Published by Openwave May 2009

As more users spend more time connected to online communities through their mobile device, it is essential for mobile operators to strike the right balance between user benefits and personal privacy, especially as targeted advertising gains traction in the marketplace.

Download whitepaper: http://www.openwave.com/us/spotlight/wp_reg.htm?wp=y39j&ref=tcwp

T-Mobile at centre of illegal data sale investigation

Employees at T-Mobile’s UK operation have been identified as the culprits in the illegal sale of subscriber data affecting “many thousands of customers”.

UK privacy watchdog the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) launched a criminal investigation after a mobile telephone company – since revealed to be Deutsche Telekom owned T-Mobile – discovered that some its employees allegedly sold details relating to customers’ mobile phone contracts, including their expiry dates.

The information was allegedly sold on to T-Mobile’s competitors – which might be rival operators Vodafone, O2, Orange, or 3, or any number of third party brokers which were using the material to cold call customers prior to contract expiry dates to offer them an alternative contract – but at the moment the ICO is not saying how far its investigation will extend.

“The ICO has investigated and it appears that the information has been sold on to several brokers and that substantial amounts of money have changed hands. The ICO has obtained several search warrants and attended a number of premises, and is now preparing a prosecution file.”

According to our legal sources, this sort of thing is a legal grey area. If a company is buying this sort of data then it’s obliged to check that that the data was sourced legitimately.  But if the data passed through quite a few hands, like it may have in this case, an operator’s data controller could have asked the broker they bought the data from if it was legitimately sourced by way of covering itself.

But Information Commissioner Christopher Graham is using the incident as a platform to highlight the “existing paltry fines” for such offences and call for a greater deterrent in the form of a “custodial sentence” to better stop the unlawful trade in personal information.

Graham is backing the government’s proposal to introduce a custodial sentence for so called breaches of Section 55 of the Data Protection Act from April 1, 2010.

“We are considering the evidence with a view to prosecuting those responsible and I am keen to go much further and close down the entire unlawful industry in personal data. But, we will only be able to do this if blaggers and others who trade in personal data face the threat of a prison sentence,” Graham said.

“More and more personal information is being collected and held by government, public authorities and businesses. In the future, as new systems are developed and there is more and more interconnection of these systems, the risks of unlawful obtaining and disclosure become even greater. If public trust and confidence in the proper handling of personal information, whether by government or by others, is to be maintained effective sanctions are essential.

“A custodial sentence will also have the added benefit of making the section 55 offence a recordable one and open up the possibility of extradition in appropriate cases,” he said.

T-Mobile

How does this article affect your perception of T-Mobile? What is this?

T-Mobile is Neutral

Total votes: 1

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Google scrutinised over competition and privacy issues

It’s not been a good week for Google. The firm has attracted the attentions of European antitrust authorities, while executives in Italy have been indicted for breaching local privacy laws.

Both incidents highlight just how much power, real or perceived, Google is attributed with. Earlier this week Google confirmed that it has been notified by the European Commission of the receipt of complaints from three companies: a UK price comparison site, Foundem; a French legal search engine called ejustice.fr; and Microsoft’s Ciao! from Bing.

The crux of the complaints is that Google’s algorithms demote these sites in Google’s search results because they compete with Google to some extent. So the issue here, which the EU may choose to investigate, is whether Google is using its majority share of the search and advertising markets to suppress competition.

Julia Holtz, Google’s senior competition counsel, denies this: “Our algorithms aim to rank first what people are most likely to find useful and we have nothing against vertical search sites — indeed many vertical search engines like Moneysupermarket.com, Opodo and Expedia typically rank high in Google’s results,” Holtz said.

Meanwhile, in Italy, three Google employees, including one who left the firm in 2008, have been convicted of breaching Italian privacy regulations. The case started in 2006 when students at a school in Turin, Italy, uploaded footage of themselves bullying a schoolmate to Google Video (this was prior to the acquisition of YouTube).

Google removed the video at the request of the police, but a public prosecutor in Milan pressed on with an indictment of the Google employees. At the outcome of that trial this week, a judge in Milan issued six month suspended sentences to the Google employees for failure to comply with Italian privacy laws. This suggests that content hosting companies, like Google Video or YouTube, would be criminally responsible for the content of videos uploaded by users.

Matt Sucherman, VP and deputy general counsel for Europe, Middle East and Africa at Google, comments: “European Union law was drafted specifically to give hosting providers a safe harbour from liability so long as they remove illegal content once they are notified of its existence.”

A notice and take down regime of this kind is designed to help creativity flourish and support free speech while protecting personal privacy, Sucherman said. But, if “sites like Blogger, YouTube and indeed every social network and any community bulletin board, are held responsible for vetting every single piece of content that is uploaded to them — every piece of text, every photo, every file, every video — then the Web as we know it will cease to exist, and many of the economic, social, political and technological benefits it brings could disappear.”

Google

How does this article affect your perception of Google? What is this?

Google is 37.6% positive

Total votes: 32

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When Mark Zuckerberg announced the death of privacy last year, The Informer thought the little dweeb was talking about Facebook, but recent events in the British media world would appear to suggest otherwise.

Never mind the Winkelvoss twins, if anyone can lay claim to prior art when it comes to the innovation of making money from information that people thought was private, it seems to be the British media and police establishments.

Never one to miss a trick, however, Zuckerberg looks set to take advantage of what we can only assume will be a lengthy hiatus on eavesdropping over at News International with the announcement that Facebookers can now voluntarily leave their conversations open to possible public scrutiny by making Skype video calls to their 555,467,032 closest friends without ever leaving the site.

When Skype vice president Neil Stevens said the alliance –announced Wednesday – had the “potential to unlock even more conversations”, The Informer is quite sure he didn’t mean it in a News of the World kind of way. But the recent granting of a patent to Microsoft for illicitly recording Skype calls must surely mean that the kind of people who need superinjunctions won’t be touching the new service with a bargepole.

Facebook users who aren’t pushed about privacy (i.e. all 750 million of them) won’t need to have Skype already installed on their systems, a quick click on a Java plug-in will do the necessary. The partnership builds on an existing alliance between the two companies, which enabled users to message Facebook friends or ‘Like’ their status updates from within the desktop version of Skype.

The announcement of the deal came a week after the launch of Google+, Mountain View’s latest foray into the social networking playground, which the search giant is no doubt hoping will prove a lot stickier and less annoying than its initial offering, Google Buzz. Taking a leaf out of the Cupertino recipe-for-success book, Google decided to go the desirability-through-exclusivity route by limiting the number of people who can initially join up, a risky move for a product that relies on mass participation for success. So far, it appears to be working, as the sort of people who can normally be found queuing outside Apple stores for weeks ahead of any product launch have taken to eBay in an effort to secure a Google+ invitation before the rest of their friends.

When the plebs finally do get the call up to Google+, they’ll be able to one-up it on their Facebook friends in the video calling stakes at least. While Facebook’s video chat is limited to one-on-one conversations (group calls can only be accessed through the desktop version of Skype and is subscription-based), Google+ supports group calls through its Hangout feature.

In a week that’s seen its fair share of paranoia about privacy, Taiwan has become the latest in a lengthening line of markets to voice concern over using network equipment made by Chinese vendor Huawei. The Taiwanese National Communications Commission (NCC) has ruled that core network kit from Huawei may not be cleared for use in the country because of national security worries. Huawei has met with similar objections recently in India and the US.

The NCC made the announcement last week and, according to an article in the Taipei Times, the ruling will affect a number of local carriers, including Far EasTone, Taiwan Mobile and Vibo, which had all bought kit from Huawei. According to the Times, some of the purchased kit was being held up at customs and the carriers will have to get approval from both the NCC and the Taiwanese Investigation Bureau before any of it can be installed.

While this isn’t great news for Huawei, the spat may represent little more than a spot of flag waving from the Taiwanese authorities. Technically, and despite having its own government, the island falls under Chinese rule and the two countries have a somewhat fractious relationship. Perhaps bolstered by its recent face-off with Google, Taiwan may simply have moved into “who’s your daddy?” mode, with Huawei getting caught in the crossfire of a larger dispute.

Earlier this year, Huawei’s most senior US executive wrote an open letter denying alleged links between the company and the Chinese state security services, after the firm was forced to withdraw from its acquisition of 3Leaf.

It’s been a good week for the chest-beaters, with EU Digital Agenda Commissioner “Steelie” Neelie Kroes once more taking on the might of the European mobile operators in a bid to end what she termed “roaming rip-offs.” Yes, the woman who fined Microsoft $1.8bn has decided it’s time to shake down the European mobile market where, she said, competition was too weak and operators “still enjoy outrageous margins, particularly on data downloads.”

