from them mentioning this – and frankly it’s just a waste of time – just get on with it!!

Secondly – I hope this isn’t a get out for Royal Mail losing correctly addressed letters to me.

You mean the chaps who wander around stuffing promotional crap through letterboxes – of course I understand that you morons!

Just to let you know if you, like me, get loads of charity mailings and want to stop their garbage from arriving you need to stop them individually on the FRS site – yep individually!

I’ve also been on the MPS site and registered with them (pretty sure I’ve done that before too!).

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How tedious is that.  Actually it’s about the same as trying to opt out online.  For starters every website seems to use a different method or allows you to opt out of some things but not necessarily the same things that the next website you visit allows…and then of course if you don’t allow them to store cookies on your machine then you have to go though the same system EVERY time you visit the site.

Now tell me…how is that helping me as a consumer, to manage my own data?

It’s not is it?

This is from the Information Commissioner‘s website:

You cannot rely on silence, inactivity, pre-ticked boxes, opt-out boxes, default settings or a blanket acceptance of your terms and conditions.

Oh really?  I wonder what percentage of sites comply with that…5% maybe.  There are plenty of sites that don’t give you the choice of whether a 3rd party can see your data – as there’s no option there end to switch that functionality off!  And what about those emails that say it’ll take 10 days (or whatever) for this opt out to take effect. Why?  Surely once the fact has been established that you don’t want what ever it was then that should be that…digital update of data and all that jazz!!  It’s a bit like allowing a rapist a couple of weeks to process the fact that you’ve said “NO, No and thrice NO!” before you can say he’s committed an offence.  It’s bloody stupid!

What is required is some joined up thinking and some joined up legislation – but, sadly, knowing the legal profession there’s very little likelihood of that ever happening..but we can dream people – we can still dream!!

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So as part of my day job I end up looking at a number of websites and coming across a range of opt in/out privacy details-  and I’ve just found this – possibly the most convoluted I’ve ever come across.  What follows below is the home page of the Oath privacy centre – there are 5 other pages for you to trawl throigh and msot of them mean you have to do a shedload of work to actually opt out!

 

Welcome to the Oath privacy centre

In June 2017, we announced that Yahoo and AOL had joined together to become Oath, a digital and mobile media organisation and part of Verizon.  We’re now bringing Oath and Yahoo together under a single privacy policy.  Some things haven’t changed, such as the control tools that we provide to help you manage your experience with us.  If you have an existing Yahoo or AOL account, you will need to agree to parts of this Privacy Policy.  If you have not yet agreed and consented to this Privacy Policy, the legacy Yahoo Privacy Policy or legacy Oath Privacy Policy (for AOL) still apply to your account.  For Oath products or services that are accessed without signing in to an account, this Privacy Policy applies to those products and services as of 25 May 2018.  If you are creating a new account, the terms below apply as of today.  

Last updated: May 2018

Our privacy pledge

Our commitment is to put users first.  We strive to be transparent about how we collect and use your information, to keep your information secure and to provide you with meaningful choices.  This Privacy Policy is intended to help you understand what information Oath, its affiliates and its house of global brands collect, why we collect it and what we do with it. If you are located in Europe, the Middle East or Africa (‘EMEA’), this policy applies to you.  It sets out how Oath controls and treats your information in its brands, websites, apps, advertising services, products, services or technologies (we’ll collectively refer to these as ‘Services’).  Except as set out below, when we refer to ‘Oath’, it means Oath (EMEA) Limited, the Irish-established company that supplies the Services to you (and acts as data controller of the personal data Oath collects when you use those Services). If you are a user of HuffPost UK, Sky | Yahoo Mail, BT | Yahoo Mail or TalkTalk News & TV Guide, ‘Oath’ may refer to different entities in relation to who controls your personal data. HuffPost UK, Sky | Yahoo Mail, BT | Yahoo Mail or TalkTalk News & TV Guide users can find more information by clicking here.  Furthermore, additional privacy practices for certain Services can be found in Details for specific products and services.

This Privacy Policy does not apply to the practices of Oath affiliates or companies that Oath does not own or control.

