The Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) was brought in to protect us and based around eight key principles which legally require our personal information to be:

• Processed fairly and lawfully

• Processed for specific purposes

• Adequate, relevant and not excessive

• Accurate and, where necessary, up to date

• Not kept for longer than is necessary

• Processed in accordance with your rights

• Kept secure

• Not transferred overseas without adequate safeguards in place.

I have never really worried about my personal data until I received a fax in error last week.  The RAPt CARAT team of HM Prison Service Wandsworth kindly faxed me someone's prison report.  This report gives me the person's name, address, drugs record, prison number, assessment, legal profile, drug and alcohol use and next court date.

I rang the sender explaining their error expecting some sort of explanation and reassurance that this is a rare occurance instead I was told "these things happen", given the correct fax number and asked to re-send.  I expected her to at least ask me to destroy the information but no instruction was given.

I will now shred the information however it leaves a nasty taste in my mouth.  They are clearly in breach of DPA.

Is my personal data protected?! Is yours?!

I haven't written a blog post for a while because, quite frankly, I haven't had the time or the inclination. I've been quietly contemplating the financial ruin of the entire civilised world and wondering where it all went wrong and why I racked up quite so much credit card debt.

The common concensus seems to be that we should blame all those greedy pin striped city fat cats for the turmoil we now find ourselves in. Or is it the Government and the Bank of England for not playing a more leading role in making sure that neither we nor the financial institutions borrow more than we can afford?

For many years it's been possible to live on "plastic" without ever paying interest and the easy credit has been very, very tempting. Now it's crunch time and we're all looking for someone to blame.

Personally I blame myself. I have a bigger TV than had ever been thought of just a few short years ago, two stereos neither of which I listen to, umpteen perfectly servicable mobile phones lying in various draws and the list goes on. I'm a gadget freak. I'm an internet shopping freak. I like clothes, cars and overpriced coffee from Starbucks. I'm in a bad way and it's all my own fault.

Or is it?

Marketers are the easiest people to market to. I'm a sucker for some good packaging or a subtle lifestyle ad.' You can sell me anything if you stick it in a cool box. If it's got an Apple logo on it it's as good as mine. It doesn't matter that I can't afford it, I need it in my life. I'm a marketer but I'm also a marketers dream. I love all this 'stuff.' I loved the process of buying it even more than I enjoy acually owning it and now, like many others, I'm suffering from a bit of a financial hangover. It's the ad' men we should blame and because I am one I'm still blaming myself.

The question is, when we get the money train back on it's tracks will we learn our lesson? Will I pay off my 'Mint' card and be a more sensible, thrifty person in the future? The answer is yes I will.

Until Apple bring out a MacBook Air with a DVD drive...

Today we discovered a Cold Fusion error and, for the first time ever, tried to contact Adobe customer support. We are entitled to support as users of Cold Fusion 8.

This apparently entitles us to be sent round the houses 2 or 3 times and then put on hold for one and a half hours. During this time we were serenaded with an interesting choice of music, presumably selected to induce suicidal feelings of remorse at having spent over four grand on software that doesn't work properly.

In the end we gave up. Which is of course Adobe's intention because they don't really want to offer any support on their bug ridden and extremely expensive products.

They don't even have the good grace to let you know you are in a queuing system and if you are likely ever to speak to anyone, ever!

Thanks for all your help with this problem Adobe. At least we know where we stand once we've parted with our cash.

On our own.

Steve McClaren - a man who rarely fails to amuse.. and when he's not being funny, he's generally failing (except for the umbrella incident, where he was simultaneously failing and amusing).

Having moved to Dutch side FC Twente earlier this summer, we thought we had seen the back of him for a while, until his new side drew Arsenal in the Champions League qualifier, and who would've thought his pre/post match interviews could provide such entertainment.

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At the time of writing it has just been reported that the 18th teenager has been knifed to death in our capital this year, but should we be surprised at the rise in gun and knife crime in the UK?

I don't think so.  We've been marketing it in the media for the last 50 years and we're getting better at it all the time.

Don't get me wrong, I've never been a big advocate of censorship, however I've always felt that, particularly in the UK, we've always been much more hung up about sexual content than we have been about graphic violence. Instinctively that feels all wrong to me.

I like my action movies just as much as the next guy but how can we possibly believe in the power of marketing and yet argue that violence in movies, on TV and in computer games does not have an influence on the young and impressionable. They are two sides of the same coin. If we can influence kids in to buying our brand of consumer goods we can also play our part in turning them toward a life of knife carrying and violence.