Kroes was announcing a “fundamental new approach” to the EU’s mobile market that should see an increase in competition and lower prices for consumers. According to Kroes, some carriers charge consumers as much as €2 per meg of data when roaming, despite charging each other “substantially less” than 50 cents. “This has got to stop,” she said, and the Commission’s suggestion for doing just that include making it easier for alternative operators to enter the roaming market and forcing them to share their networks with providers from other member states at regulated wholesale prices. In addition, consumers should be allowed to choose alternative providers for EU-wide roaming, availing of lower prices when they’re on the move while staying with their usual provider in their home country. Under that proposal, Kroes said that customers would be able to switch to their pre-selected roaming provider without having to change number or SIM card.

According to the Commission, recent retail caps imposed on carriers were being treated as price floors because of the lack of competition. Rather than regulate prices “forever”, Kroes said that time had now come to introduce “profound structural market changes” that would enforce competition, stimulating both supply and demand for roaming services.

The Commission is now proposing that, by July 2014, retail caps before VAT will include €0.50 per MB of data, €0.24 per minute for voice calls and €0.10 for a text message. These caps would remain in place until 2016 as a safety net by which time, Kroes said “structural measures to enhance competition will have delivered innovative pan-European roaming offers and cheaper prices significantly below the caps.”

How the mobile carriers will respond to the throttling of their revenue streams at a time when the need for network investment is high on the agenda remains to be seen but UK regulator Ofcom’s launch this week of an interactive map of the country’s broadband landscape means that, for fixed providers at least, there’ll be nowhere to hide on the quality front.

The map uses data provided by Britain’s communications providers to detail information including the availability of superfast broadband (24Mbps+), consumer up-take and average actual speeds for ADSL and cable services, including the percentage of homes not currently getting speeds of 2Mbps.

Areas with the best coverage and speeds are colour-coded green, with the slow pokes earning a red light. While the Greater London area gets a not-so-stellar blue, with an average speed of 8.8Mbps, citizens of what City-types like to call “The Provinces” are enjoying 9.9Mbps, with superfast broadband available to 90 per cent of those living in Bristol, Brighton, Portsmouth and Reading. Around 58 per cent of UK addresses are served by a super-fast broadband exchange or cable network, with Luton in England and Newtownabbey in Northern Ireland boasting 100 per cent availability. Northern Ireland emerges as something of a hotspot for superfast broadband: following the completion of a major investment programme undertaken by the country’s Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment and BT, 97 per cent of addresses are served.

BT was on target to pass 5 million premises with fibre-based broadband by the end of June and expects to hit the 10 million mark by the end of 2015. The incumbent telco has allocated a budget of £2.5bn for its fibre rollout, which will entail a mixture of Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) and Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) technology. Virgin Media is also rolling out the fibre, working with Fujitsu on a £2bn FTTH project that should see 5 million homes across the UK connected.

If the Brits are keen on their super-fast broadband, it seems that those living in the land of kangaroos, tinnies and beetroot on burgers will require a little more coaxing to jump on the bandwagon. According to a report on ComputerWorld, uptake of Australia’s National Broadband Network hinges on Bruce and Sheila’s willingness to get jiggy with the world of adult entertainment.

Director of content provider The Project Factory, Jennifer Wilson, says that adult content will drive the uptake that is vital to success of Australia’s NBN project. Addressing the Australian Computer Society in Sydney, Wilson said that: “The single most important factor is the porn factor because pornography has always been at the cutting edge of technology,” adding that if Australia can’t get porn on the NBN, “we will have trouble getting consumer acceptance and uptake.” If you build it, they will come, as it were.

The Informer imagines that this news will inject an interesting new angle into domestic arguments over massive credit card bills for online entertainment. Droves of Australian men will now simply be able to state that they’re doing their bit for their country because, as Wilson has it, “No one is going to install NBN on the basis that one day they might need e-health services, but they will use that as a justification for getting the service in order to download movies and watch TV.” Think of it as the digital age’s equivalent of buying Playboy because the articles are actually rather good.

Staying with the tackier side of life, Japanese customers with a taste for a bit of expensive mobile bling will no doubt have been devastated to learn that Nokia is killing off its Vertu range of “luxury” handsets and services in the country. According to reports from Japanese newspaper Nikkei, the Finnish vendor will withdraw completely from that market at the end of August this year, having failed to make any meaningful impact on the country’s mobile communications ecosystem. Nokia’s Vertu partnership with local big gun NTT DoCoMo was due to end at this time also.

British-based Vertu is an independently run division of Nokia, manufacturing the mobile phone’s answer to high-end, status symbol watches and jewellery. Many of its phones are made using precious metals and gems – its most expensive device to date, the Signature Cobra, retailed for over £200,000. A Signature stainless steel model retails for £8,600. The phones run on Nokia’s Symbian operating system.

Nokia’s relationship with the Japanese market has been a troubled one. The vendor pulled out of the mass market there in 2008, having battled to compete with locally developed products and competing offerings designed specifically with the Japanese user in mind. According to commentators at the time, Nokia’s offerings didn’t support many of the technologies popular with Japanese consumers, leaving the company unable to compete with locally based manufacturers. While Nokia’s star waned, the iPhone and Android based phones saw exponential growth, with the latter in particular cementing a toehold for devices makers such as Samsung and LG. Following the 2008 withdrawal, Nokia continued to operate two Vertu outlets in the upmarket areas of Shibuya and Ginza. Nokia Siemens will continue to operate in Japan.

And speaking of moving on, it’s time to say goodbye for another week.

Take care,

The Informer

The court order, if real, could be the broadest surveillance order ever to have been issued”.

The US National Security Agency is collecting the call records of millions of Verizon’s customers, according to a report published by the Guardian Newspaper in the UK. The Guardian has published on its website what it claims is a copy of a top secret court order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court requiring that Verizon hand over call data “on an ongoing daily basis.”

The order, which is scheduled for declassifcation in 2038, requires that Verizon: “Shall produce to the NSA upon service of this Order, and continue production on an ongoing daily basis thereafter for the duration of this Order, unless otherwise ordered by the Court, an electronic copy of the following tangible things: all call detail records of “telephony metadata” created by Verizon for communications (i) between the United States and abroad, or (ii) wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.”

The order does not require Verizon to hand over details of calls that originate and terminate outside of the US.

While the content of the calls is not required, nor the “name, address or financial information of a subscriber or customer,” the NSA does receive telephone numbers, IMEI and IMSI numbers and the time and length of the call. It is also possible, the Guardian said, that location information is included.

The Center for Constitutional Rights in the US described the order as “the broadest surveillance order to have ever been issued,” adding that “it requires no level of suspicion and applies to all Verizon subscribers anywhere in the US.”

The report raises a number of questions, including whether or not other US operators are bound by similar orders and what level of information, if any, is being collected on called or calling parties outside of the US.

The survey suggests consumers are happy to share personal data under the right circumstances.

Almost two thirds’ of consumers aged between 18 and 34 “don’t care about privacy”, with 59 per cent of those aged between 35 and 44  equally unconcerned, according to a report published today.

Research firm Coleman Parks conducted a survey of 3,900 consumers across 13 countries on behalf of BSS/OSS vendor Amdocs with a view to discovering how consumers feel about privacy. The survey revealed that consumers in developing markets care less about their personal data; on average around 80 per cent of consumers in the Philippines and Thailand claimed they do not care about their personal data, while consumers in Western Europe, the US and Russia were, in general, more concerned.

The research also found that 57 per cent of consumers are willing to share additional personal information, such as their location, their top five Facebook friends’ names and information about family members, in return for financial rewards or better service.

61 per cent of consumers would exchange personal data for improved network speed, while 65 per cent would do so for better pricing plans.54 per cent would even allow this data to be passed on to a third party, under the right conditions.

Although the findings have only just been published, the survey was conducted in April 2013; shortly before reports surfaced that the US National Security Agency has been collecting the call data of Verizon customers and has direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet firms.

“I don’t know whether the results would change if we were to conduct the research again now,” said Alastair Hanlon, head of market insight and strategy. “The reason people were so upset is because they did not know it was happening. Our research shows that if people know their data is being collected by operators, they are comfortable with it.”

Hanlon added that customer data has potential to become a new “industry currency”.

“This new economy is driven by big data and can result in new revenue streams and improved ARPU for operators as well as a better customer experience.”

Dystopian futures almost always feature some kind of omnipotent presence—political, corporate or non-human—beneath whose gaze the masses cringe and squirm. And the power that these entities enjoy often depends, in a nod to the grim realities of the past, on the willingness of individuals to betray one another in return for a scrap of reward or approval.

Central to these scenarios is the suggestion that human beings are complicit in their own subjugation; too quick to divide and invite the rule of tyranny.

So the Informer was disappointed but not surprised by Amdocs research published this week revealing that 57 per cent of consumers would be willing to share personal data with their mobile operator, including their location, the names of their top five Facebook friends and information on their family members, in exchange for some kind of payout. More than half of the 3,900 people surveyed would even be happy for that data to be passed on to a third party.

61 per cent said they would exchange personal data for improved network speeds, while 65 said they’d put out for discounted tariffs. This suggests that consumers do not believe they deserve the best service available on the grounds that they pay for it, which is great news for the operator community.

