Catchy Title

"...just because I choose to share some parts of my life; it doesn't mean that strangers or companies have carte blanche over all of it"

The recent interest in the the T-Mobile story about staffers selling customer data illegally to 3rd parties is of no surprise.  Consumers fight a daily battle against direct marketing, direct mail, cold callers and the like, and there has never been much we can do about it.  Registering with such services as TPS will make a small difference to those marketing companies that respect the law, however there are a lot of companies out there who employ temporary staff who can take the fall if necessary, and who really don’t give a fig if you take exception to their calls.

So, the reason for this blog about it?  How does it affect me?  I’m glad you asked:

I’ve had my iPhone for something like 4 months now.  During that time I have only ever given the number out to friends; NEVER businesses, and I have never received a marketing calls.  That was at least until this morning.  Today I have received four marketing calls.

Three of the numbers were witheld,  but one of them wasn’t.  I Googled the number to try and identify the ‘perp’ (I watch too many American crime dramas).   What I found were dozens of forums discussing this number, and the common theme was that most of these people had received many unwanted calls from this number a short time after registering with the German owned Utility company NPower.

Guess what I did 3 days ago whilst in town?  Thats right! Gold star for you!  I registered with NPower.

3 days!  THREE days!  3 DAYS!   THREE F**&$*G DAYS!!!!

To the compaint:

I gave NPower a call, got straight through to the complaints team, and explained my situation.  I was apologised to, then it was suggested that when I registered my mobile phone, I may have been automatically signed up on 192.com.   I made it clear that I am NOT on 192.com (I have checked), and besides, the calls started within 3 days of registering with them.  I also explained the online activity from all the NPower customers that had had a similar experience, and the girl agreed to raise a complaint to their resolution team.

We will see what will happen, but I really can’t see much being done, and besides, my number is now out there.  I managed to go 12 years without receiving a single sales call on my old number, I suppose in this age of aggressive marketing I should have counted myself lucky.

Is it deserved?

Now, I do put myself ‘out there’ on the internet.  My profile names often include my full name, and you can find a wealth of information about me and my activities with a Google search, but there are boundaries.  A mobile phone should be a device where you have absolute control of what you receive to it, and what gets sent from it.

My mobile phone is a first point of contact (as it is for most people under 40 these days), it is my social networking tool, business tool, phone book, A-Z map, Telephone Directory, web browser, email client, train timetable, ticket vendor, clock, alarm clock, diary, calendar, fridge door, camera, video camera, music player, TV viewer, calculator, online shop, photo album, weather channel, bank teller, home network browser, exercise trainer, iTunes remote, PC mouse, document viewer, tube map, concierge, stock broker, recipe book, and foreign language phrasebook.

So you can see that with all the information it contains, the information I have taken care to secure (password protected and if the password is entered incorrectly too many times, the device is wiped), my mobile can be held as somewhat sacred to me.  So when a complete stranger has access enough to just make an unwarranted phone call to it, then I’m going to get protective.  Yes I share a lot, but just because I choose to share some parts of my life; it doesn’t mean that strangers or companies have carte blanche over all of it.

I say this to any company that try to sell me things via a phone call:

I WILL NOT be buying anything from you whether you are from a charity, or selling a product that I like.

You WILL NOT get me to reveal any further information about myself.

I WILL be polite up until the point I have said NO just once, but beyond that I WILL be rude.

From this moment on, if I already subscribe to your service or product, I WILL find an alternative to it and cancel my subscription and will make every convenient attempt to avoid your product in future.

So, there we go, we shall see what happens with NPower, and if they don’t seem to care enough about my complaint, I will buy my Gas and Electricity somewhere else.  I’ll comment on this post with any updates.

Thanks for reading this far down the page.  If you did make it this far, say  Rich is a mushroom in the comments section.

Rupert Murdoch says he will remove stories from Google‘s search index as a way to encourage people to pay for content online.

In an interview with Sky News Australia, the mogul said that newspapers in his media empire – including the Sun, the Times and the Wall Street Journal – would consider blocking Google entirely once they had enacted plans to charge people for reading their stories on the web.

At least someone in the audience likes him....maybe a little too much.

I know the story is a couple of days old now, but it is such a good’n’ I feel the need to commit something to writing so that I to may basque in the glory of I-WAS-RIGHT-AND-HE-WAS-SO-VERY-WRONG that will inevitably come in the near future.

This glorious day has a 80% chance of arriving in one of two ways:

1. Because his advisors (who MUST be better at running a company than Rupert, otherwise News Corp would no longer be trading) have managed to convince the old crone that he may as well start giving away free anthrax samples with every newspaper for all the good blocking his sites from search engines will do.

or

2. The guy would have stamped his feet enough that News Corp actually go through with his ‘evil’ plan (no, I don’t ACTUALLY think his plan is evil….it just sounded good), that traffic to his sites drops dramatically, he fails to reach existing visit targets for advertisers and loses gazillions of dollars, and the lack of traffic/negative press deter future advertisers from his sites.