Your controls & privacy rights

We believe that you should have control of your information. In some cases, you can review or edit your account information, including your marketing preferences, location data, mobile choices, advertising settings and search history, as well as account deletion controls by visiting Privacy Dashboard. Some of our Services provide additional controls.  Please see our Details for specific products and services.

In many cases where we process your information, you may also have a right to restrict or limit the ways in which we use your information.  In certain circumstances, where we rely on ‘legitimate interests’ to process your information as described in the ‘Legal bases’ section below, you also have the right to object to the processing of your information by us.

You can also request the rectification of your information by us.  You can request that we delete your information, and Oath will carry out this request unless certain exceptional reasons arise permitting Oath to keep certain information about you.

You also have the right to obtain a copy of your information in an easily accessible format.  In certain circumstances, you can also request that we transfer some of your information to third parties.  Oath will help you exercise these important rights. Please use the ‘feedback form’ available in the Questions and Suggestions section below to learn how you can receive assistance in exercising any of these rights.

Withdrawing consent

You have the right to withdraw your consent to our processing of your information and your use of our Services at any time. You can exercise this right by going to the controls available in our Privacy Dashboard, or you can use the ‘feedback form’ available in the Questions and Suggestions section below to receive assistance with exercising this right. Similar to the way in which you can give consent by interacting with our Services, you can also withdraw your consent through our Services. You can choose to delete your Oath account via your account settings and we will delete your information.

If you withdraw your consent to the use or sharing of your information for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy, you may not have access to all (or any) of our Services and we might not be able to provide you with all (or any) of the Services under this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Service. In certain cases, we may continue to process your information after you have withdrawn consent if we have a legal basis to do so, or if your withdrawal of consent was limited to certain processing activities. For example, we may keep information if we need to do so to comply with a legal obligation, to resolve disputes and to enforce our agreements.

Information collection and use – general

Certain categories of information collected by Oath are necessary to use our Services, such as the information you must provide when registering for some Services.  We may collect and combine information when you interact with Oath Services including information outlined below.

• Information that you provide to us. We collect the information you provide to us in order to enable us to operate and provide our Services, including:
  • When you create an account with an Oath Service or brand. (please note that, when you use our Services, we may recognise you or your devices even if you are not signed in to our Services.)
  • Oath may use device IDs, cookies and other signals, including information obtained from third parties, to associate accounts and/or devices with you.
  • When you use our Services to communicate with others or to post, upload or store content (such as comments, photos, voice inputs, videos, emails, messaging services and attachments).
  • When you otherwise use our Services, such as to view the content that we make available, perform search queries or install any Oath software such as plug-ins.
  • When you sign up for paid Services, use Services that require your financial information or complete transactions with us or our business partners, we may collect your payment and billing information in order to provide you with those paid Services. We may remember the payment information that you entered during a prior purchase for paid Services and provide you with the option to use that payment information during the purchase of a new product.
• Device information. We collect information from your devices (computers, mobile phones, tablets, etc.) in order to provide you with our Services, including information about how you interact with our Services and those of our third-party partners and information that allows us to recognise and associate your activity across devices and Services.  This information includes device-specific identifiers and information such as IP address, cookie information, mobile device and advertising identifiers, browser version, operating system type and version, mobile network information, device settings and software data.
• Location information.  We collect location information from a variety of sources.  You can learn more about and manage your location permissions on our Locations page or by visiting the location settings tool on your devices.
• Information from cookies and other technologies.
  • We collect information when you access content, advertising, sites, interactive widgets, applications and other products (both on and off our Services) where Oath’s data collection technologies (such as web beacons, development tools, cookies and other technologies, etc.) are present. These data collection technologies allow us to understand your activity on and off our Services and to collect and store information when you interact with Services we offer to partners.
  • This information includes the kind of content or ads served, viewed or clicked on; the frequency and duration of your activities; the sites or apps you used before accessing our Services and where you went next; whether you engaged with specific content or ads; and whether you went on to visit an advertiser’s website, downloaded an advertiser’s app, purchased a product or service advertised or took other actions.
• Information from others. We collect information about you when we receive it from other users, third parties and affiliates, such as:
  • When you connect your account to third-party services or sign in using a third-party partner (such as Facebook or Twitter).
  • From publicly available sources.
  • From advertisers about your experiences or interactions with their offerings.
  • When we obtain information from third parties or other companies, such as those that use our Services. This may include your activity on other sites and apps as well as information that those third parties provide to you or us.
  • Information that we receive from Verizon will be used consistently with Verizon’s privacy policy.