Although given that customer loyalty is such a grail for the mobile operator community, it might want to take note of the fact that familial loyalty can be so cheaply bought and sold.

The research itself was conducted pre-PRISM and we don’t know whether it would yield different results if carried out today. But according to Amdocs’ Alastair Hanlon, head of market insight and strategy, the reason people were so upset about PRISM was not that their data was accessed but that it was accessed without their knowledge.

“Our research shows that if people know their data is being collected by operators they are comfortable with it,” Hanlon said.

The NSA missed a trick here, didn’t it? It needn’t have scurried about in the shadows with its top secret court orders; it could have simply offered everyone in the US a few donut vouchers and they’d have jumped at the chance to hand over their data. If it had been smart enough to set up a donut business at which those vouchers could have been redeemed the NSA would have made a fortune into the bargain.

And if we wind up with a scenario where US citizens are given incentives to permit access to their data—tax breaks, say, or healthcare—you read it here first.

Many pages have been devoted to the corrupting influence of power and the observation that the more power you have the more corrupt you are in danger of becoming. This week the board of directors at Orange were channeling Tammy Wynette, offering vocal support for their man Stéphane Richard, who has had his collar felt in connection with a corruption investigation in France going back to 2008.

Richard previously worked in the French Finance Ministry and he faces questions relating to his role in a 2008 payment made to businessman Bernard Tapie. He was arrested last week and his detention was extended by 24 hours on Tuesday by the Court of Justice of the Republic, which investigates ministerial misconduct in France.

In a statement this week, the Orange board said it had: “Decided to reassert its full confidence in Stéphane Richard…In particular the Board considers that the legal measures affecting Stéphane Richard do not impede his ability to fully and effectively lead Orange as its chairman and [CEO]“.

Richard should beware the false sense of security, however, as boards and their votes can be fickle. Readers will remember that, in October 2012, TeliaSonera CEO Lars Nyberg was given public backing by his board in the midst of his own corruption scandal, only to be ousted in February this year. This week it was announced that his replacement will be Johan Dennelind, until now the CEO of South African operator Vodacom.

Back to Orange, though, and this week the French incumbent became the first operator to introduce Joyn services in its home market. France is the ninth country into which Joyn services have been released and 14 operators have so far pledged their support to the GSMA’s rich messaging solution.

To begin with services will be available through a compatibility upgrade to the Orange iOS and Android OTT comms app Libon but later this year devices will be made available on which Joyn is native.

The Jury is still out on Joyn—probably milling around on the courthouse steps sending messages to its friends over WhatsApp. It has been suggested by the president of SAP mobile services that only a handful of large operators will deploy their own Joyn technology, with others more likely to use cloud-based hosted solutions for reasons of expedition, expedience and expenditure.

The Orange deployment is built on IMS kit supplied by Nokia Siemens Networks and the Informer saw one cheerleader tweet that “the more operators on Joyn the more successful it will be”. That should be a given, but it’s not.

Leading the industry in Shifty Business this week, Alcatel-Lucent has followed the lead of Nokia Siemens Networks in repositioning itself as a specialist, with a focus on IP networking and fixed and mobile ultra-broadband access. Nu-ALU will emerge from its chrysalis/focus reassignment surgery—the overall plan is called Shift—a good bit lighter, as it intends to generate at least €1bn selling off assets including its submarine cable business.

By 2015, IP Networking and Ultra-Broadband Access are set to represent 85 per cent of R&D investment, looking at what the company describes as a clearly differentiated management approach to the Core Networking segment businesses managed for growth, and the Access segment- including wireless and fixed access – and “other” segment, managed for cash and focused on Ultra-Broadband Access.

Ovum warned that ALU might find it difficult to exit from legacy technologies but conceded that Chinese vendors have made some Western vendors’ position more or less untenable.

Commenting on the announcement, Ron Kline, principal network infrastructure analyst, at Ovum, said that Alcatel-Lucent’s strategy change shows just how fast market dynamics have changed in a market once dominated by the large Tier-1 telecommunication providers that are its customers, but increasingly under siege by internet content providers, while vendors based in the West have been out-competed by Chinese players.

“The overall broadband access market is in decline and much of the current growth is in China…Given the extent of the installed base of legacy products and the relevant customers, accelerating an exit could prove difficult. Alcatel-Lucent faced a similar dilemma when it rationalized its products back in 2006 after the merger however customer protests made the company reverse its decision,” said Ovum analyst Ron Kline.

Alcatel Lucent is not the only company with weight loss on its mind as Huawei has been making a lot of noise this week about its new flagship Android device, the Ascend P6, which measures 6.18mm from front to back.

Cramming everything into such a svelte form factor has clearly been a labour of love for the people responsible. In one video promoting the new smartphone a Huawei design director can be seen contemplating the handset wearing an expression of lovelorn anguish, as if he’s got a serious case of lover’s nuts.

The marketing department’s Superego has flung itself aside, allowing the Id to revel in hyperbole that, even within the framework of the nonsense talked about mobile phones in adverts, applies every bit as much pressure to the envelope as does the handset’s slender profile.

“It seems that its extraordinary elegance would become part of your soul, changing your way of acting and thinking, so that your own life would be elegant too,” says the design director. “Everyone that uses this phone immediately falls in love with it.”

Then we see three blindfolded consumers turning the thing over in their hands, being asked to describe it.

“It’s very hard,” says one

“It has a nice curvature,” says the next.

“It fits in the palm of my hand,” says the third.

“Oh, it’s pink!” says the first, as she removes her blindfold.

Had you watched the video wearing a blindfold yourself, you could have been forgiven for reaching the wrong conclusion.

The Ascend P6 even has a tricksy, native camera function called the Beauty Shot that applies a sort of Photoshopesque gloss to facial pictures, enabling users to make themselves look more attractive. This, of course, is exactly what Huawei is trying to do. It wants to be more attractive to consumers, and more attractive to the Western authorities that remain abidingly suspicious of its intentions. Marketing a function that encourages people to mask their own faces may or may not be the best way of going about it!

Over on the network side, Huawei has taken on the field and civil maintenance and management of Vodafone’s xDSL and mobile networks in Spain. The five year contract sees Huawei taking on 103 Vodafone employees as well as responsibility for maintenance of Vodafone’s mobile access network infrastructure.

In other handset news, open source software developer Canonical has established a Carrier Advisory Group for its Ubuntu smartphone OS. The CAG features a number of leading operators, including LG UPlus, SK Telecom and Korea Telecom from Asia Pacific and Deutsche Telekom, EE, Telecom Italia and Portugal Telecom from Europe. The announcement also referenced “the leading Spanish international carrier,” suggesting that Canonical did not have clearance to use Telefónica’s name in its release.

Canonical said that the CAG will hold regular meetings in a bid to steer the development of the Ubuntu mobile platform. Key discussion topics will include strategies for differentiation, application portability from Android and Blackberry environments, revenue share models for publishers operators and device vendors and market positioning.

In return for their participation the CAG members will gain early access to information on platform development as well as commercial devices when they arrive, which is scheduled for later this year.

Operators can often be heard holding forth on the importance of a stable, commercially successful third device ecosystem to compete with those led by Apple and Google. At MWC this year a number of operator CEOs appeared at a Mozilla press conference to give public support to the new Firefox smartphone OS.

“The mobile industry remains on the lookout for an independent platform that enables innovation and differentiation,” said David Wood, who will head the group. And he ought to know; the former Psion engineer and one of the founder members of the original Symbian collaboration.

“The Carrier Advisory Group will have ample opportunity to influence the Ubuntu roadmap, and take full advantage of the potential in this emerging platform.”

Operators need to tread pretty carefully, here. They haven’t succeeded in trying to play device ecosystems off against one another in the past and backing two more pliant horses may well result in neither coming home.

One name conspicuously absent from the Ubuntu CAG is Vodafone, which has plenty to keep it busy at the moment. Last week it made a play for German cable provider Kabel Deutschland, a move which this week drew a counter-offer from international cable player Liberty Global. None of the three have released details about the size of the offers, although the Financial Times reported that Liberty had trumped Vodafone with a bid of €7.5bn.

Liberty already operates in the German market, under the Unity Media brand, and has 11.3 million service subscribers—6.7 million video, 2.3 million broadband and 2.3 million fixed telephony at an average of 1.60 service subscriptions per customer relationship. The firm ranks second in the German cable market and the deal would therefore require approval from the competition authorities.

Earlier in June Liberty completed the acquisition of UK fixed broadband and cable operator Virgin Media, which also operates the Virgin Mobile MVNO.

Meanwhile reports also emerged that Vodafone is also considering a bid for Italian fixed operator Fastweb. Vodafone already offers fixed line and TV services in the Netherlands and Portugal.

In the US rumours continue to swirl around the prospect of Verizon buying Vodafone out of the Verizon Wireless joint venture. This week ratings agency Moody’s offered its take on the prospect, saying that each company could keep its A3 rating so long as Verizon funded the deal with a balance of debt and equity and Vodafone used the proceeds to drive down debt, sweeten shareholders and embark on some astute M&A.

