Jan 6, 2015 | Regulation, Social media, Twitter marketing, UK
HM Revenue and Customs has defended its call for tax payers to tweet enquiries to @HMRCcustomers after criticism from MPs. The move came in response to a rise in average waiting times for HRMC contact centre telephone queues, which reached 10 minutes and 53 seconds in...
Jan 6, 2015 | India, Regulation
The Indian government has blocked more than 30 major websites including Vimeo, Daily Motion, Internet Archive and Github in order to prevent the spread of what it calls ‘jihadi activities’. The country’s Department of Telecoms blacklisted these test...
Jan 2, 2015 | Online video, Regulation
Sony Pictures has expanded distribution of its controversial comedy film The Interview to include more theatres and video-on-demand platforms, after hackers threatened to attack cinemas screening the film. From Friday, a total of 580 independent theatres will show The...
Jan 2, 2015 | China, Regulation
Access to Google’s email service Gmail is slowly getting back to normal after a reported block on the email service, according to reports. Over the Christmas period, Google’s own data indicates such traffic took a nosedive on Friday and has only slightly...
Jan 2, 2015 | Regulation
Criminals are to move away from mass attacks to highly-targeted ‘campaigns’ based on personal data, ushering in a new era of hacking in 2015, according to new research. ‘This time it’s personal’ will be motto of 2015 as cyber-criminals are predicted to become more...
Dec 19, 2014 | Regulation
Key trends to compare your 2015 plans against: • The price of privacy as tracking goes beyond the cookie: Europeans value their own data at £140, but brand trust can lower the cost. Techniques like ‘canvas fingerprinting’ arise as cookie tracking becomes less...
Dec 18, 2014 | Mobile, Regulation
BT is in exclusive talks to buy EE £12.5bn but the two communications giants could be in for a difficult legal battle to make the deal go ahead. BT has entered into an exclusivity agreement with Deutsche Telekom and Orange in relation to the possible acquisition of...
Dec 12, 2014 | Regulation
Google is shutting down its Google News service in Spain ahead of the introduction of a new intellectual property law is introduced. Google News, the online search giant’s product that provides a stream of top articles from various journalism outlets, will close on...
Dec 11, 2014 | Regulation
The Pirate Bay has been taken offline following a raid in Sweden, ending years of a police ‘cat and mouse’ chase with the file sharing website. Swedish police raided a data centre in Stockholm on Tuesday, seizing servers, computers and other equipment. The...
Dec 5, 2014 | Online video, Regulation
Google is developing child-friendly versions of its search site, Chrome browser and video-sharing service YouTube, according to a US report. See the full USA Today interview below: Pavni Diwanji, Google’s vice-president of engineering who is heading the project,...
Dec 4, 2014 | Regulation
Catpcha spam guards can be annoying for users, but Google has revealed an improved version that can tell you’re not a robot with a single click. Google currently fights spam bots with Re-captcha, a free service for webmasters which requires users to enter (distorted)...
Nov 28, 2014 | Regulation, UK
If you’re creating digital content or services that are sold to consumers, Europe’s 2015 tax laws will be a crushing blow for small businesses as they become forced to adopt the tax position of the countries where their target consumers are buying from. Here’s why…...
Nov 27, 2014 | Regulation, Search engine marketing
In a dramatic new twist, Google’s regulatory problems have stepped up a with the European Parliament set to vote on a breakup of the search giant. The motion, which was discussed in Strasbourg on Wednesday before a vote today, is a proposal to break Google’s...
Nov 26, 2014 | Content marketing, CPG, FMCG digital marketing food and beverages, Online advertising, Online video, Regulation
In a warning to all native advertisers, Modelez has seen its latest marketing stunt fall foul of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). The FMCG giant failed to notify viewers that a series of YouTube videos featuring an ‘Oreo Lick Race’ were paid for by the...
Nov 21, 2014 | Mobile, Regulation
The patent wars rumble on in the technology sector, with Google agreeing to settle litigation with Apple-led patent consortium Rockstar, though terms of the deal were not disclosed in a court filing. Rockstar counts Apple as an lead investor, along with Microsoft,...
Nov 21, 2014 | Regulation, WhatsApp
WhatsApp is implementing encryption for the Android version of its app, as the Facebook-owned chat app looks to boost its appeal to users. The move follows announcements by Apple and Google that they are encrypting, by default, data stored on iPhones and Android...
Nov 20, 2014 | E-commerce and E-retailing, Regulation, Social media
The owners of the Broadway Hotel in Blackpool are reportedly about to refund a £100 “fine” issued to a couple who described it on TripAdvisor as a “stinking hovel”. A couple “fined” by a hotel after they wrote a damning review about...
Nov 12, 2014 | Regulation, USA
One in five Americans are still using their online banking password for different website accounts, despite U.S. citizens losing $1.6 billion to fraud last year. In an era of identity theft and massive security breaches, 20% of Americans are still using their online...
Nov 4, 2014 | Facebook marketing, Regulation
A new way to access Facebook securely and anonymously via the “dark Web” could provide a model for other site, letting users browse the social network anonymously via Tor. Last week, the social network unveiled a new URL for its service,...
Nov 3, 2014 | Regulation
The Hungarian government has decided to axe a planned tax on internet data traffic after mass protests against the plan. The tax, proposed last week, would have seen internet use charged per gigabyte transferred. The levy was set at 150 forints (£0.40; 0.50 euros;...
