Don’t mess with Facebook, Twitter, Blogs: Portuguese company Ensitel learns the hard way what the Streisand effect is

UPDATE: On December 31, 2010, Ensitel withdrew its legal action against the blogger

Portugal’s mobile phone store chain Ensitel, a branch of Avenir Telecom, put itself in the centre of a public relations nightmare of a storm after getting a court order to force a blogger (who happens to work for Portugal's leading web portal) to remove six posts originally published in 2009. The post series centered on the blogger’s frustration after Ensitel refused to refund her for a malfunctioning Nokia cell phone, acquired in Lisbon.

The blogger, Maria João Nogueira, offered her view on the bad costumer experience episode that ended up in court later that year. Ensitel won the case, but ended up losing far more than a client when two years later, on December 2010, requested a court order to force the blog posts removal on the grounds of defamation.

The blogger refused to delete the posts, and word of corporate censorship on the blogosphere quickly spread through fellow bloggers, Twitter and Facebook. On Twitter, the #ensitel hashtag hit number one among Portuguese-speaking users.

On Facebook, Ensitel’s page was flooded with critical observations from clients, who then joined by the thousands groups like I will never buy another product at Ensitel. The company kept on a suicidal track when it started deleting comments from its Facebook profile and allegedly threatening Facebook users with legal action.

The case then spread to the Portuguese press, with newspapers pointing Ensitel’s naivety about social networks and columnists baffled by the level of rage exhibited by the Portuguese consumers in a time of deep political disengagement (contrary to the Greeks, the Irish or even the Icelanders, the Portuguese haven’t really protested much against current austerity measures).

The Streisand effect

This telenovela, as Maria João Nogueira calls it, is yet another example of the so-called Streisend effect, an internet phenomenon in which an attempt to hide or remove a piece of information has the unintended consequence of causing the information to be publicized more widely (see Wikipedia’s article on the Streisand effect).

The name was coined after American actress Barbra Streisand unsuccessfully attempted to remove an aerial photograph of her California mansion from an online gallery through legal action, causing millions of internet users to search and view that very same image.

In September 2009, Wikipedia lists, the Photoshop Disasters blog posted an advertisement from Polo Ralph Lauren that contained a heavily manipulated image of a female model. The post was subsequently reprinted by BoingBoing. Ralph Lauren issued DMCA takedown notices to BoingBoing's ISP and Blogspot, which hosts Photoshop Disasters, claiming their use of the image infringed copyright.

Blogspot complied, but BoingBoing's ISP consulted with BoingBoing and agreed the image was fair use. As a result, BoingBoing issued a mocking rebuttal, using the same image again and posting the takedown notice. The rebuttal was widely reported, including on frequently viewed websites such as The Huffington Post and ABC News.

Read More

Off-topic: Nigeria drops bribery charges against Cheney after $35 million dollar settlement

Tweet this post From the New York Times: The Nigerian authorities have dropped criminal bribery charges against Halliburton and Dick Cheney, the former vice president following the oil services giant’s agreement to a $35 million settlement, the company said in statement this week. Nigerian officials said last week that the settlement would amount to $250 million.

The Nigerian charges, filed in early December, were just the latest fallout from a $180 million bribery scheme that Kellogg Brown & Root, a former Halliburton subsidiary, has admitted carrying out with three other companies in a joint venture to develop a liquid natural gas facility in the Niger Delta.

In 2009, Kellogg Brown & Root, a former Halliburton subsidiary, pleaded guilty in federal court in the United States to paying the bribes. Halliburton and KBR paid a record $579 million fine to settle the federal charges, and this April, a top KBR executive was sentenced to seven years in prison for his role.

As a result of this week’s $35 million settlement, “all lawsuits and charges” against KBR and Halliburton have been withdrawn by Nigeria, and government officials have pledged not to bring further criminal charges or civil claims against the company related to the bribery offenses, Halliburton said in its statement.

Read more...

Share

Read More

Off-topic: Blogs are growing, not dying

Tweet this post The Regator Blog tells why blogging isn't dead yet and why blogs' role as information sources is still growing. Turns out that Facebook and Twitter took the “I just did some laundry and am going to sit down to watch TV now” bloggers out of the blogosphere, reducing the number of bloggers but increasing the quality and depth of blogs. And that's good news. Kimberly Turner explains:

Stan Schroeder of Mashable recently published a post based on research from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The post was originally titled: “Everyone Uses E-mail, But Hardly Anyone Blogs Anymore.” Then, perhaps realizing that 14 percent of all internet users certainly doesn’t constitute “hardly anyone,” the headline changed to “Everyone Uses E-mail, But Blogging Is On the Decline.” Since that post was published last week, it has been re-blogged dozens of times (often with alarmist headlines about the demise of blogging: “victim of Facebook?”), emailed to us here at Regator several times by well-intentioned friends and users, and Tweeted hundreds of times. But we’re not at all worried. And you shouldn’t be either. Here’s why:

Let’s start by looking at the full report at the original source—always a good place to start when the waters are murky. The Mashable article’s (current) headline states: “Everyone Uses E-mail, But Blogging Is On the Decline.” According the study Schroeder based the post on, this is false. As the handy-dandy chart below (from the same Pew study) shows, blogging is on the decline in Millennials (18-33) and G.I. Generation (74+) but on the increase in all other age groups with an overall increase from 11 percent of internet users in December 2008 to 14 percent in May 2010. In general, blogging is on the rise. One more time for those who are still freaking out: Blogging is not in decline. Put away your shovels and call off the funeral.