Sticking with the US, a report issued this week by Citrix ByteMobile said that streaming audio now accounts for 12 per cent of mobile data volume in North America, with internet radio the overwhelming majority of that traffic.

Other statistics from the report include the fact that mobile search has increased by an average of 25 per cent per subscriber worldwide since February 2012 while Facebook now accounts for five times as much data volume (five per cent of overall mobile data traffic) as it did in February 2012.

Given that a single YouTube video watched on a mobile device generates as much data as ten Facebook sessions, the number of Facebook sessions is clearly growing very quickly. Video accounts for over a third of mobile data traffic in the US and almost half in the rest of the world, with YouTube accounting for 82 per cent of all video entertainment traffic.

“Interestingly, operators typically make little or no revenue from this traffic beyond that associated with data usage,” said Chris Koopmans, vice president and general manager of Service Provider Platforms, Citrix, bringing operators back down to Earth with a bang.

Google will be hoping that the same fate does not await its new Loon project, which will see the firm dangling wireless internet connectivity from a squadron of weather balloons that are moved into position by being raised and lowered in and out of stratospheric winds. The project kicks off later this month with a trial in New Zealand.

It’s not a load of hot air, it’s helium

Take care

The Informer

Facebook turned ten this week and, like all ten year olds, it is given to over sharing. The Informer has long lurked on Facebook, a silent voyeur driven by morbid curiosity to click on the banal and fatuous items in his newsfeed. And if your newsfeed looked anything like the Informer’s this week then it was chock full of people sharing their ‘Look Back’—Facebook’s gift to the world after a ten-year social bender.

What you got, if you were tempted to click, was a couple of minutes’ of blandly sound-tracked video constructed of soft fades and stills from ‘milestone’ events in your life. Not your actual life but your Facebook life—according to Facebook, after all, we were all of us ‘born’ only when we established our profile.

People loved their videos because, like a lot of social networking, they conform to the Great Lie perpetuated by Facebook et al that all of us are interesting outside of our own heads. And also because the films made everyone’s lives look like one a mawkish Christmas TV adverts in which everything is viewed through the soft focus of sentimental tears.

They turned every photo of a poorly executed novelty birthday cake into a portrayal of triumph in the face of monumental adversity. Touching the Void? Forget it; check out this Daliesque Elmo!

It was awful. The Informer declined to even look at his own, such was his fear of misinterpretation. As one of his close personal friends exclaimed: “Do I want to share my Facebook film? It makes me look like a drunken, gun-loving, hobo, so no, I don’t want to.”

Is Facebook the Mirror, Mirror on the Wall or has it made control-freak spin doctors out of all of us, desperate to (social) media manage the way we are perceived? It would be interesting if someone hacked Facebook’s Look Back algorithm so it featured only photos that people had chosen to delete. There would be a lot more horror movies and a lot less romcoms.

Technology can be spookily accurate sometimes but at others it can skew our perception. There was something disturbingly terminal about all those fades of beaming smiles, as if we were watching epitaphs. It reminded the Informer of that Robin Williams movie, the Final Cut, based in a future in which everyone has a chip implanted in their head that records every moment of their life. Williams’ plays an ‘editor’ tasked with cutting those videos after the implantee’s death for showing at a remembrance service. The catch is that he is paid to show them only in a good light, forced to watch through and edit out all of the really horrible stuff they get up to.

How would we like to be remembered? It’s a fundamental question and one that chimes with the headlines from the first weeks of 2014, amid the Guardian’s Snowdengate intelligence leaks proclaiming the death of privacy and US newspapers covering the death of network neutrality.

It didn’t take AT&T long to hit the headlines again on the latter note, due to the revelation that the US operator has filed a patent for a technology designed to prevent its customers from consuming “an excessive amount of channel bandwidth”.

The filing describes a system, whereby a customer is provided an initial number of credits and as they consume the credits, the data they download is verified to determine if it is “permissible” or “non-permissible” according to their package. Non-permissible data could include file-sharing and movie downloads if the user’s subscription plan does not permit such activity and would consume credits. In the event of a consumer using all their credits, they would be required to pay more money, be subject to sanctions such as the blocking of certain traffic types, or be incentivised to maintain “preferred consumption” habits.

Consumption habits are set to be under the microscope in the UK, if the reports are true. Stoke-on-Trent City Council is planning to send daily ‘motivational’ texts to obese people in the area to help them lose weight in a bid to take the strain off the NHS. Given the reputation local councils have for spying on people’s private lives, the Informer expects the texts to be along the lines of: “Out of the lift and take the stairs, Chunky!”.

Swedish kit vendor Ericsson was doing some consumption of its own, making another acquisition in the TV space, this time of Massachusetts-based Azuki Systems, a provider of TV Anywhere delivery platforms for service providers, content owners and broadcasters. The acquisition bolsters Ericsson’s TV and media portfolio following the recent addition of Mediaroom from Microsoft.

There was similar activity from network optimisation firm JDSU, which picked up the world’s most fashionable real time intelligence software provider, Trendium, for an undisclosed sum.

SMS is going out of fashion in Eastern Europe  according to research from Analysys Mason, which found that in several countries, such as Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Lithuania, messaging revenue has entered decline, suggesting that OTT services are already starting to have an impact, either directly or because operators are taking pre-emptive action to stave off the threat.

Anecdotally, applications such as WhatsApp Messenger and LINE are gaining in popularity, and as smartphone penetration increases, the impact will intensify, because of the network effect. Tariffing also plays a role – for example in the Czech Republic operators have introduced new tariffs that are re-aligned to favour data over voice and messaging, which will encourage smartphone adoption, and hence OTT usage.

In other markets such as Russia, Turkey and Ukraine, smartphone penetration is lower, and 3G/4G networks are less advanced, which serves to support traditional messaging services. However, in the medium term, the OTT threat is, if anything, more intense, the analyst said. In Turkey in particular there is a young population that has tended to adopt new means of communication where available at the right price and the same can be said for Russia and Ukraine. “We therefore expect a strong substitutive effect across the region during the course of our forecast,” Analysys said.

Indeed, the most serious challenge mobile operators face over the next five years is the competitive threat from OTT players, according to overall respondents to the Telecoms.com Intelligence Industry Survey 2014, the first results of which were announced this week. Almost 50 per cent of respondents rating the OTT threat a six or seven on a one-to-seven scale of severity. But operators in isolation judged regulatory pressure on pricing to be the biggest threat, with almost 60 per cent of operator respondents giving this a high rating for severity.

Back on the subject of Eastern Europe, the Winter Olympics kick off in Sochi, Russia, today. If you’ve been keeping tabs on the news, you will have watched the PR car crash unfold as pictures of unfinished hotel rooms and brown tap water appeared online. There’s also a total hack fest going on if reports are to be believed. One NBC reporter had his phone and laptop hacked whilst sitting in a cafe discussing with a security expert how to set a honey trap to see how long it would take for a laptop to be hacked. Indeed, once the trap was set it took less than a minute before the attacks started, prompting the media to state that visitors to Sochi should expect to be hacked almost immediately.

Of course if you want to properly cleanse an infected device you could just detonate it. Darpa, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, has paid IBM £3.4m to create a self destructing chip. It sounds like something out of a spy film, which is quite possibly a legitimate use, and features a fuse that shatters a thin glass substrate which forms the base of the chip following a wireless radio command. The project reportedly came into existence after an embarrassing incident where the US left a downed stealth copter at the site of the operation to kill Osama bin Laden. Whoops.

Spanish telco Telefónica and US carrier Sprint were both working on ways to get machines talking, having announced M2M plans. Telefónica announced the next phase in the launch of its M2M Global Channel Partner Programme, expanding the initiative to Europe ahead of a global launch. The initiative is already live in the US, where more than 80 partners enrolled in less than seven months.

Sprint is relying on another company that sounds like a Game of Thrones character, Aeris Communications, to deliver its M2M service platform, which will enable it to target eHealth, Fleet Management, Telematics, Connected Auto, Utilities, Monitoring and Control, and Point of Sale.

In related news, the US could soon make M2M connectivity in new vehicles mandatory, following research undertaken by the US Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The government body has conducted a year-long pilot programme on vehicle to vehicle (V2V) communication technology and plans to publish a report in the coming weeks, before beginning work on a regulatory proposal that would require V2V devices in new vehicles in the future.

The Department of Transportation’s research has suggested that V2V technology can prevent the majority of crashes involving two or more vehicles.

Dutch operator KPN could have done with crash avoidance technology, after recording a ten per cent year on year drop in revenues for FY2013, as well as a 6.7 per cent drop in net profit. The group added that it is looking to create a leaner operating model by making redundancies over the next two years. This is following the completion of a staff reduction programme started in 2011, which has resulted in 4,650 fewer full-time equivalents (FTEs) in the Netherlands. An FTE is a unit of measurement that indicates the workload of an employee – an FTE of 1.0 is equivalent to one full time employee. The group said it has over 30,000 FTEs worldwide. They’re people goddamnit! Not units! But unfortunately the next step to create a leaner business model is for KPN to reduce its workforce by a further 1,500 to 2,000 FTEs by 2016, the company said.