How we use this information

In order to deliver, personalise and improve our Services, we combine and use the information that we have about you (including information we receive on and off our Services) to understand how you use and interact with our Services and the people or things that you’re connected to and interested in. We may also use the information we have about you in the following ways and for the following purposes:

• To provide, maintain, improve and develop relevant features, content and Services.
• To analyse your content and other information (including incoming and outgoing emails, instant messages, posts photos, attachments and other communications) in order to keep our Services safe and secure. This analysis also assists us in making the content, Services and ads we provide to you more personalised (except in BT | Yahoo Mail).  You can review and control certain types of information associated with your Oath account by using  Privacy Controls.
• To fulfil your requests and when authorised by you.
• To help advertisers and publishers connect to offer relevant advertising in their apps and websites.
• To match and serve targeted advertising (across devices and both on and off our Services) and provide targeted advertising based on your device activity, inferred interests and location information.
• To contact you with information about your account or with marketing messages, which you can also control.
• To associate your activity across our Services and your different devices as well as associate any accounts you may use across Oath Services together. We may associate activity and accounts under a single user ID.
• To carry out or support promotions.
• To conduct research and support innovation.
• To create analytics and reports for external parties, including partners, publishers, advertisers, apps, third partiesand the public regarding the use of and trends within our Services and ads, including showing trends to partners regarding general preferences, the effectiveness of ads and information on user experiences. These analytics and reports may include aggregate or pseudonymised information.
• To provide location-based Services, advertising, search results and other content consistent with your location settings.
• To combine information that we have about you with information that we obtain from business partners or other companies, such as your activities on other sites and apps in order to ensure that the ads, Services and content we provide to you are more suited to your interests.
• To detect and defend against fraudulent, abusive or unlawful activity and to keep our Services safe and secure.

We provide you with controls to manage your experience with us. To review and manage your privacy settings, please visit our Privacy Dashboard.

What are our legal bases for the use of the information?

We mainly rely on three separate bases to lawfully process your information. First, we need to process your information in certain ways to provide our Services to you, in accordance with our Terms of Service. This processing is necessary to perform the contract between you and us, and our Terms of Service make it clear that processing of your information for the purposes of personalised content and ads is a necessary part of the Services we provide. Second, where you have given us consent to use your information in certain ways, we will rely on your consent. Third, in certain cases, we may process your information where necessary for the purposes of our legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of third parties, where those legitimate interests are not overridden by your rights or interests.  Occasionally, Oath may rely on other legal bases to process your information, such as to protect a user’s vital interests (such as where there is a risk of imminent harm) or to comply with a legal obligation. Please see our Legal bases page.

How we share this information

Oath shares information within its affiliated brands and companies and with Verizon. We also share information that we have about you in accordance with this Privacy Policy, including to provide Services that you have requested (including when you connect to third-party apps and widgets). We do not sell, license or share information that individually identifies our customers with companies, organisations or individuals outside of Oath unless one of the following circumstances applies:

