europe

Nokia profits take a big hit

Having once dominated the global cell phone market, Nokia Corp on Thursday posted a fourth-quarter net loss of €1.07 billion (

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EU introducing uniform data protection rules

Data protection may be getting a major overhaul in Europe this week. In a new European Union bill to be published later in the week, businesses in the 27-nation bloc will be required to adhere to stricter data protection regulations aimed at protecting consumers, reducing bureaucracy and giving European companies a competitive advantage in the world. “Personal data is the currency of today’s digital market,” said European Commissioner Viviane Reding at the DLD conference in Munich. “And like any currency, it needs stability and trust. Only if consumers can ‘trust’ that their data is well protected, will they continue to entrust businesses and authorities with it, buy online, and accept new services.” The new legislation would create a pan-European regulation, replacing the existing compilation of 27 national codes, and would include sweeping new rules for businesses and rights for individuals. Ms Reding added: “A company will have to comply with one law for the whole of the EU territory. It will only have to deal with one single data protection authority. “It will be the data protection authority of the member state in which the company has its main establishment.

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EU introducing uniform data protection rules

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Social Apps: The Devil in Disguise?

Social network applications are leaving an open door to our most personal of details. Tending to the crops on your virtual farm, finding out who views your profile and sharing your favourite movie trailers may seem like harmless ways to use social networks but oblivious users are accepting application requests without considering who they are allowing to access their personal data. Having ‘apps’ connected to your Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter profiles provides an open-door for the third party behind the app to access your profile and all of your personal data within. UKFast technical director Neil Lathwood explained the risks that this security flaw poses for social networkers: “Having all of these apps to entertain us is great, but many people do not realise that by using these apps they are effectively inviting people to use their personal data in whichever way they want. We really need to start considering the consequences of having all of our data readily available to unknown third parties. “Facebook acts as a narration of our lives and with the introduction of the new Timeline feature, more people are filling the gaps in their profiles, adding illnesses, significant events and employment details to name a few. This information is incredibly valuable to identity thieves and cybercriminals.” As revealed by UKFast’s security experts last year, the information that we share on social sites provides cybercriminals with the clues that they need to guess passwords and break into online accounts – from social media to online banking. Lathwood continued: “With Facebook predicted to pass the 1 billion users mark this August, the site is a prime target for criminals to mine data from

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Social Apps: The Devil in Disguise?

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Pay-Per-Click Management Services Don’t Cost, They Pay – 5 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Do Your Own PPC

It’s true that Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC) such as Google’s “Adwords™” and Microsoft’s “Bing™” can be a remarkably effective, low-cost advertising solution that can almost instantly bring a flood of eager buyers to your website, if done correctly. However, it’s also true that you can take a terrible beating in a very short time if you’re not careful and don’t know what you’re doing. You see, Adwords™ and Bing™ (the dominant Pay-Per-Click platforms) are promoted as being easy to use. In a sense that’s true. You can sign up for an account and be walked through how to put up a PPC ad in a matter of a few minutes.

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Pay-Per-Click Management Services Don’t Cost, They Pay – 5 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Do Your Own PPC

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Social Media – Part of Your Web Strategy?

It depends on what you are trying to achieve with your site, but for many sites, the answer is increasingly ‘YES’. Social media (mainly Facebook and Twitter for the purposes of this article) have become increasingly pervasive. Recently I read that one minute of every eight spent on the Internet, is spent on Facebook. If the purpose of a web site is to communicate, then identifying where other people are – is a good start.

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Social Media – Part of Your Web Strategy?

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Facebook ordered to increase privacy by Irish regulators

Facebook has received a full audit of its systems by Irish regulators and agreed to make more than a dozen privacy improvements within the next six months. The recommendations made by Irish Data Commissioner Billy Hawkes came after an investigation concerning the social network’s use of personal user data launched in October. Facebook houses all its user data and operations outside of the US and Canada in Ireland. Two months ago, regulators launched the investigation after a series of controversies surrounding Facebook user data surfaced, with claims of ‘shadow profiles’ being created for non-members. The regulators found this was not the case, and that Facebook only collects data about non-users for security purposes.

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Facebook ordered to increase privacy by Irish regulators

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Apple beats HTC in US patent battle

HTC has been informed by the US International Trade Commission it is in violation of an Apple patent, with the Taiwan-based manufacturer given until 19 April 2012 to comply with the ruling or face its handsets from being banned from import into the USA. The patent in question concerns a “system and method for performing an action on a structure in computer generated data”. This could refer to a situation where a user clicks on a phone number in an email to make a call with the phone app. Despite having been ruled against by the ITC, HTC considers the decision a tick in the win column. “Since the infringing elements identified by the ITC involve and impact only a very minimal part of the user interface, we will remove it as soon as possible and sell non-infringing products,” HTC said in a company statement.

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Apple beats HTC in US patent battle

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Peer-to-peer search engine to take on Google

Free software activists are set to take on the search heavyweights with their own peer-to-peer search engine . YaCy, – a free search engine – are hoping to usurp the likes of Bing, Google and Yahoo with a ‘new approach’ to search. Instead of using a central server like conventional search engines , YaCy gets results from a network of independent ‘peers’ – users who have downloaded YaCy software. The decentralisation idea behind the new search engine is that no single entity decides on the search results or the order in which results appear, but rather, results are generated from a network of private companies and contributing peer operators. “Most of what we do on the Internet involves search.

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Peer-to-peer search engine to take on Google

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World War Tech: EU to tighten web privacy laws

Proposed legal changes to the European Union’s Data Protection Directive may cause trans-Atlantic tensions over Internet privacy. According to the New York Times , European justice commissioner Viviane Reding plans to insert new wording into Europe’s main data privacy law that would likely require non-E.U. companies to abide by stricter rules on data collection or face fines and prosecution. Ms Reding signalled her intentions to strengthen privacy laws in a speech to publishers in Brussels on Tuesday. “Companies who direct their services to European consumers should be subject to E.U. data protection laws. Otherwise, they should not be able to do business on our internal market,” she said. “This also applies to social networks with users in the E.U.

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World War Tech: EU to tighten web privacy laws

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Adobe throws Flash overboard

Adobe is set to abandon efforts to bring Flash to mobile devices, instead refocusing its attentions on HTML5. The news comes just as the software firm announced it would axe 750 jobs as part of a restructuring process to place more emphasis on digital media and marketing efforts. According to ZDNet , a source close to Adobe delivered the following announcement to business partners: “Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. “We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations.” If confirmed, the announcement would represent an about-face on the company’s efforts to promote Flash player in mobile devices.

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Adobe throws Flash overboard

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