Read more at the Regator...

Share

Read More

Off-topic: Snow chaos: EU slams European airports, Helsinki a positive example

Tweet this post Yes, it is snowing across most of Europe, but that's not a reason for airport chaos, the EU says. European transport commissioner Siim Kallas urged airports to "get serious" about planning, and labelled them a "weak link" in the infrastructure. "In recent days, I have become increasingly concerned about the problems relating to the infrastructure available to airlines - airports and ground handling - during this severe period of snow," he said.

Helsinki airport, on the other hand, closed because of severe weather for the last time in 2003. The airport, a spokeswoman tells the BBC, is "well prepared" to deal with heavy snow.

The preparation consists of good equipment, extra winter staff, and a choice of three runways. While one runway is being cleared of snow or ice, the other two are open for business.

In exceptional circumstances, two runways may be closed. It takes a rare combination of heavy snow and high wind to close all three - as happened, briefly, seven years ago.

What about the equipment? "We have 250 vehicles of different kinds," says Ms Kala. "We have sweepers, snow ploughs, vehicles that blow snow from the runways, and friction testers that check the surface is fit for use." The snow is removed to a special storage area within the airport perimeter. When that fills up, it is taken to other facilities outside. Last winter 7,000 truckloads were carted off the runways, apron and taxi-ing areas.

Temperatures in Helsinki can drop to -25C - but Ms Kala explains that a good hard frost is much easier to deal with than a temperature of zero or -1C. "When it's zero degrees, it's moist and there will be ice," she says. "We have to take the ice away. We first use metal brushes, then, if necessary, we use chemicals."The extra seasonal staff, about 50 of them, operate this equipment.

But there is also a dedicated "snow desk" that keeps in contact with the airlines, the ground handling team and air traffic control. "They plan how much staff we need, how many vehicles - and they follow weather forecasts hour by hour," Ms Kala says.

She acknowledges that there is a big difference between Helsinki, which has a total of 600 landings and take-offs per day on its three runways, and Heathrow which has twice as many - on two runways - and five times as many passengers to deal with.

Running a big airport like Heathrow - which is privately owned by BAA - would be a bigger operation than running state-owned Helsinki airport. But the principles for dealing with snow and ice, Ms Kala suggests, are probably the same.

Source: BBC

Read More

Off-topic: Are fake Christmas trees better on the environment?

From the New York Times: In these eco-conscious times, many people want to shrink their environmental footprint while still enjoying the trappings of the holiday season. In some cases, the earth-friendly alternative – pass the tofurky – is a pretty obvious choice.

But in others, the answer is not so clear. When it comes to Christmas trees, for instance, which is better for the planet: the long-lasting artificial kind, or the freshly cut, pine-scent-and-sap variety?

As I report in Saturday’s Times, at least one major study found that the real tree is probably the better choice. But as I found during my reporting, many consumers still believe that a faux fir is less harmful to the environment than the real thing.

That’s because an artificial tree can be used again and again, unlike a real tree, which is tossed out at the end of the season. Yet as it turns out, that’s not enough to tilt the scales in the faux fir’s favor. The resources used to make artificial trees — plastic and metal — have a high extraction cost, and most trees are made in China, meaning they need to be shipped thousands of miles before they reach American shores. Read more...

Read More

Off-topic: Airlines post record profits in 2010, Air China is the world's biggest airline

IATA'S chief economist Brian Pearce has announced this Tuesday in Geneva, Switzerland, that profit estimates for the airline sector have nearly doubled from the 8,9 billion dollars posted in September to 15,1 billion dollars. Stable oil prices and passenger number growth have brought the sector back from the grave.

2011 could tell a different story, though, especially in Europe, Pearce said. But not in Asia and Latin America, where there's a bright outlook. IATA presented an updated list of the world's biggest airlines in therms of market capitalization, with surprising results. Air China gets the gold (20bn), followed by Singapore Airlines (14bn), Cathay Pacific (12bn), China Southern (11bn) and LATAM (Chile's LAN + Brazil's TAM, 11bn).

Read More

Off-topic: A Secretive Banking Elite Rules Trading in Derivatives

From the New York Times: On the third Wednesday of every month, the nine members of an elite Wall Street society gather in Midtown Manhattan. The men share a common goal: to protect the interests of big banks in the vast market for derivatives, one of the most profitable — and controversial — fields in finance. They also share a common secret: The details of their meetings, even their identities, have been strictly confidential.

Drawn from giants like JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the bankers form a powerful committee that helps oversee trading in derivatives, instruments which, like insurance, are used to hedge risk. In theory, this group exists to safeguard the integrity of the multitrillion-dollar market. In practice, it also defends the dominance of the big banks. The banks in this group, which is affiliated with a new derivatives clearinghouse, have fought to block other banks from entering the market, and they are also trying to thwart efforts to make full information on prices and fees freely available.

Read more...

Read More