• With your consent. We will share information with companies, organisations or individuals outside of Oath when we have your consent.
• With Verizon. As part of Verizon, Oath may, to the extent permitted by law and in accordance with user controls, share information with Verizon and Verizon affiliates. This information will be used in accordance with Verizon’s privacy policy.
• Within Oath. Information may also be shared within Oath, including with other Oath Services and affiliates. Oath affiliates may use the information in a manner consistent with their privacy policies.
• With partners. We may share your information with non-affiliated companies who are:
  • Trusted vendors.  We provide user information to trusted vendorspartners who work on behalf of Oath based on our directions and in compliance with appropriate confidentiality measures. Learn more.
  • Advertising, analytics and business partners. We may share aggregated or pseudonymous information (including demographic information) with partners, such as publishers, advertisers, measurement analytics, apps or other companies. For example, we may tell an advertiser how its ads performed or report how many people installed an app after seeing a promotion. We do not share information that personally identifies you (personally identifiable information includes your name or email address) with these partners, such as publishers, advertisers, measurement analytics, apps or other companies.
  • When you use third-party apps, websites or other products integrated with our Services, they may collect information about your activities subject to their own terms and privacy policies.
  • We allow other companies that show advertisements on our web pages or apps to collect information from your browsers or devices. Other companies’ use of cookies and other data collection technologies are subject to their own privacy policies, not this one. Like many companies, we may allow cookie matching with selected partners. However, these parties are not authorised to access Oath cookies.
• For legal purposes.  We may access, preserve and disclose information to investigate, prevent or take action in connection with: (i) legal processes, and legal and governmental agency requests; (ii) enforcement of the Terms; (iii) claims that any content violates the rights of third parties; (iv) requests for customer service; (v) technical issues; (vi) protecting the rights, property or personal safety of Oath, its users or the public; (vii) establishing or exercising our legal rights or defending against legal claims; or (viii) as otherwise required by law.
  • This may include responding to lawful governmental requests. Learn more about how we evaluate and respond to these requests.
• New ownership. If the ownership or control of all or part of Verizon, Oath or a specific Service changes as a result of a merger, acquisition or sale of assets, we may transfer your information to the new owner

Details for specific products and services 

Additional privacy practices for certain Oath Services are included here.

Information security and data retention

Oath has technical, administrative and physical safeguards in place to help protect against unauthorised access, use or disclosure of customer information that we collect or store.

To learn more about security, including the steps we have taken and steps you can take, please read Security at Oath.

Oath will retain your information only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy, for as long as your Oath account is active or as needed to provide you with the Services. If you no longer want Oath to use your information to provide you with the Services, you can close your account and Oath will delete the information it holds about you unless Oath needs to retain and use your information to comply with our legal obligations, to resolve disputes or to enforce our agreements.

Protecting children’s privacy

Our Services are for a general audience. We do not knowingly collect, use or share information that could reasonably be used to identify children under the age of 16 or as otherwise consistent with applicable law.

Data processing and transfers

When you use or interact with any of our Services, you consent to the data processing, sharing, transferring and usage of your information as outlined in this Privacy Policy.  Regardless of the country where you reside, you authorise us to transfer, process, store and use your information in countries other than your own in accordance with this Privacy Policy and to provide you with Services.  Some of these countries may not have the same data protection safeguards as the country where you reside.

Oath may process information related to individuals in the EU/EEA and may transfer that information from the EU/EEA through various compliance mechanisms, including data processing agreements based on the EU/EEA Standard Contractual Clauses.  By using our Services, you consent to us transferring information about you to these countries.  For more information, please visit our Data transfer page.

Oath is part of a global service and so shares information with affiliates and other companies based outside the European Economic Area (‘EEA’) for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy.

The United States and other non-EEA countries have different laws on data protection and rules in relation to government access to information. If you are based in the EEA, when your data is moved from your home country to a third country outside the EEA, some of these countries may not have the same data protection safeguards as your home country.

To the extent that Oath is deemed to transfer information about you outside the EEA, Oath relies separately, alternatively and independently on the following legal bases to transfer your information:

Standard contractual clauses. The European Commission has adopted standard contractual clauses that provide safeguards for personal data that is transferred outside the EEA. We often use these clauses when transferring personal data outside the EEA including to our affiliates.

Contractual necessity. You can choose whether or not you want to use our Services. However, if you want to use our Services, you need to agree to our Terms of Service, which set out the terms of the contract between us and you. As we operate in countries worldwide (including in the United States) and use technical infrastructure in these countries, to be able to deliver our Services to you in accordance with the contract between us, we may need to transfer your information to other jurisdictions where necessary. We can’t provide you with our Services without moving your data around the world.

Privacy Shield. Some companies to which we may transfer your information in the United States may be certified to receive your information under the Privacy Shield programme. For more information, please visit our data transfer page.

Other important information

This Privacy Policy applies only to Oath. This Privacy Policy does not apply to the practices of companies that Oath does not own or control, or to people that Oath does not employ or manage. In addition, some affiliated products (such as Tumblr) may have different privacy policies and practices that are not subject to this Privacy Policy.

Changes

We may amend or update this Privacy Policy from time to time, so you should check it periodically.  If we make changes of a material nature, we will provide you with appropriate notice before such changes take effect.