But while some companies were falling apart, plenty of others were coming together. Even Samsung and Cisco have agreed to bury all patent spats for the next decade with a cross licensing deal. Samsung must be in a very friendly mood, as this is the third such deal in a month, following similar agreements with Google and Ericsson.

French operators Bouyges Telecom and SFR agreed to roll out a shared network covering 57 per cent of the French population, managed by a joint venture looking after RAN assets covering 2G, 3G and LTE services.

The network covers all of France but excludes the country’s 32 largest urban areas that have more than 200,000 inhabitants and blind spots that are currently not covered by either operator. The two said that the agreement will enable them to improve their mobile coverage and generate savings.

In the UK, a five-year, multi-million pound deal will see Virgin Media Business upgrade 3 UK’s backhaul services through its nationwide fibre optic network. The new service will provide better connections between the company’s 15 aggregation sites, already underpinned by Virgin Media Business via MBNL, the 50:50 network joint venture between 3 and EE, and three core data centres across the UK.

Mobile money firm Monitise acquired Istanbul-based mobile technology specialist Pozitron Yazilim, in a £24m all-shares deal that highlights the growing demand for mobile financial services in the eastern Mediterranean’s largest market.

In other finance news, the mobile commerce joint venture set up by UK mobile operators O2, Vodafone and EE — Weve — has announced a partnership with payment provider MasterCard to accelerate usage of contactless mobile payments at the point of purchase in British high street retail outlets

The two firms claim that integrating consumers’ MasterCard accounts with Weve’s payment platform will allow consumers to make purchases using their smartphones while keeping costs down for retailers. MasterCard will provide technology and integration services to banks and financial institutions wishing to take advantage of Weve’s payments platform.

It still remains to be seen whether Weve will actually be remembered for anything, but one thing Satya Nadella will be remembered for is being the guy who took on the job no one wanted, as CEO of Microsoft, effective immediately.

Nadella joined Microsoft in 1992 from Sun Microsystems and helped spearhead major technical shifts within the organisation; he was intimately involved with its transformation into a full blown cloud services provider and headed up the server and cloud businesses.

Well, now that Ballmer’s gone the company could do with a fresh direction and he’s certainly on trend. Operators should be looking to spend ten to 20 per cent of their annual IT budget on Big Data in 2014, according to respondents to the Telecoms.com Intelligence Annual Industry Survey. According to operator respondents, which closely matched the wider industry view, 36 per cent would allocate up to ten per cent of their IT budget in 2014 and 37 per cent would allocate up to 20 per cent for Big Data initiatives.

And just to really reinforce how on trend Microsoft is, the company just splashed $15m on an investment in Foursquare Labs, maker of the popular restaurant and entertainment suggestion tool.

Speaking of which, it’s lunchtime and the Informer needs to maintain his mayorship at the shop next door.

Until next time

The Informer

Telekom is shifting pressure to the authorities

In the wake of a far reaching report by Vodafone Group revealing the level of government snooping demanded in 29 countries the company holds an operating licence in, German carrier Deutsche Telekom has published figures on wiretapping in its domestic market.

The German operator said that “under specific circumstances” it is legally obligated to provide information to the security authorities and to enable interception measures and that in order to make this area of its activity more transparent it is now publishing the figures annually.

Vodafone’s revelations appear to be motivated by a desire to shift the suspicion back to the governments in question and Deutsche Telekom’s document uses similar language.

“Deutsche Telekom closely observes telecommunications secrecy and data privacy regulations, which are basic rights accorded to German citizens. Wherever the authorities encroach upon these rights with requests for interception activities and data, Deutsche Telekom makes sure that they are processed strictly in accordance with the law. In particular, this ensures that Deutsche Telekom only takes action when the necessary legal preconditions are met,” the company said.

The revelations by Vodafone earlier this week prompted Viviane Reding, Vice President of the European Commission and more recently champion of the ‘right to be forgotten’ to comment that one year after the Edward Snowden revelations, the report shows the scale of collection by Governments of data being held by private companies.

With its report covering requests made in 2013, Deutsche Telekom revealed that it had received request to intercept a total of 49,796 lines based on court orders that give evidence to the suspicion that the individual, either as a perpetrator or accessory, has already, will attempt, or has prepared to commit a serious criminal offence.

It also received requests for a total of 436,331 data traffic records, when it is deemed necessary to establish the facts or determine their whereabouts of a subscriber and requests for subscriber master data totalled 28,162. Finally it revealed requests in 946,641 cases for data on IP address owners.

“Deutsche Telekom does not respond to inquiries from authorities outside of Germany,” the company said.

The contents of smartphones are increasingly stored in the cloud

A recent landmark US Supreme Court ruling on the legality of searching a mobile phone without a warrant is a ‘historical moment’ for defenders of privacy rights according to Microsoft general counsel & executive vice president, legal & corporate affairs Brad Smith.

This case focused on whether police can search a suspect’s cell phone without a warrant during an arrest.

David Leon Riley was arrested on August 22, 2009 after a traffic stop, which resulted in the discovery of loaded firearms in his car. The officers subsequently seized and searched Riley’s phone and its contents, and the officers charged him with an unrelated shooting that had taken place several weeks prior to his arrest based in part on information found during that search.

Riley argued that the evidence obtained during that search should have been omitted because the search violated his Fourth Amendment rights to privacy and unwarranted search.

In Riley v. California, the lower court ruled that a police officer can not only seize and secure a suspect’s cell phone following an arrest, they can also search the contents of that phone without any warrant or probable cause. But the Supreme Court reviewed the ruling after the California Legislature passed a bill requiring police to obtain a warrant before searching the contents of any “portable electronic devices,” which had implications in another case being reviewed.

In a unanimous decision by Chief Justice Roberts, that court upheld that police generally require a warrant in order to search cell phones, even when it occurs during an otherwise lawful arrest, in part because it’s unfair to treat data accessed on a mobile phone as information that is locally stored on that device, and because access to this data would often unfairly give deep sight into a suspect’s personal life.

“To further complicate the scope of the privacy interests at stake, the data a user views on many modern cell phones may not in fact be stored on the device itself. Treating a cell phone as a container whose contents may be searched incident to an arrest is a bit strained as an initial matter,” Roberts said in his ruling.

“But the analogy crumbles entirely when a cell phone is used to access data located elsewhere, at the tap of a screen. That is what cell phones, with increasing frequency, are designed to do by taking advantage of ‘cloud computing.’”

“The United States concedes that the search incident to arrest exception may not be stretched to cover a search of files accessed remotely—that is, a search of files stored in the cloud.”

The ruling may have deep implications in a wide range of cases involving government seizure of data stored in the cloud, an issue that has risen to prominence since NSA contractor Edward Snowden release the NSA / GCHQ-related activities last year, as it’s one of the first to explicitly discuss privacy rights within the context of cloud computing.

Microsoft general counsel & executive vice president, legal & corporate affairs Brad Smith said that the ruling is a historic victory for privacy defenders.

“More than in any other recent decision, the Supreme Court this week advanced privacy in a digital era characterized by ubiquitous computing,” Smith said in a recent blog post lauding the ruling, adding that it “strikes the right balance between public safety and the privacy concerns of users of mobile technology.”

But perhaps most important was the Court’s reasoning and its positive implications both for smart devices and the storage of personal information in the cloud, Smith explained: “As Chief Justice Roberts noted, “before cell phones, a search of a person was limited by physical realities and tended as a general matter to constitute only a narrow intrusion on privacy.” As he pointed out, most people cannot lug around “every piece of mail they have received for the past several months, every picture they have taken, or every book or article they have read – nor would they have any reason to attempt to do so.”

Yet smartphones, as access points for a range of services, have changed this dynamic, and should force government to reassess how its balances effective law enforcement with privacy rights at a time when an increasingly large chunk of the population depends on these services.

“For those of us at Microsoft and other tech companies who are seeking to ensure that the Fourth Amendment protects information stored in the cloud, these are encouraging words,” he said.

The ruling arrives just weeks after the House approved an amendment to a defense spending bill to prohibit government agencies from using funds to require ISPs to give the government direct access to their servers or to access private electronic communications without a warrant, a move Microsoft also welcomed.

US-based cloud service providers like Microsoft have been keen for the US government to claw back what many view as overreaching surveillance activities, which have seemingly begun to impact the ability of some service providers to effectively compete for contracts globally. Just last week the German government dropped a contract with Verizon, in part because of the Snowden revelations.

Telefónica wants to see more unification of the telecoms sector across Europe

Telefónica’s Big Data Director Richard Benjamins has urged the European Union to unify the continent’s telecoms market and level the playing field between operators and OTT players. He said unless action to create more transparent and fairer market is taken soon, Europe will lose its chance to be at the forefront of Big Data.