We are bombarded with violent imagery day after day in the news we read, the films we watch and the music we listen to. It's everywhere. Is it at all realistic to think that we are not influenced by an ultra-violent TV show but we suddenly become impressionable during the commercial break? No, we reap what we sow. We are influenced by what we see and what we see is an image of a violent society. It should come as no suprise that it is reflected back at us.

A certain irony struck me about this battle of the titans as I watched the latest developments. Viacom are going after Google for copyright infringement on their YouTube website, claiming that they don't do enough to stop their users from uploading protected material. Google say that the site is intended primarily for users to upload their own personal videos but that they can't stop users from uploading copyrighted stuff. Can that really be the case? I don't think so.

It's pretty apparent that Google do little policing of the content on the YouTube site. Admittedly porn is kept to a minimum but that's purely self serving. Google don't want YouTube to turn into a niche - even if it's a BIG niche like porn. No, they want users. They want all the users they can get. Everyone. They want you! More users means more advertising revenue. If that means they need to turn a blind eye to blatant copyright infringement then so be it.

Google recently scored a legal victory as Viacom's claim to get access to the Youtube code and even more critical intellectual property was shot down in court. Viacom argued that the only way to check if Google’s claim that its code couldn’t determine between infringement and non-infringement was to see the code. The judge denied Viacom’s request. The irony in all that is that it seems that Google are willing to vehemently protect their own intellectual property while displaying a flagrant disregard for everyone elses.

Viacom continue to argue that Google are actively using copyright infringing material on the Youtube site to increase their advertising revenues and that Google does little to control, block or remove infringing videos. However, Viacom's blatant attempt also to gain competitive advantage by getting access to Google's code continues to muddy the waters.

For my part, I'd like to see Viacom win the overall battle. Youtube does a lot to feed the culture of stealing content from the internet.  We've had our websites and content  copied word for word by people who didn't have the talent to do it for themselves. The stealing of music and movies continues to increase and it's easy to laugh behind our hands at the whinging of monolithic record companies who've 'stolen' royalties from artists for decades, but it's the artists, songwriters, performers and the like who lose out in the end. Steal the work that they've poured their heart and soul into and you pull the rug out from under their excellence. It's too easy to say that music and art will just find a new way to prosper and we're only hurting the evil corporates who've had their time. For the cream to rise to the top, there has to be a payday. Without  it, we'll be left in a mire of mediocrity.

It's already happening and YouTube feeds the myth that all this amazing, incredible content is 'free' and just belongs to the internet, when in reality, hard work, talent and occasional genius has never been free.

We'll miss it when it's gone.

If you believe that the congestion charge will do nothing to reduce congestion and everything to increase tax on Manchester businesses. Go to:-  http://www.stopthecharge.co.uk

If, on the other hand, you think it's a great idea and can't wait to start paying an extra £25 per week to get to work (which will soon be £40) then I suggest you pay a visit to your GP and ask for help.

Gencia has it's first ever persistant crank caller!

He calls sometimes 50 times a day and spews obscenities at our female members of staff. The suprise is (or perhaps this doesn't actually come as a suprise at all) that BT can't do anything about it.

Apparently this deranged person / nutcase works in a 'call centre' overseas and cannot be traced. We were advised to change our number by our 'helpful' BT representative. The fact that this would be incredibly inconvenient and quite obviously pointless (as our nutter would just visit our website and start calling our new number) seems to have passed them by.

We called the police who were very sympathetic but don't seem to be able to help much either.

Scary isn't it that in this age of digital communications technology it can actually be used for the age old fruitcake pastime of intimidating women but it can't be used to solve the probem?

Beware.

Forgive me for being an old cynic but I believe we can say 'NO' as often and as loudly as we like but it won't stop the Manchester congestion charge. As soon as the technology became available and the idea was mooted it was a done deal.

Yes we all know it doesn't work and really it's just another tax on businesses. If you want proof just try driving into central London or ask any London cabby if he's noticed any difference to the amount of traffic on the streets.

No, it's about cash. A big pot for local government that is just too shiny and lovely to possibly resist. Still you can console yourself with the fact that we live in a democracy and if you really don't want the congestion charge to further blight your motoring life you could always vote for......

er...

This summer, like most British summers have become, will be a gloomy affair – not because the chances of a sustained period of sun remain as unlikely as Arsene Wenger admitting it was a penalty, but because, as we’re all more than aware, for the first time since 1994 England have failed to qualify for the summer’s major football tournament.

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