Questions & suggestions

If you have questions or suggestions relating to your information, or wish to make a complaint, please complete a feedback form, or contact us at:

Customer Care – Privacy Policy issues

Oath (EMEA) Limited
5-7 Point Square
North Wall Quay
Dublin 1

For queries related to the processing of your information, you can also contact our Data Protection Officer at:

Oath (EMEA) Limited
Attention: Data Protection Officer
5-7 Point Square
North Wall Quay
Dublin 1

Without prejudice to any other rights you may have, you also have the right to file a complaint against us with the Irish Data Protection Commissioner, which is Oath’s lead supervisory authority.  You can also complain to the supervisory authority in the EU member state in which you are based. Click here to find your local supervisory authority.

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Remember – that’s just the first page!!

Then to compound things, at the foot of the page is this…

Build Brands

People Love

er….doh!

 

Dicks and Phoneys!

Dear Jack Clarke, Charlie Rostron, Nabil Patel and Jade Pritchard (they work for Dixons Carphone)…

Did you realise that you were working for an organisation which is extremely NOT customer focused – one might even say that it operates on Stalinist principles – me included (harsh..but fair)!

Some time ago I got an email, totally out of the blue, trying to sell me something – it came from the Dixons Carphone group – frankly I had no idea the last time I bought anything from them and wondered why in this world of GDPR, that they still had my personal information!!

So I responded to the email and asked them to remove my details – and there begins the tedious (I’ll try and make it exciting for you dear reader – like by adding in pictures 🙂 ) saga – that is still going on today – despite what they may think!

The nub of this is their failure to believe I am who I say I am – and then, on the basis that they don’t accept that I am who I say I am they go on to publish some of my personal information via the very channel that they refuse to accept that I am who I say I am…

Anyway as is normally the case in these types of sagas you have to read back in time from the end to the beginning, to see how things have developed…but I thought I’d assist you, dear reader, by producing my most recent communication up top and then you can read through the history from the start and understand my acute levels of vexation 🙂  I’ve separated each message with a horizontal line – so you can take a breather whenever you like.

So, to set the scene, I’m responding to an email which has a link to take me to their portal so I can read an update from them….

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Dear Sirs please be advised that I shall be forwarding details of our “conversations” to the Data Protection Registrar as I believe that you are in breach of the latest regulations. Your overbearing approach seems intent to stop individuals having their personal data removed rather than making it the right which is enschrined in the relevant legislation – GDPR.

Plus the fact that, despite refusing to accept that I am who I say I am, through this email channel, you appear to have no problems with publicising my home telephone number – and that is surely a failure to protect my identity.

I have been out of the country and unable to respond to your continuous refusals to accept who I am and now you elect to refuse my request.

Well all I can say is that even after I have completed my discussions with the Information Commissioner I shall ensure that I will never purchase another item from your organisation and should I ever receive a single piece of marketing communication from you I shall seriously consider taking you to the small claims court for the time, effort and stress that dealing with you has caused me.

Yours increasingly irritated

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…so having typed in the screed I hit send to let them know of my current state of mind 🙂 and guess what…

..so I entered my email – to gain access to “your dedicated” privacy portal – not anyone else’s but MINE! – er, how do they know it’s me? By entering my email obviously (doh!) – the same email that they have been using to communicate communicate with me…

And so, just like that, they “verify” my identity enough to allow me to access the conversation via their portal…but it would seem that it’s not good enough to allow them to actually ACT on my initial request…

Now I’ve been both irritated and on holiday recently (I wasn’t irritated on holiday even though the rain did fall horizontally and the sun did hide away behind the grey clouds for most of the time) so I hadn’t got round to responding to previous emails – but the last one, saying that they’d withdrawn my request really p*ssed me off (like REALLY P*SSED ME OFF) so, that’s why we are where we are right now..

Now it’s time to see how we got to this point, but before we do let’s note that the GDPR allows individuals to make a request for erasure verbally or in writing.  Now had I telephoned them – at no doubt a cost to me – how could I have provided the “proofs” they ask for below?

Here we go with my initial request..in writing.

