Alexander Hanff talks about the legal action against Google in the UK

Coinciding with Data Protection Day – which was yesterday in case you missed it – news emerged of a new legal challenge in the UK against Google. It involves last year’s ‘Apple tracking’ incident where Google surreptitiously side-stepped the no-cookies block on Safari. Judith Vidal-Hall, one-time editor of Index on Censorship, is the first to begin legal action; and a ‘letter before action’ has been sent to Google. London-based Olswang lawyers are handling the case, and privacy activist Alexander Hanff is advising. I asked Alexander two questions:

1. Google has sought to have [a similar] US class case dismissed because, for example, “Plaintiffs Have No Standing Because They Have Alleged No Actual Injury” (http://www.scribd.com/doc/122259031/Google-Motion-to-Dismiss-Safari-Tracking-Lawsuit). Wouldn’t the same argument be even more effective under UK law?
2. If Google acted illegally, why hasn’t the ICO acted?

No case
“With regard to injury,” he said, “as you know under UK law injury does not mean financial, or physical, it can also mean mental harm.” He argues that there was a loss of trust, which could be regarded as injury. And cannot “behavioural profiling without consent be considered injury in itself?” Hanff believes it can, and adds that there is a very significant injury to society where millions of people were monitored by a corporation without consent. “But even with all that said, I would argue that any judge needs to assess whether injury is a valid test for prosecution in Privacy cases given that Privacy is a fundamental human right as laid out by the Lisbon Treaty and the EU Covenant – any attack on human rights needs to be taken seriously and there should be legal consequences – a breach of a human right should be injury enough for a prosecution in my mind.” So for Hanff, the issue goes beyond mere national law and into international human rights where the courts must act.

ICO
“The ICO hasn’t acted because it suffers from regulatory capture,” he replied. Worryingly, “In 2010 I was told by a senior member of staff at ICO that Christopher Graham had [said] he did not want a fight with Google (this was during a discussion about the Google WiFi scandal); and as then the ICO has yet again failed to act against Google in the Safari case.” Hanff suspects that the ICO also has “a conflict of interests in taking enforcement action against Google as they use a large number of Google services. Finally,” he added, “as well as the reasons above, I believe another reason ICO doesn’t want to take action is because the cost of the appeal process would probably exceed their annual budget and human resources – they are significantly underfunded and understaffed.”

Hanff hopes that the action will grow into a group (class) action against Google. “I hope that this action encourages citizens in other countries across Europe to take similar action because until we start to hit these companies in their wallets, the abuses will continue. It is time to fight for our rights and take back our privacy – with a new data protection regulation on the horizon swarmed by a US corporate lobby which is trying to weaken our rights – we need to take control – carpe diem.”

Did my plan to beat the recession work?

On 15 December I shamelessly asked people to retweet a post: Re-Tweet this post – it’s part of my plan to beat the recession. The underlying purpose was to see if I could manipulate my social Klout score and qualify for a business loan. I couldn’t.

The post got 15 tweets, 3 LinkedIn shares, 2 G+ shares and 5 Facebook likes – and I thank everyone who responded.

Sharing the post…

During this period my Klout score rose to its highest ever: 49 – possibly enough to get me an interview for a job as a janitor in a business under administration; but not enough to fool the money men.

Highest score ever!

Since that time the score has resumed its downward trend, suggesting my natural social score is around 45 (much better than when I opened my Klout account with a score of 30 – at which time Thomas Power of the ecademy social/business network accurately described me as a ‘social muppet’). (Incidentally, ecademy was bought by Lyndon Wood last July and is now, even as I write this, morphing into SunZu – The Art of Business.)

69% of my Klout score comes from my engagement with Twitter. Less than 2% comes from Google+, and the rest from LinkedIn. Nothing comes from Facebook because I do nothing with Facebook.

Source of my social standing

So what can I conclude from this experiment? Well, the simple fact is that my score increased by about two points. The implication, then, is that if I were a more naturally social animal, cultivated Facebook and other networks and told everyone what I had for breakfast despite being hung over from last night’s debauchery (which I would have interrupted every two minutes to explain what base I had reached), then I could rapidly become a better business bet. But I would have to maintain this engagement over an extended, possibly continuous, period. Or, as Mary Branscombe said when she kindly commented on the original request:

What a strange world, this world of ours.

Toward a new strategy for Microsoft

Back on 7 August I suggested that Microsoft’s plan for its own tablet was a big mistake (A Microsoft-made tablet? Big mistake). I may have been wrong – but only if it is part of a completely new and wider strategy.

Let’s look at the Big 4: Apple, Google, Microsoft and The User.

Microsoft’s strategy is built on the predominance and continued dominance of the PC. Without the PC there is only a small Microsoft – and the PC is in decline, and possibly a terminal decline. Microsoft’s strategy is in decline.

Apple’s strategy is built around owning everything, both hardware and software – and charging an obscene price for that monopoly. So far it has worked very successfully; but if you listen to the undercurrents from The User there is growing User dismay over both the price of that monopoly, and the frequency with which loyal subjects are asked to dump existing product and buy new product. Apple’s strategy is at the apex, and the only way is down (with a slight delay when it dumps OS/X in favour of desktop iOS).

Google’s strategy is to base everything in the cloud, and to own the cloud. This makes distribution very, very cheap, and upgrades cheap, seamless and invisible to the User. Google is proving very, very successful in this strategy.

But what about The User? The User’s strategy is to demand everything now, preferably free (but at least very cheap), anywhere and anytime. Microsoft provides none of this. Apple provides some, but not much, of this. Google provides it all.

So on current strategies, Microsoft is doomed, Apple will decline while Google will grow and thrive. (Incidentally, Amazon seems to have seen the writing, and I rather suspect that all three will have to watch out for Amazon in a few years time.)

But what if Microsoft has also finally come to its senses? What if the Microsoft tablet is not just a one-off foray into hardware, but part of a completely new strategy aimed at combining Apple’s hardware/software monopoly approach with Google’s cloud efficiency?

There are growing rumours that Microsoft is about to switch from, say, 3-yearly Windows releases to yearly releases. This makes no sense whatsoever under the current strategy. Expecting users to buy a new operating system every year won’t wash. Unless…

Let’s say that the MS plan is not new operating systems delivered in box or on disk, but new downloads delivered from the cloud just as its current patches are delivered every second Tuesday of the month. This model would require something like an annual license for the OS rather than a fixed price for the box. If that license were around £25 per year (preferably less), few users could say that use of Windows for just £2 per month is excessive. Let’s now take that to the logical conclusion: Windows and Office both migrate to the cloud and are both upgraded or patched on a continuous basis, as and when required, and paid for on a low-cost rolling license.

So Microsoft’s new strategy could be to own both hardware and software – starting with its own tablet but moving into phones (perhaps by buying Nokia?) and desktops (perhaps by buying Dell or Acer, or even building new from scratch?) – in mimicry of Apple; and then maintaining its software in and distributing from the cloud in mimicry of Google. Such a strategy would combine the best of all possible worlds; and while it is by no means certain that Microsoft could do it, if successful it could reverse the decline of Microsoft.