So why only 80% chance you ask?  Well…..he’s not a spring chicken any more.  I’m just sayin’!  Even I won’t gloat over the body of a dead man.  I wish him many more happy years,  cause I REALLY, REALLY want to gloat.

So, I must tell you now that I am actually a large customer of Mr Murdoch (no, I’m not fat, I meant financially).  That is, not a small sum of money leaves my account each month in exchange for a Sky+ HD Multiroom subscription.  I also pay for all the TV packages, the Movies and the Sports, the telephone line, telephone calls, and broadband.  I also work away from home a lot, so having access to SKY Player to watch movies and current TV is a real bonus.

I find that technically, the service is sound.  It very rarely goes wrong.  Financially, it is a good deal.  If I were to piece together the same package from separate providers it would cost much more.  Other than Virgin of course, but cable isn’t available in the area for that apartment.   However, the customer service, the engineers, the call centres, and the billing system sucks.  It is a close 2nd for suckiness behind BT.  But, if the technology itself never goes wrong, then I should never have to speak with them.  I will continue to keep my fingers crossed, but if it was to start breaking down and I actually had to start dealing with these people (the people that took 4 hours and 6 phone conversations to understand that I wanted to upgrade to HD), then I would most certainly go elsewhere.  I’m lucky enough to be in a position where my time is more valuable than money, and if Sky start stealing that, then I really would get mad (with steam out of the ears and everything).

My point being that I and I’m sure most other consumers are savvy.  We weigh up what we want, we estimate what we think something is worth.  We will sometimes pay a little more than something is worth, but we will weigh up the benefits of having that item or service against how much it will dent our pockets (the only exception to this general rule of thumb is drugs;  drugs put a whole new spin on ‘reasoned’ analysis, so we’ll quietly ignore THOSE purchases for now). Oh, and by the way, DON’T DO DRUGS!!   So, back to my point; if I get a better, more comprehensive, FREE news/tabloid service from many other companies, there is no way in heck that I’ll be paying any extra for it.

I downloaded a new Sky Mobile App on the iPhone yesterday.  Wow! Does this mean I get the same functionality of SKY Player on my iPhone??  No. Does it mean I get the SKY news channel coupled with a few Sports Channels? Yes; I feel I’m starting to lose you. So I get this free because I’m a SKY customer, already paying for this content with a full SKY subscription? No. What the F%*k?  So how much is it? £6 per month. £6 a month to access something I can already access on my laptop, PC, or at home at no extra cost? Yes. That blows! Yes, yes Mr Stakounis, it does indeed…blow.

The app will most certainly be useful for all those Premierball, ship thing match fans who don’t have a Sky subscription, and I’m sure it’ll make Murdoch a few more quids to line his coffin with, however I resent being asked to pay for the same thing twice.  Just like I resent being asked for money to access something which others are providing for free.

Even before the internet I got all my news from Reuters. I ‘browse’ Reuters for news, if I overhear a snipet or want to lookup a news story, I will Google it, and I will usually pick a selection of sites to read about the subject.  Once on those sites, I almost always start clicking links in the sidebar to other potentially interesting content, whether it be commercial or not.  I have asked a few friends and colleagues whether this is normal surfing behavior (because lets face it, I’m not to know what is normal), and shock of all shocks, a unanimous “yeah, we’re with you Rich, that’s exactly how we ‘do’ the internet too”.  So, I believe that when Mr M said that “readers who randomly reach a page via an internet search hold little value to advertisers.”, he was talking from a point of very little understanding of his readership, the internet, or the modern e-marketplace.  Thank goodness for News Corp that they employ intelligent people to, you know, actually RUN the company.  But as far as pretty-boy, air-headed, company poster-boys go; I don’t rate him.  He doesn’t turn me on to the company, doesn’t turn me on (perish the thought), and doesn’t make me want to buy anything.  In fact every time he speaks in public I feel kinda dirty.

I used to buy the Times on an occasional Sunday morning and spend the day reading at a street cafe in London, just to pass the time, but I have never bought a tabloid, I don’t care for gutter journalism, I like to keep my ‘news’ completely separate from my ‘editorials, opinions, and commentaries’, and I certainly will not be paying anymore money the Sky/News Corp or Mr M in any guise unless absolutely necessary.  My Sky subscription has increased by 25% in 2 years as it is.

The plain truth is, that Murdoch has too much influence on the social and political leanings of his press, his opinions and ideals are separated by a whole world’s worth of space from mine, and I simply won’t pay to be fed it, unless it is done with reason, education, information, and intelligence.

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