---

From: Data Subject 09/26/2018 4:01 PM GMT

Remove my details from your database

---

So I get an email back from them asking me to log into the privacy portal and now (like today) at the top is the following:

Request ID:	TEQV0C
E-Mail:	xxxx@xxxxxxxxx
Brand:	All of your brands
Phone Number:	012xxxxx566
Show Less
Country:	United Kingdom
Postcode:	ox27 xxx

Now I’ve hidden some of the details but there are 3 important things to bear in mind here, given the issue at hand.

Firstly, I may have given them this information in the initial “registration” required to access the portal – frankly I can’t remember if there was one but I’m presuming that’s where they got it from – but irrespective of that if they aren’t prepared to accept my email conversation as proof of who I am then they damn well shouldn’t be displaying any additional information than that email to someone who might, if we’re following their logic, not be me.

Secondly, if they already have my email, my home phone number and my address surely that’s enough to be able to identify me from their records – I have a sneaking suspicion those details are collected at the time of purchase.

Thirdly transmitting data over the internet is not always secure and who are https://privacyportal-de.onetrust.com I’ve never heard of them before – and why is my data being transfered outside of the UK?  Will this change when Brexit happens perhaps Richard Purdy Counsel – (CIPP/E) at OneTrust can answer…

So why do they now need the following – isn’t that enough already?

---

From: Approver 10/01/2018 4:52 PM GMT

Private and Confidential 

Dear

Thank you for your request.

For us to continue with this request we need to validate your identity and require the following:

One proof of identity – we can accept an unexpired copy of either your passport or your driver’s licence

One proof of address– we can accept a copy of your most recent (and less than 3 months old) credit or debit card statement or a utility bill showing the same name and address as your account

Once we have received a form of identification and a proof of your address, we will proceed with processing your request.

You will be able to attach copies by clicking on the paperclip when responding to this message. We will delete all copies on completion of your request.

If you have used multiple email or postal addresses on your account then it will help our searches if they are provided to us at this point.

The 30-day time period to complete your request will start when we have received all documents requested.

If we do not hear from you within 14 days then we will withdraw your request from the process.

If we can offer any further assistance then please reply to us through this secure portal.

Yours sincerely

Jack Clarke

SAR Team

Dixons Carphone

---

From: Data Subject 10/01/2018 5:05 PM GMT

I responded to the email YOU sent ME. Remove my details from your database immediately. The very fact that i am using this email should be sufficient. If your original email allowed responses we wouldn’t be in this position now.

---

From: Approver 10/10/2018 4:05 PM GMT

Private and Confidential 

Dear ,

Thank you for your request.

Due to the nature of these requests our company policy is to ensure that we are always dealing with the right customer, especially when this might involve providing personal data back to a customer or making changes to customer data, including the deletion of customer data.

We always delete the data provided to identify the customer at the closure of the request.

Unfortunately, without proof of identity we will not be able to proceed with your request.

If we do not receive confirmation of identity within 5 working days then we will close down your request.”

Yours sincerely

Charlie Rostron

WebSAR

Dixons Carphone

---

From: Approver 10/10/2018 4:06 PM GMT

Private and Confidential 

Dear Paul,

Thank you for your request.

Due to the nature of these requests our company policy is to ensure that we are always dealing with the right customer, especially when this might involve providing personal data back to a customer or making changes to customer data, including the deletion of customer data.

We always delete the data provided to identify the customer at the closure of the request.

Unfortunately, without proof of identity we will not be able to proceed with your request.

If we do not receive confirmation of identity within 5 working days then we will close down your request.”

Yours sincerely

Charlie Rostron

WebSAR

Dixons Carphone

---

From: Data Subject 10/10/2018 4:54 PM GMT

Its me you ****wit. Now remove my details or i will report you to the information commissioner.

---

From: Approver 10/12/2018 1:50 PM GMT

Dear Mr ,

Thank you for your email.

Please be advised that we will require the information my colleague has requested to progress further.

If it helps, I am happy to accept:

One proof of address– we can accept a copy of your most recent (and less than 3 months old) credit or debit card statement or a utility bill showing the same name and address as your account

Once you provide this, I will be able to further this matter.

Yours sincerely,

Nabil Patel

WebSAR

Dixons Carphone

---

From: Approver 10/23/2018 4:05 PM GMT

Private and Confidential 

Right to Forget

Dear Mr ,

Thank you for your request.

