Cookie policy | Legal | editorial

The following page has my legal notice around IP and related matters, my cookie policy and the editorial policy of this blog.

Legal notice

The opinions expressed here are my own, and neither my employer nor any other party necessarily agrees with them. This blog’s content is all my own, I licence it to other people under a BSD documentation licence that I consider to be the best balance between fair use (even of a commercial nature) and attribution:

Copyright 2004-2024 Ged Carroll. All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source (renaissancechambara.jp) and ‘compiled’ forms (SGML, HTML, PDF, PostScript, RTF and so forth) with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

Redistributions of source code (renaissancechambara.jp) must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer as the first lines of this file unmodified.

Redistributions in compiled form (transformed to other DTDs, converted to PDF, PostScript, RTF and other formats) must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

THIS DOCUMENTATION IS PROVIDED BY GED CARROLL “AS IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL GED CARROLL BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS DOCUMENTATION, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Comment guidelines

I used to have comments enabled, but have given up on them as they haven’t been used for the reason that they were intended. If you want to get in touch with me, I might consider your commentary and ideas for which I will give attribution (unless requested not to) on a later post.

Cookie Policy

I guess it makes sense for a cookie policy to first explain what is a cookie?

According to Wikipedia, a cookie is:

usually a small piece of data sent from a website and stored in a user’s web browser while a user is browsing a website.

Why do I want to use cookies on this site?

The corporate-speak answer would go something along the lines of ‘to improve site performance and audience experience‘.  The truth is I personally don’t particularly want to use cookies, but some of the things I do use on this site like

  • Google Analytics (so I can understand when people come and visit the site and what they are interested in). It also works with Google Webmaster Tools which lets me know if there is a site problem like a malware infection
  • Embedded YouTube and Vimeo videos
  • Images from Flickr
  • Embedded Slideshare presentations

All of the above use cookies: the reason why they do this is so they can work properly. These organisations are so big that I have to use their cookies or not have access to their content. You can go to their sites to read their cookie policy.

So you’re are not going to steal my credit card details?

No, I am not that talented. I won’t be sifting through your online shopping history, personal computer files or anything else for that matter.

Why the fuss then?

Some companies use cookies to follow you around the web usually for advertising purposes. The average man on the street became more aware of cookies when the European Union and state of California passed legislation around increasing consumers control over their online privacy.

Politicians in other countries have looked at similar measures.

Will saying no to cookies make a difference?

Probably not, the smart people who know how to use data about you and impinge on conventional notions on privacy have other techniques that they can quite easily deploy instead. Google and Facebook will find a way regardless of their cookie policy acceptance. People will still share far too much data over social networking platforms, location-based mobile applications and the like.

If you would like to know more about cookies, then this site maybe a good place to start.

Editorial Policy

You’ve made it this far? Good for you, not much further to go: blogging by its nature requires transparency. Where I am blogging about past clients or employers, I have declared the link at one time or other on here or my old blog site.Where that link hasn’t been declared, its because:

  • The posting along with 90 per cent of my blogging output between December 2006 and January 2008 disappeared in a poof of pixels when this blog (with a URI at the time of renaissancechambara dot com) was hosted on Yahoo! Small Business Hosting and things went pear-shaped in a manner that only technical things can
  • I’ve been remiss, I am not perfect and I am man enough to admit it and if this is case, drop me an email and I will correct the error

For the record, here’s a list of most of the brands who I’ve worked for from an operational, marketing and PR PoV (though I am sure that at least some of them are missing):

  • Contractor: Brakes Foodservice, Cereal Partners, Corning (optical fibres), Cornerstone Building Brands, DSM, Iceland Foods, Morgan Advanced Materials, AB Petroleum Nynas, Rio Tinto, Spectrum Adhesive Coaters Limited, Wirral Hire
  • BHP Petroleum: as a temporary PR assistant during my time at college. I helped launch the Liverpool Bay oil and gas field
  • MBNA International Bank – helped launch their insurance services division with a particular focus on driving payment protection insurance adoption. I did a lot with data, wrote a lot of sales scripts and got to buy the sports cars that were given to the best performing sales people
  • The Weber Group Europe: 3Com, CommWorks, Enron, Entevo, Dealtime.co.uk, Deltathree, Evenbetter.com, Hitachi Europe, InterSystems, LSI, NortonLifeLock, OpenMarket, Palm, RSL Communications, VA Linux and Verizon
  • Edelman London: BT Genie, Cap Gemini, DiamondCluster International, Ericsson, Infor Global Solutions, Microsoft, NTT Data, Nvidia, Philips, PSINet, Sony Ericsson, Vivendi
  • Freelance consultant: AOL, IMD Fastrax, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe
  • Pirate: Aljazeera, Ask Jeeves, Azure Solutions, BAA, Big Brother (Endemol/4Ventures), British Red Cross Bali Bombing Appeal, BT Research, BT Wholesale, presenter and author Clive James, InLondon magazine, design and branding agency Henrion Ludlow Schmidt, ORMvision, Pegasystems and thedoghouse.co.uk
  • Freelance consultant: Bloodybigspider, Flying Records and Motorola
  • Yahoo! Europe: (inhouse) Yahoo! Search, blo.gs, upcoming.org, flickr, delicious, Yahoo! Answers, Yahoo! Technology Development, Yahoo! 360, Yahoo! FIFA World Cup sponsorship and corporate brand
  • WE Communications Europe: AMD, Econsultancy, Fujitsu Siemens, GE Healthcare, Handmark, Jobster, Marvell Semiconductors, Mexican Tourism Board, Microsoft Trustworthy Computing initiative, QinetiQ, Samsung, Superyacht Skills Foundation, the UN and Vizrea. I was also a guest lecturer at the LaSalle Business & Engineering School of Universitat Ramon Llull in Barcelona
  • Ruder Finn | RFI Studios London: ACCA, Econsultancy, various parts of Experian, Manpower, The National Lottery (Camelot Group), Nomura, Novartis, Pfizer and a number of confidential projects in the private and public sectors
  • Burson Hong Kong for Greater China: CIVB, Coca-Cola, Colgate, Econsultancy, Huawei, Melco Crown, Oakley, Qualcomm, RBS, Singapore Ministry of Home Affairs (Central Narcotics Bureau, Immigration & Checkpoints Authority, Internal Security Department, Singapore Civil Defence Force, Singapore Police & Singapore Prison Service) , Spanish Business Council for Competitiveness (CEC), Telenor Myanmar and Tommy Bahama
  • Racepoint Global: ARM Holdings, Armacell, Bednest, Extreme Networks, Frontline Clothing Limited (Hong Kong), Huawei, Intelligent Energy, New Balance Football, Oraya, Progress Software, Warrior Sports
  • Freelance: 90TEN, ABB, Baidu, BEST, BMW, Concentric HX, CSL, Digitas Health, Evoke, My HIV My Journey (Gilead), GSK, Janssen, Mandarin Oriental, McCann, National Golf Month, Nomura, Novo Nordisk, Otsuka, Ogilvy, Philips consumer products, Pico, Provident Financial, Sanofi, Shell Indonesia, SK-II, Sony Mobile (global), Sports Technology Awards, Takeda, Teva, Tinkk, UCB, Unilever (Family Brands & Dove – both at global level), Zeal&

To keep things simple, I don’t talk about my present employer or clients.