Telefónica has set Big Data firmly within its strategy. “For us [Telefónica] it is no doubt that this is something very important. More and more things are digital, so data is really at the heart of what needs to happen,” Benjamins told Telecoms.com ahead of Telefónica’s Data: the New Currency summit, held in Brussels today.

“This event is very important to give a message to the audience and also to the European parliament. There are some issues that need to be solved and they have to be solved in the right way, otherwise everything will again happen elsewhere than in Europe.”

Benjamins said standardisation of the industry across the continent would help in creating a more transparent and equal market. According to him, telcos and OTTs differing treatment causes confusion to consumers. “They have certain rules for one kind of a service from one player, but a different rule for the same service from another player. It’s not clear for consumers, on the other hand is not clear for businesses either.”

Ahead of the inauguration of the new European Commission next month, Benjamins said having the same rules to apply to all players will also ensure better security and privacy to consumers. “We all agree that data is the lifeblood of digital technologies. It is therefore vital that the reform of the legal framework for data protection results in a trusted digital environment.”

“Policy makers should take a risk-based approach which considers not only how data is collected but also how it is used.  They should aim to protect people first, rather than data, and must prevent the use of data in ways that might negatively impact individual people’s lives.”

“I am a digital and data optimist. The internet lets us share and combine in exciting new ways,” Neelie Kroes, VP of the European Commission said. “The rise of Big Data gives us the chance to see patterns and solve problems that were previously unsolvable. While data controllers should not have a blank cheque, we can’t overlook the opportunities. Our shared responsibility is to ensure internet users get education and clear information and rights to make the most of this new data environment.”

Telefonica has also published the results from its second annual Global Millennial Survey, which surveyed some 6,700 people from 18 countries and aims to highlight the 18-30 year-old ‘millennial’ generation’s views on technology. According to the results, 80% of respondents feel in control of their personal online data. However, eight out of 10 said they are worried about hacking and someone stealing their personal data, while 90% claim to take active steps to protect themselves.

Benjamins admitted privacy and security remain the top issues in Big Data, but he said end-users are the key in solving the issue. “What we have found out [from talking to people] is that depending on how we ask the question, people say they’re concerned or they’re not so concerned about privacy,” he said.

“But when we looked into it we found that what what people are really interested in, is great services that offer them utility and many of those services are actually based on personal data.  I think the solution [to privacy and security concerns] is to allow customers to make the decision of which of their data is used themselves. They could for example release certain data in exchange to something. “

Speaking to Telecoms.com at Mobile World Congress 2015 Remi de-Fouchier, Marcomms VP of Gemalto’s telecom business unit, insisted the issues raised by the latest round of Snowden revelations are more to do with privacy than security.

“This is more about privacy, because that was what was at stake,” he said. “It’s about showing our customers that those keys need to be complemented with other security methods so that if one is compromised the other is not. It is very important that we are able to provide a blend of hardware, mobile software and cloud security.”

Understandably de-Fouchier was keen to focus more on its many announcements at the show than the story, but it was clear that the company has been experiencing an unprecedented level of public awareness. Since Gemalto moved quickly to address the claims the story doesn’t seem to have done any lasting damage to the company’s image and may well have initiated many useful discussions the company would not otherwise have had.

Gemalto’s stand at the show was demonstrating a pretty diverse array of products and services, including the LinqUs mobile marketing tool and some interesting NFC innovations, so we asked de-Fouchier to give us a summary.

“There are three aspects we have been developing here,” he said. “The first one is the m-commerce space with our mobile payment and mobile banking platforms. The second part is the Internet of Things, where we are showcasing a track and trace system and the third one is on mobile identity and mobile security, where we bought SafeNet and demonstrated two business priorities for our customers: cloud encryption and mobile ID.”

The phrase ‘there’s no such thing as bad publicity’ may apply to Gemalto and the Snowden story, since it has provided more exposure than it could ever have reasonably expected to achieve though conventional marketing means. At the price of having to field a few awkward questions the company was given the opportunity to demonstrate the breadth of its offering to significantly enlarged audience.

Telecoms.com’s news coverage of Mobile World Congress 2015 is sponsored by NEC.

NEC brings together and integrates technology and expertise to create the ICT-enabled society of tomorrow.  We collaborate closely with partners and customers around the world, orchestrating each project to ensure all its parts are fine-tuned to local needs.  Every day, our innovative solutions for society contribute to greater safety, security, efficiency and equality, and enable people to live brighter lives. Read more…

US vendor Syniverse is using the start of Mobile World Congress 2016 to highlight some recent research into consumer attitudes to mobile brands, which revealed a growing trust problem.

Over 70% of consumers don’t trust mobile operators with their data, according to the survey, and it’s got worse over the past three years. 25% don’t believe their data will be kept private or secure, 21% are worried about how it will be used in future and 19% are concerned that their data will be sold on to a third party.

“We’re going to have this wonderful mobile engagement experience based on the fact that we, as consumers, are willing to share some kind of personal data, even if it’s just a willingness to receive notifications,” said Syniverse CMO Mary Clark in an interview with Telecoms.com. “This is very much the direction the marketing model is going now: away from mass marketing towards one that is much more personalised, so we said ‘OK let’s validate this’.

“There’s a really big concern associated with how the data is being used. Furthermore 75% of people think it’s difficult to withdraw their data from the brand. So there’s this huge amount of distrust and yet there’s this drive to get more personal, and it comes down to: what are you willing to do if there’s a benefit back to you?”

Syniverse’s ultimate conclusion is that consumers are still willing to share their data, but need explicit reassurance that it’s in their interest to do so and tangible proof of the benefit. The increased intimacy of the relationship between brand and consumer that is enabled by all this data works both ways. There is now a much larger burden of trust placed on the brand by the customer and a greater danger of permanently damaging that relationship if that trust is abused.

“All players in the mobile value chain must rethink their approaches to harvesting, managing and using personal data,” said Clark. “They must take a more transparent approach to personalization that empowers control and guarantees data security and privacy. It is on this foundation that a new ‘mobile privacy pact’ will be established to ensure business models and engagement strategies of the future are fully realized.”

The European Union finally rubber-stamped a refresh of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) that offers greater protection for individuals but at the cost of a greater burden on businesses.

In customary EU fashion this is the culmination of four years of to-ing and fro-ing since the refresh was first proposed. Even the final sign-off took four months to complete, with the text having been agreed last December. Furthermore the new regulations won’t come into law until May 2018, giving all businesses who keep data on European citizens, which must include pretty much every multinational, two years to comply.

“The new rules will give users back the right to decide on their own private data,” said Green MEP Jan Philipp Albrecht, who led the drafting process. “Businesses that have accessed users’ data for a specific purpose would generally not be allowed to collect the data without the user being asked. Users will have to give clear consent for their data to be used. Crucially, firms contravening these rules will face fines of up to 4% of worldwide annual turnover, which could imply € billions for the major global online corporations.

“The new rules will give businesses legal certainty by creating one unified data protection standard across Europe. This implies less bureaucracy and creates a level playing field for all business on the European market. Under the new rules, businesses would also have to appoint a data protection officer if they are handling significant amounts of sensitive data or monitoring the behaviour of many consumers.”

Industry reaction has been broadly positive, but with caveats mainly concerning how easy it will be to comply and some concern about the high ceiling for potential fines. Compounding this is a requirement for companies to disclose data breaches within 72 hours of them happening, which is a pretty small window.

“This will be a technical challenge for those businesses unaccustomed to such stringent measures,” said David Mount of MicroFocus. “They will need to identify the breach itself and the information assets likely to have been affected so they can give an accurate assessment of the risks to the authorities and consumers.

“While this may seem like a positive step towards improved data protection, the US example shows that in reality there can be an unintended consequence of ‘data breach fatigue’. Consumers become accustomed to receiving frequent data breach notifications for even very minor breaches, and as a result it can be hard for them to distinguish serious breaches requiring action from minor events which can be safely ignored. The effect is that sometimes consumers can’t see the wood for the trees, and may start to ignore all warnings – which somewhat negates the point of the measure.

“It is now up to European data privacy regulators to work together to ensure that the GDPR rules are implemented in a way that supports economic growth and improved competitiveness,” said John Giusti, Chief Regulatory Officer of the GSMA. “Regulators will need to exercise particular care in interpreting GDPR requirements – around consent, profiling, pseudonymous data, privacy impact assessments and transfers of data to third countries – to avoid stifling innovation in the digital and mobile sectors.

“All eyes are now on the review of the e-Privacy Directive. The right balance needs to be struck between protecting confidentiality of communications and fostering a market where innovation and investment will flourish. To this end, the GSMA calls on legislators to address the inconsistencies between the existing e-Privacy Directive 2002/58/EC and the GDPR.”

The e-Privacy Directive covers things like tracking and cookies and seems to focus specifically on telecoms companies in the way they process personal data. So for the telecoms sector specifically this refresh could be even more important than the GDPR. The European Commission initiated a consultation on ePrivacy earlier this week and will conclude it on 5 July this year.

