Monster internet surveillance + more

2 minutes estimated reading time

Britain to pay billions for monster internet surveillance network | DuncanCampbell.org – lets park the moral dilemma this represents for a moment, would other countries come to the UK for expertise in terms of how to implement this locally? What countries would they be? What would the optics be on it? Who are the contractors that are likely to benefit from this work in the UK? More on security related issues here.

I think it will be pretty hard to make lemonade out of these lemons. The business opportunity probably won’t scale to get a ‘space race’ type benefit, the likely client countries may pose problems in terms of optics. After Snowden, you can count out the EU territories. An obvious contractor to benefit would likely be Huawei (mix of telecoms and enterprise tech, fast growing player in enterprise storage) – who wouldn’t need British expertise to sell this monster internet surveillance solution abroad

Let’s Talk About Amazon Reviews: How We Spot the Fakes | The Wirecutter – Although many reviews on Amazon are legitimate, more and more sketchy companies are turning to compensated Amazon reviews to inflate star ratings and to drum up purchases

jenny odell • living a designed life – interesting essay on the rendered spaces used by developers in their sales pitches

Samsung 837 – JWT Intelligence – really interesting retail space

Italian Crime Series Gomorrah Kills Pornhub Traffic – Pornhub Insights – the power of mainstream media played out online, I am sure there would be a similar dip for something like Game of Thrones or the FA Cup Final in the US and UK respectively

WPP Mobile New technology service from Maxus makes marketing as easy as Pie – gives WPP a bigger arbitrage opportunity but if you were a large client wouldn’t you be demanding similar implementation times?

MSN Ceases Chinese Operations | ChnaTechNews – and that’s the last of the western portals when went there leaving the market

CK Hutchison mulls legal challenge as EC thwarts its UK ambitions | TotalTele.com – not terribly surprising. UK Government’s big mistake was allowing BT to acquire a cellular operator again

Misused English Words and Expressions in EU Publications – European Court of Auditors – Secretariat General Translation Directorate – fascinating document that explains why English speakers may feel exasperated at times with their EU counterparts

Xiaomi faces existential crisis | Techinasia – if it loses the Chinese middle classes, it loses the opportunity to sell its eco-system of smart home products to them