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Observations
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Wednesday, February 09, 2005
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Saturday, July 31, 2004
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@ Location privacy...
When teaching or discussing the principles and uses of location-based services, I am often asked about privacy and legal implications. I usually give anecdotal answers based on what I perceive to be operator approaches, which I assume to be best practise and legally valid. However, I did manage to track down the actual legal position in terms of rights to privacy enshrined within European Law.
Article 9 of the EU Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive requires that location data may only be used with the consent of the subscriber. Moreover, it should remain possible for subscribers and users even if they have subscribed to a location based service, to temporarily block the tracing facility.
12:33:09 PM 
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Friday, July 23, 2004
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@ Mobile Location Spam...
There is a lot of excitement about the potential of location-based services. All kinds of applications are being dreamt up, but what they have in common is interrupting the user with a message when they enter into a zone of interest. The problem is how to set up rules sufficiently intelligent that the messages received are actually wanted, or useful. Clearly, careful opt-in schemes are one solution, but rather crude. This option denies the genuine possibility of receiving useful information without expressly signing up for it.
Opt-in is really a defence mechanism, not an information filter. In a "whole product" seamless information experience, one might argue that "the system" ought to know what I'm interested in and send me useful stuff without me asking for it. In other words, opt-in is clumsy.
Intelligent push of location-sensitive information requires an agent that understands our interests and habits. This requires a wider scope than just retailing. Someone interested in archaeology might be willing to receive information about important sites as they drive past. If this sounds mundane (“I don’t want that...”), the trick is to ponder on which convergence of information and spatial contexts would interest you. Experience of giving many courses in this area has taught me that everyone eventually comes up with not just one, but many such contexts that suit them.
Nonetheless, spam is still a real problem. In the email world, it is potentially a killer for wireless email without effective defences. Any wireless email solution has to include spam-defence as a must-have, in addition to a variety of other context sensitive filters, adjusting content by the moment, movement, and for “me” (as discussed in my book).
In Europe, the law is clear that mobile push advertisement services must be explicit opt-in. In the US, similar legal trends are emerging, following on the heels of the CAN-SPAM edict against email spamming. Brian McWilliams describes a lawsuit filed last month by Verizon against 50 unidentified “John Does” who are spamming mobiles.
Clearly, a strong legal deterrent is useful, but we need to tread carefully. How do we cater for intelligent location-based advertising? For example, would it be legally justifiable to say, “I knew that Joe Soap was interested in buying a new Mazda (from his web surfing 3rd party cookies - see previous post), which is why I sent the message”? Is it a variation on the “open gate” invitation to the front door in UK case law?
10:38:50 AM
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Wednesday, May 19, 2004
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:: When is an acronym not an acronym? ::
When it's a trademark! A recent blog entry by Jon Udell puzzled over why some acronyms don’t seem to stand for anything any more.
The answer is that US trademark laws prohibit acronyms being used as trademarks. So, what have some organisations done to circumvent this problem? They declare that the acronym in question doesn’t stand for anything at all, to which I reply YYSSW.
When teaching J2EE as part of a wireless architecture course, I frequently quiz the students about acronyms. I shall find it odd saying “What does JDBC stand for?”, knowing now, thanks to Jon, that it doesn’t stand for anything. I can see this issue has entertainment value – “Test! Which acronyms don’t stand for anything at all?”
Acronyms are used abundantly in technology circles. I still recall that one of the first documents handed to me when I joined Motorola, many years ago, was a list of acronyms. I joined Motorola (big US company) to work on GSM, which originally was a French acronym - Groupe Spécial Mobile. It later became Global System for Mobile communications. When awarding contracts for cellular systems in Iraq, some US senators objected to the use of GSM technology, because, in their mistaken view, it was horrible French technology. The perils of acronyms!
11:08:32 AM
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Monday, May 17, 2004
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:: Language and filters ::
David Crystal's book "Language and the Internet" is fairly interesting. I am using it to research aspects of my new book about wireless. David is a formidable linguist and his book reflects the expected analytical professionalism. I wonder what he would make of Google's current apology for offensive search engine results, wherein they explain:
"Sometimes subtleties of language cause anomalies to appear that cannot be predicted"
This is an interesting turn of phrase with all kinds of implications and ironies. That aside, quite why Google has to apologise for search engine results is an interesting question (pre-IPO jitters notwithstanding). But, it reminds us that what we innocently perceive to be in some way unbiased listings are anything but. Ultimately, there is an "algorithm" behind the search and it is "deciding" ranking, not the Internet itself, or its users. Therefore, one could equally say:
"Sometime subtleties in the algorithm cause anomalies to appear that cannot be predicted"
In the wireless world, information filters will become even more selective - necessarily so. Who is going to do the filtering and how?
11:00:37 AM
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Monday, March 08, 2004
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:: Enmesh, Volume 1, Issue 2 ::
..Sorry for the long delays between postings. I have been busy writing a book and writing new training materials. I have also been doing a lot of reading. The process has been a journey that has enabled me to think of new directions for where I think mobility might be headed. Some initial thoughts spewed out recently, enough of them to make issue 2 of Enmesh. Read on....
Summary
If you still think that a mobile phone is just a desk phone without wires, you are wildly wrong. Perhaps to you and me, a tin of red paint is a tin of red paint, but to a trained artist, it is the fiery hue of an awesome sunset. Similarly, a mobile phone has implications beyond its role as a phone. To the informed mind, it is something quite different. In this brief article, we allude to its powerful potential and conclude that to benefit fully from its emergent potential; we have to learn how to "think mobile". Business leaders, project managers and practioners of all kinds need to start thinking mobile because, like it or not, mobile interaction with the world is going to dominate our daily lives in a matter of years, not decades. Soon we shall be hooked in for good. Savvy people will make a lot of capital from this inevitable cultural transformation.
Read the full article (5 pages) in PDF
1:12:12 AM
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Friday, October 03, 2003
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:: "3G" is "dead" ::
I typed the above keywords into Google and found a lot of entries. That didn't surprise me. But, after reading a few of them I found that they essentially said the same thing. The problem is that nowhere was I able find a definition of “3G”, nor “dead” for that matter. In fact, I don’t ever recall reading a discussion of the perennial “WiFi” versus “3G” debate that talked of what solution was being sought by the use of either of these “things”, which is the best word I have for them in the absence of any definition. No purpose. No definition, but plenty of opinion.
Aristotle reportedly said,
“How many a dispute could have been deflated into a single paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms.”
I dare some of the pundits to define their terms having first talked of what problem they are trying to solve.
12:55:20 PM
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© Copyright
2005
Paul Golding.
Last update:
3/26/2005; 8:58:36 PM.
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