William Long, a partner at Sidley Austin, warned that individual countries may view the new GDPR differently. “There are still a number of issues where some member states have fought successfully to implement their own national law requirements, for instance in the area of health data, and this will no doubt lead to certain complexities and inconsistencies,” he said.

“However, organisations should be under no doubt that now is the time to start the process for ensuring privacy compliance with the Regulations. The penalties for non-compliance are significant – at up to 4% of annual worldwide turnover or 20 million euros, whichever is the greater. Importantly, companies outside of Europe, such as those in the US who offer goods and services to Europeans, will fall under the scope of this legislation and will face the same penalties for non-compliance.”

“Our own research shows that globally, 52% of the information organisations are storing and hoarding is completely unknown – even to them, we call this ‘Dark Data’,” said David Mosely of Veritas. “Furthermore, 40% of stored data hasn’t even been looked at in more than three years. How can companies know they’re compliant if they don’t even know what they’re storing? This is why GDPR represents such a potentially massive task, and businesses need to start tackling it now.”

“In order for data to remain secure, there are three core components that are now vital for EU businesses,” said Nikki Parker of Covata. “Firstly, encryption is no longer an optional extra. It provides the last line of defence against would-be snoopers and companies must encrypt all personally identifiable information (PII).

“The second component is identity. True data control involves knowing exactly who has access to it and this can be achieved through encryption key management. Enabling businesses to see who has requested and used which keys ensures a comprehensive audit trail, a requirement of the new regulation.

“Finally, businesses must set internal policies that specifically outline how data can be used, for example, whether data is allowed to leave the EU or whether it can be downloaded. Applying policies to each piece of data means access can be revoked at any moment if the company feels it is in violation of the ruling.”

All this is happening in parallel with the overhaul of the rules governing data transfer between Europe and the US, known as the Privacy Shield, and in the aftermath of the Snowden state snooping revelations. By the time the GDPR comes into force pretty much all companies are going to have to tread a lot more carefully in the way they handle their customers’ data and it will be interesting to see how the first major transgression is handled.

The long-awaited court battle between Microsoft and the Department of Justice has started this week, with the government’s snooping ambitions hanging in the balance.

While the encounter between the two does date back to April 2016, Microsoft has filed an additional brief, adding ammunition to the claim the government’s practice of requesting personal information from the cloud companies, while also simultaneously issuing gag orders, violates the constitutional rights of its customers.

Outside of the court room, Microsoft has been lobbying to bring dated laws in line with the digital era, though in this case, it wants the right to tell customers the government has requested access to personal information which is stored in Microsoft Azure data centres. Although it is unlikely there will be a quick resolution to this case, the outcome has the potential to severely limit the scope of intelligence agencies in the states.

The latest brief to be filed by Microsoft’s legal team is in response to a claim a third party cannot vicariously assert the constitutional rights of another person or group of individuals. To protest against government actions or violation of constitutional rights, an individual must appear in person. This is a long-standing precedent in the US, though Microsoft’s latest briefing has a chance of breaking it.

Microsoft argues it has the right to protest on behalf of its customers first and fourth amendment rights of freedom of speech and protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, due to the gag orders. If Microsoft is gagged and prevented from informing its customers of such searches, they will likely never know (the gag orders are mostly not time limited), and therefore cannot protest any constitutional violations.

Due to these special circumstances, Microsoft believes it has the right to vicariously assert those rights on their behalf, and it does have a point. The government has stumbled across a very convenient loop-hole which essentially allows it to do whatever it wants, purely because legislation is completely outdated and redundant for the digital era.

Back in April, Microsoft filed its first brief stating it believed the government practice violated the first and fourth amendment rights of citizens. The tech giant believes government agencies are taking advantage of dated legislation, which allows snooping of communications data, though hasn’t been updated to account for the introduction of cloud computing.

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA), still forms the basis of regulations and policies which allow US agencies to intercept communications. There have been several other pieces of legislation in recent years to allow for the government to keep pace with technological developments, such as the USA Patriot Act, though the foundation still remains in rules which were written in the 80s.

Microsoft, and other privacy advocates, believes the current state of the technology industry is fundamentally different, therefore the ECPA should no longer be allowed to be used as a basis for new rules or arguments. In particular, the introduction of cloud computing has seen more personal information than ever stored online and with third parties, meaning less and less information in stored on paper in the home.

The basis of this argument is access. Back in the 80s and 90s, when personal information was stored in a filing cabinet in the study, or even on personal computers where data was stored locally, the government had to give notice when it sought private information and communications, except in the rarest of circumstances. Now data is being stored by third parties, away from the consumer, using the ECPA, the government can access this information without prior notification to the individual.

Although it shouldn’t be the case, this is another example of bureaucracy not being able to keep with the rate of change in the technology industry. In this example, it works for the benefit of government intelligence agencies, so a sceptic might argue there is less desire from officials to update the legislation to reflect current state of the industry.

Microsoft argues “the transition to cloud does not alter the fundamental constitutional requirement that the government must – with few exceptions – give notice when it searches and seizes the private information and communications of individuals or businesses”, as well as “The government, however, has exploited the transition of cloud computing as a means of expanding its power to conduct secret investigations”.

In short, if the world changes, the government has to adapt with it.

While the outcome of this case is unlikely to be in the immediate future, there is potential to cause quite a stir in the industry. Aside from the immediate changes to the practices of intelligence agencies in the states, the precedent could also negatively impact the ambitions of new President Donald Trump.

On the campaign trail, Trump commented on more than one occasion he would be interested in emulating the same surveillance capabilities that Putin has in Russia. Soviet-style surveillance claims may only be a bit of bravado (from hereafter known as a Trumpism), though it could indicate the President’s intentions of providing further freedoms to the intelligence agencies.

A victory for Microsoft could see these ambitions curtailed, as regulatory and legislative thinkers will have to consider how to re-write rules to accommodate for the digital era. The ripples could impact the ECPA, the US Patriot Act, new spy laws which were announced in January, as well as any future laws. While Microsoft is position this court case as a fight for the little man, the ripples could extend far and wide throughout US government policies.

And although ripples throughout the US would be expected, they could also extend across the Atlantic. The EU-US Privacy Shield facilitates the movement of data across the Atlantic, while maintaining the privacy principles of the European Union. Recent changes in US law, as well as previous protests, have potentially undermined the already-shaky agreement, calling into question whether European privacy rights are actually being maintained.

A notable number of people in the US are happy to sacrifice a certain amount of personal freedoms in the name of safety, though this practice has been more closely monitored and accounted for in the privacy-sensitive European Union. Court cases such as this could provide the technology companies with the ammunition it needs to beat back US intelligence agencies and maintain a privacy perimeter around customer data. This would almost certainly give Europe more confidence in maintenance of the data protection rights of European citizens.

As with most challenges in the digital era, we’re stepping into unchartered waters; there is little precedent in these cases, therefore predicting the outcome is immensely difficult. That said, Microsoft maybe taking on the US government in protection of the little man, but the ripples of this ruling could go much further.

A ruling by the US Federal Communications Commission that prevented ISPs selling on user data without their consent is set to be overturned following a Senate vote.

The broadband privacy rules were one of a raft of measures pushed through by the FCC late last year in anticipation of a changing of the guard following the US Presidential election. The stated aim of the rules was to protect user data regarding their internet behavior and give them greater control over what ISPs could sell on.

But as we noted at the time, the complexity of the rules made it unlikely such an outcome would be achieved and seemed to offer plenty of work-arounds for the ISPs. Nonetheless the leading US cablecos have apparently been lobbying frantically to get this stuff overturned and seem to have found a sympathetic in new, Trump-approved FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai.

A month ago the FCC made a statement detailing Pai’s view that ISPs should be subject to the same regulatory framework as all other internet players. “Therefore, he has advocated returning to a technology-neutral privacy framework for the online world and harmonizing the FCC’s privacy rules for broadband providers with the FTC’s standards for others in the digital economy,” said the statement.

The senate vote was narrowly won – 50-48 – apparently along party lines, with a couple of republicans not voting. The victors – Pai and the big telcos – have kept a respectful silence, those unhappy with the move have been quick to express their disapproval, including a couple of FCC commissioners.

“Today the Senate voted along party lines to dismantle the FCC’s broadband privacy rules. If signed by the President, this law would repeal the FCC’s widely-supported broadband privacy framework, and eliminate the requirement that cable and broadband providers offer customers a choice before selling their sensitive, personal information,” said FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and FTC Commissioner Terrell McSweeny.

“This legislation will frustrate the FCC’s future efforts to protect the privacy of voice and broadband customers.  It also creates a massive gap in consumer protection law as broadband and cable companies now have no discernible privacy requirements.  This is the antithesis of putting #ConsumersFirst. The House must still consider this legislation. We hope they recognize the importance of consumer privacy and not undermine the ability of Americans to exercise control over their sensitive data.”

Consumer commentators seem to unanimously consider this to be a negative development, the general tone being that profits have been prioritized over privacy. But if ISPs are facing greater restrictions than internet players such as Google and Facebook over what they can do with user data, it does seem desirable to level the playing field.

