The British Chiropractic Association’s decision to throw in the towel against Simon Singh has continued the debate about the need for libel reform. What the events leading up to this capitulation also show is the increasing resolve and influence of those who are online. The geeks, if you will.
Nick Cohen’s piece on the Guardian website, “Now charlatans will know to beware the geeks” is interesting stuff, telling how the author attended a gathering in support of Simon Singh…
I find it ironic that Ian Livingston, CEO of BT, has come out against the Digital Economy Bill claiming that it is “against natural justice”.
This is the same Ian Livingston who was the senior executive directly responsible for BT’s secret and illegal testing of Phorm’s technology.
This is the same Ian Livingston who claims to operate ethically and within the law. Tell me Mr Livingston, how does Phorm’s technology – the technology you authorised – operate within the law? Nobody knows because nobody – not Phorm, not BT, not Virgin Media – has published a legal opinion confirming that it does.
This is the same Ian Livingston who has yet to come forward and admit BT’s testing of Phorm was illegal to a court of law.
And he has the gall to talk of natural justice?
Hypocrisy of the worst kind.
Natural justice involves Mr Livingston facing charges with the other BT & Phorm excutives in a Court of Law over their involvement with the illegal interception of thousands of peoples’ internet traffic.
That’s natural justice Mr Livingston.
You still have a case to answer. Or do your ethical standards conveniently ignore the things you did before you became BT Group CEO?
Reports Chris Williams at The Register.
This is good news and something I have been saying for a long time now:there needs to be a full legal reckoning with the BT and Phorm executives responsible for these breaches of the law held to account. In court.
Chris’ report has a very brief summary of the Phorm case for anyone who is new to the story. My own entries go back as far as March 2008 and highlight the various illegalities, lack of ethics, lack of open discussion by Phorm, BT & Virgin Media (who I fired), rejections of Phorm by high profile organisations and more besides.
One interesting point here is that Ian Livingston (now BT Group CEO) was the senior executive directly responsible for the illegal and secret Phorm trials. This is the same Ian Livingston whose name appears after a piece of spin entitled “The Way We Work”. I cannot equate the illegal use of Phorm’s technology with behaving openly, ethically and in line with the law. UK and EU law has been broken here. How is that ethical?
It isn’t.
I would love to see the BT management responsible for these breaches of UK and EU law in court for a full trial. I contend that Mr Livingston’s talk about ethics and integrity are meritless spin and deserve to be exposed as such in court.
Paperchase have finally come clean.
And not before time. I’ve already said that this was an issue which they could and should have handled much better. CEO Timothy Melgund’s apology falls short of what I believe is in order, namely a full apology for and retraction of his comments to the newspapers about Twitter and its user community, but it is at least an acceptance that Paperchase did not handle the situation at all well.
Hidden Eloise writes some Final Advice To Paperchase which includes the following:
“Here is what I propose instead to Paperchase.
- Make a clean and public apology for the bad research that led you to the conclusion that no copying was ever done.
- Acknowledge publicly that the plagiarism was real and my allegations correct.
- Retract publicly the damaging comments you made regarding me and all the Twitter users.
- Put the infringing items back on sale and give all profits from this range of products to a charity of my choice, supporting something that we both hold dearly: independent artists.”
Gordon Brown’s performance in this morning’s interview with Andrew Marr was pathetic beyond description. It shows a man losing his grip on power and trying to convince himself, his cabinet, his party and everyone else that things aren’t as bad as they seem to be. When he started to talk about fairness and responsibility I nearly choked on my tea.
His is the “government” which has done nothing to prevent the illegal interception – without the customer’s knowledge and without due judicial process – of thousands of peoples’ internet communications data by BT and Phorm. Some would say his government is complicit. Others might say they are collaborators. Either way it is his government, civil service, watchdogs, Police and CPS that offered no obstacle to BT and Phorm and refused to enforce the law.