We have previously attempted to contact you to request further information to enable us to proceed with your request.

As we have not received any method to validate your identity we have made the decision to withdraw your request.

Please accept this as confirmation that your Right to Forget request has now been withdrawn.

If you have any further questions or issues with your request, please visit our privacy policy and submit a new request.

Yours sincerely

Jade Pritchard

WebSAR

Dixons Carphone

---

Frankly I’m not happy to provide that sort of “additional” information – my passport or my driving licence indeed – they didn’t need that when I purchased whatever it was I purchased from them – nor did they need a credit card statement with my address on it – just the bloody credit card!!! “Just give me the money”

So I shall be forwarding the details of this conversation onto the Information Commissioner and asking her for a response.

I may also share this post with her via her twitter feed – https://twitter.com/iconews

..and her Facebook page – facebook.com/ICOnews

Equally in the spirit of sharing personal information, as they have done so, I have no compunction of using the names of the people who have been communicating with me – that’s only fair – don’t you agree?

Plus, in this highly competitive retail landscape, where customer loyalty is hugely important I can honestly say that Dixons Curry’s will get nothing more from me (apart from poor reviews and general abuse that is).  I shall transfer my purchasing to other organisations that are not run by or in the image of dictators (remember Stanley Kalms, the man who founded Dixons was a total *******!)

Finally, the issue of GDPR is really proving to be a complete pain in the ass for us consumers – it seems that rather than protecting our information it’s making it easier for companies to hold onto it – well if my experiences are anything to go by!!

…and 10 out of 10 if you guessed the title of the blog post is a play on words – and if you didn’t realise that – c’mon – get with it!!

no-reply@ email addresses – should they be banned?

Well obviously the answer is yes – but let’s understand why that’s the case.

For starters let’s take a quick look at just at what experts in the field of email have to say.  So here are a selection of articles on why you shouldn’t use them…

• The NoReply Dilemma: Best Practices For Your Email Strategy
• 7 Reasons Why You Should Not Send from a “No-Reply” Email Address
• Noreply Emails: Why You Shouldn’t Use Them and How to Replace Them
• Five reasons you should stop using no-reply email addresses right now
• Why ‘no-reply’ email addresses are a ‘hell no’
• Say No to No-reply Email Addresses

For starters I thought that Chris Arrandale – the author of the first article made a very good point about the legislation:

Post GDPR, it is more important than ever to take the time to evaluate whether you should use a no-reply address for your marketing campaigns. How can you expect your subscribers to contact you to claim their rights if you don’t allow them to do so?

This is a bit like those irritating post GDPR cookie policies that don’t give you an option to refuse to accept them – see my previous post on this matter!!  And the situation is made a whole lot worse when they deliberately (oh c’mon you know they are doing it on purpose to reduce your ability to contact them!) either hide or actually don’t make an email available for you to contact them – unless you call them first – that’s you Scottish Power that is!

Apparently, according to Michael Linthorst in article 4 – in many countries sending emails with a no-reply address is not allowed. In some European countries for example you have to have a working address people can reply to if they have any kind of question about your email – sadly it seems not in the UK – don’t tell me that’s another Brexit ****up!!

Julia Gulevich who wrote the second article list as her first reason for not using no-reply email addresses as it makes it appear that, by not allowing the recipients to reply to your email campaigns, you don’t care about them or their responses or problems.

Oh boy, that is so true.  And I don’t give a rat’s arse what the sender may say that’s the way that I, the recipient, of the email perceive the situation to be.  If they cared they’d make it easy for me.  I reckon the absolute master of this approach has to be RyanAir which has applied this no-reply ethos to it’s entire operation- what a bunch of *****!

The third article points out the issue of people auto-filtering no-reply emails as spam in their inbox.  This is something that I’m shortly going to be instigating.  Personally I find it insulting, demeaning and dehumanising to receive a demand for money (a bill/invoice) from someone who is providing me with a service….yet clearly isn’t interested in customer service.

As an aside here it also irritates me when companies send me invoices (in pdf format) at work and have locked them so I can’t electronically sign them and forward them for payment.  I’ve adopted a policy of simply ignoring these emails now – I have written back and explained the issue but they don’t seem to care so, sod ’em!