Following a couple of horrendous incidents in the UK, politicians are increasingly calling for greater power over the internet in an apparent bid to gradually remove the concept of privacy from the UK.

Every time we have faced adversity these shores we have come out stronger. Two of the most iconic images from the Second World War are a women sitting on rubble, elegantly sipping a cup of tea, and a Milkman continuing his rounds through the destruction. Following the truly dreadful incident this weekend, another one has been doing the rounds over social media – a man escaping the bedlam with a full pint in hand.

Of course we have no desire to make light of such a terrible event, but all three images demonstrate the resilience inhabitants of the UK showcase every day; our lives will continue defined by our own standards, not those imposed on us.

Despite this determination to continue with our lives, the political response to attacks such as these is increasingly to scapegoat the internet, and especially social media, for allegedly facilitating their planning and radicalisation in general. Following the Manchester attack, Home Secretary Amanda Rudd put her case forward to remove encryption as a security feature, and this week, Prime Minister Theresa May has refreshed attacks on social media giants.

The social media platforms, telcos and technology industry on the whole has a responsibility to aid the UK government in the battle against terror, but removing encryption or creating backdoors is not the answer now, nor will it ever be. Former deputy PM Nick Clegg did a great job of articulating the limits of technology companies’ responsibilities today on Radio 4. It is the first step towards a government which can snoop into the lives of anyone with the slightest justification of security, and its also weakens our defences against an army of hackers, phishers and cyber-criminals who could use personal information against the individual.

The fact politicians are attacking encryption security demonstrates how good a job it is doing. They can’t hack it, so want to create legal precedent to force technology companies to allow intelligence agencies entry. Encryption currently serves the user and not the government, therefore it is “completely unacceptable” according to Rudd.

Politicians like Rudd and May are looking at encryption through the eyes of an institution, not an individual. The ambition is to achieve the aims of an authority, not to protect the individuals wider online identity.

Currently, the right to privacy is protected by the European Court of Justice, the same court which told May her Snooper’s Charter was a no-go. But that will only last for a few more months; once Brexit looms large we will no longer be answerable to the European Union and its various authorities.

There is, of course, domestic opposition, and while Labour seems to have had a better election campaign than expected, Diane Abbott is doing everything in her power to undermine her credentials as a future home secretary (Example One, Example Two). A big Tory win this week might provide the power it needs to force through new legislation.that would further erode individual freedoms

Now the argument does bend both ways. WhatsApp and other services are currently unhackable, which does provide a fortress for the nefarious groups around the world who want to do harm. It’s a Catch-22 situation. In order to preserve our rights of privacy, as well as protect our online identities against fraud or blackmail, we have to accept there will be people who will use the scenario for damning means. National security is crucially important, but are we prepared to bow to fear and take away an element of our democratic society?

The balance between security and freedom is an eternal political conundrum. It’s inevitable that incidents such as this country has recently endured will create calls for increased security and with it greater restrictions on personal freedoms. The 2015 Paris attacks initiated a state of emergency in France that has yet to be lifted. Leaving aside the limited evidence that trying to control the internet will even achieve much in the fight against terrorism, we hope our leaders continue to give our individual privacy the respect it deserves.

If there was any doubt about whether the connected era has arrived, new research from Cable.co.uk has confirmed we’re leaving the analogue age behind.

According to a new survey, 42% of non-voters would be more likely to vote if they could do so online. It’s a sign of the times, but one which is also a bit disappointing. Your correspondent remembers the first time he went to vote at the ballots and there was a sense of excitement, a sense of something important. Will that sense of achievement and responsibility be felt through an online voting system?

Exactly 50% of those who were still deciding whether or not to vote said there would be a better chance of them doing so if they could go online to do it. Of those who do not plan to vote, 24% said they would favour Labour, while 16% stated they would be voting for the Tories.

64% of those in the 35-44 age range said an online system would make them more likely to vote, and perhaps surprisingly, the introduction of online voting would make the least impact on 18 to 24 year-olds, with only 31% of all respondents in this age group saying it would make them more likely.

“It seems that if voting were made easier, more of us would do it,” said Dan Howdle of Cable.co.uk. “Makes sense, but it’s nevertheless somewhat shocking that so many with no plans to vote would do so if it saved them a short trip to the nearest polling station. Online voting is almost certainly the future. The key question is whether such a system can be adopted in a way that is beyond the potential interference from hackers.”

Labour losing out is also supported by another bit of research from Captify, which found that Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn was the most searched political leader online in the UK, accounting for 50.27% of all searches. 68.6% of these searches were deemed positive, while Labour was the most searched for party, accounting for 54%.

It seems clear that online is the future, though at a time when accusations of hacking flying all over the place following the US Presidential election last year, one should ask whether now is the right time. During the last election, 30 US states, primarily for voters living overseas or serving in the military, allowed online voting. This was mainly as a needs must situation for military personnel serving abroad, as numerous experts warned of the potential dangers of online voting.

The University of Michigan has also conducted an interesting experiment, albeit back in 2010. A mock election was held by the Board of Elections and Ethics in Washington DC, where third parties were invited to compromise the security of the online voting system. The university team gained near complete control of the election server within 48 hours, revealing almost every secret ballot. The team claim they went undetected for two business days, which would have been longer had the team not intentionally left a clue of their intrusion.

Admittedly, security has come on a long way since 2010, but so have the skills of the hackers. Every security feature is a challenge for this nefarious community, and while it is horrible to admit, there is no such thing as 100% secure. The expanding perimeters of networks mean that weak links in the fence will become bigger and more obvious; security is a constantly evolving game which begs the question as to why it is always an add-on as opposed to a designed-around.

Another big question to ask will be around mobile applications. Could an official voting app be more secure than email or an online form? This would certainly be the next logical step in the connected era, as it is a path which we have seen many times before. Think about mobile banking; with the introduction of biometrics, authentication and identification are no longer issues here, but that doesn’t answer the question of the security of the ballot.

There will be a solution, we just haven’t thought of it yet. WhatsApp is possibly the most secure messaging system around due to the encryption features, which could offer a potential route for any mobile applications.

This would certainly be an ironic turn of events considering the encryption-bashing we have seen from numerous politicians around the world over the last few months, but we shouldn’t be surprised. Politicians have a special way of changing their tune when something works to their own benefit.

So yes, online and mobile applications are certainly the future of voting for an increasingly apathetic population that can’t be bothered to walk down to the polling station to take part in the democratic process. Of course their strident opinions will be loud and proud on social media, but for the moment the connected economy is not right for elections. We’re just not good enough at this internet thing yet.

The Australian Government is developing its own anti-encryption legislation, modelled on the UK’s Snoopers Charter, a set of rules deemed unfit by the European Court of Justice.

The move, which was announced by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, has been built on anti-terrorism messages, as yet another government uses the element of fear in an attempt to lessen citizens online security and damage rights to privacy. According to Reuters, the idea could be passed by Parliament and made law within a matter of months.

“We need to ensure the internet is not used as a dark place for bad people to hide their criminal activities from the law,” said Turnbull. “The reality is, however, that these encrypted messaging applications and voice applications are being used obviously by all of us, but they’re also being used by people who seek to do us harm.”

Telecoms.com has said this numerous times before, but while the technology companies have an obligation to assist governments and their agencies to preserve safety, the weakening of encryption is a short-sighted move, which opens up far more problems than it does solutions. Yes, the government will be able to keep closer track on criminals, but the risks to the individual are far greater.

The Ministers and rule makers who are pushing for the weakening of encryption are looking at such ideas through the eyes of an institution, not the individual. For every win a government agency makes by using this model, tens of thousands of hackers will have penetrated the lives of consumers around the world.

How many peoples bank details will be stolen? How many embarrassing images will be used to blackmail? How many passwords will be used to defraud? Leaving a back-door into encryption algorithms is essentially the same as leaving a welcome mat for hackers; there are more of them in the dark corners of the internet, and, quite frankly, they are better than the security professionals and government IT bods.

And it is not only the bad guys we need to worry about, but the good guys as well. How many examples have there been in recent years of government agencies violating citizens’ rights and bending laws in the name of good? Governments have not proven they are responsible enough to manage such access to the intimate details of our lives, and until they do, they should not be granted access to it.

The world has always been a set of dominos. There are very few revolutionary or radical laws passed these days, but when a democratic government finds one, the rest are sure to follow before too long. The first domino is wobbling, and our right to privacy and protection is hanging in the balance. When one country finally cracks the question on how to effectively force technology companies to incorporate a back-door into security features, the rest will surely follow.

One saving grace for the individual currently appears to be the technology giants. Usually they are the bad guy with a painting smile on, using brand advertising to create a friendly persona while simultaneously harbouring the same commercial aims as every other corporation around the world, but this time they are on our side. They know how damaging such legislation could be and are making a stance against this archaic and chaotic invasion.

Australia doesn’t usually factor into major developments in the technology world, but it could be front and foremost in the catastrophic annihilation of our democratic right to privacy.