Michael Linthorst in article 4 also raises the issue of people complaining about spam – some people don’t look for an opt-out link (which if they’re there at all are in very small pale print at the foot of the email) but hit the reply button when they want to unsubscribe from your emailings.  And when people get that “Message Undeliverable” response – hackles will rise, of that you can be sure.

Ryan Phelan  (article 5) is a respected thought leader and nationally (Canada) distinguished speaker. Ryan serves as Chairman Emeritus EEC Advisory Board, and member of the board of directors for the ESPC.  His view is that:

Your brand has a personality, a face. The face might be your logo, but it’s all part of your brand equity. When you send an email with “do-not-reply” or “no-reply” in the sender line, you’re really saying to your customers, “I am never going to look at the email that you want to send me. Never.”

It’s true – think RyanAir’s boss man = Arrogant Twat, Virgin’s boss – Goofy, wacky but innovative, Scottish Power’s Linda Clayton – ah sorry she’s a figment of their imagination – even the image used for her LinkedIn “profile” is called “ghost-person” – I rest my case.  A classic example of just how easy it is for a brand to go wrong – and then just ignore the fact and carry on regardless – doh!

Ms Clayton allegedly signs all of their customer service communication but does she actually exist?   If she does, or doesn’t, by jove she still manages to irritate people.  I’m still getting comments and tweets from a post about her/ I wrote years ago!  So get this brand personality thing wrong at your peril!!

And here’s where we get to the meat of this.  How am I likely to react to receiving these emails?  Well dear reader, how do you think?

…and you’re not wrong!

Yup! In a world where there is so much competition a key aspect of customer loyalty is providing good customer service and making it easy for people to do business with you – including contacting you to sort out any issues that might arise – small or large.  So to adopt a policy of communicating through the medium of a no-reply email is tantamount to a business shooting itself in the head!

Am I likely to do more (any!) business with them?  Not a cat’s chance in hell!

So you marketers and communications professionals out there working for these large (and increasingly small) companies listen up – not just my musings but those of the respected bloggers and experts above.  To be brutally honest there were a lot more links to stuff, in fact Google identified 1,200,000,000 results on the subject of “no reply email addresses” in only 0.40 seconds – yes that was 1.2 billion links!

This is obviously a major issue yet there’s lots and lots of guidance for companies to rectify the issue – I don’t know why they haven’t but let’s just hope that they do get their collective **** together.

Should no-reply email addresses be banned?  YES!

Oh by the way here is just a selection of the no-reply email addresses I’ve received, and organisations that have p***ed me off recently – ok I got bored so stopped adding them!!

• Auto Trader <noreply@autotrader.co.uk>
• Adobe <account-noreply@adobe.com>
• ASM Auto Recycling (Oxford) <noreply@partshark.co.uk>
• Bannatyne <noreply@bannatyne.co.uk>
• Cirrus <no-reply@s.backerkit.com>
• Coinbase <no-reply@coinbase.com>
• confirmation@easyJet.com <donotreply@easyjet.com>
• Dyson <do.not.reply@dyson.com>
• Aegon <DoNotReply@aegon.co.uk>
• ‘Google Analytics’ <analytics-noreply@google.com>

As a postscript here’s another example of shoddy practice – this time it’s from LinkedIn, or rather it’s from Angela from LinkedIn Premium.  This is allegedly Angela.

Hi paul,

Thanks for being an active member of LinkedIn. To show our appreciation, we’d like to give you a special offer: one free month of LinkedIn Premium.
Get your free month. Cancel anytime.

~Yeah right…here’s my response…

Dear Angela from LinkedIn Premium Give me a free month WITHOUT the requirement for me to enter my credit card details and I might try it. But I’m NEVER going to accept a FREE offer which puts the onus on me to stop it becoming NOT FREE!

And another thing Angela from LinkedIn Premium, why is your email really ‘Angela from LinkedIn Premium’ <donotreply@e.linkedin.com>?

I think that’s pretty shoddy marketing myself – but hey what do I know after a lifetime in marketing 🙂 hashtag#marketing hashtag#email hashtag#scam hashtag#clickbait

Have a nice day 🙂