Tag: blocking

Categories
Business online safety spam

spam blocking strategies

Trefor DaviesI am pretty aggressive in protecting my gmail account from unwanted email. The Timico mail is beyond redemption after years of attending trade shows although my strategy of signing up as The Reverend or Lord Trefor Davies seems to be working. Any mail or phone calls I get for one of those titles gets shoved straight in the bin.

The main problem I have with my trefor.net/gmail account is people wanting to sell me SEO or web development services. Often these emails come with elaborate messaging in the footer telling me that this is absolutely not spam and that they provide an unsubscribe function. However they usually can’t be bothered to find out my name and address the email as Hi. On this basis I tell Google that they are spammers. It gives me pleasure.

I’ve started to add similar emails to my block list on my Microsoft Exchange account. This morning someone I have never heard of from a company I have never heard from invited me to hook up on LinkedIn. I ignored it. This afternoon that same person has sent me a generic mailer addressed to “Hi”. If he went to the effort of looking me up on LinkedIn he might as well have gone that extra step and added my name into the email!

Ciao baby…

Categories
Business net neutrality Regs

Orange accused of blocking YouTube

Tweet from ISPreview caught my eye this morning on the subject of Orange allegedly blocking YouTube as part of its parental control service. The post goes on to tell us that this was apparently “an isolated incident”.

Without going in to the specific ins and outs of the Orange scenario which you can read over at ISPreview I guess that the point is when you start applying blocks on specific types of website you are going to block sites that you hadn’t meant to. The www is too complex for any filtering software to block “perfectly” (in the absence of a better turn of phrase). One wonders how many owners of websites there are out there wondering why their traffic levels have dropped.

If I were you I’d bookmark that ISPreview post so that next time you hear an MP call for blocking websites you can point them in the right direction. Note this is very different to the IWF list blocking which targets specific illegal websites.

Categories
Business piracy Regs surveillance & privacy

@EdVaizey opens up web blocking talks to wider stakeholder community #deact

There has been widespread criticism of discussions being held between the ISP industry and RightsHolders over the latter’s desire to effect blocking of websites being seen to promote copyright infringement. It is natural. An activity conducted behind closed doors is bound to arouse suspicion.

The latest of these meetings happened yesterday but today communications minister Ed Vaizey chaired a session that allowed alternative voices to be heard.

Present at the meeting were representatives of the Taxpayers Alliance, Open Rights Group,Pirate Party,COADEC, Open Digital Policy.org, Featured Artists Coalition,LINX and of course me.

I think Ed Vaizey found the level of debate far more constructive than he had been expecting. The gist was

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Categories
Business internet online safety Regs

ISPA Parliamentary Advisory Forum – ISPs likely to promote opt in parental controls to block kids access to porn

Attended the ISPA Parliamentary Advisory Forum this week. The debate, sponsored by Claire Perry MP was on the subject of online child protection. The issue, as previously posted (just search for Claire on this site), is that Claire Perry wants ISPs to block access to pornographic websites by default, requiring people who want to go to these sites to opt in.

This must have been one of the most informed debates I have been to with an A-Z of stakeholders (100+ people) present ranging from what looked like the committee of the local parish church, academics, libertarians, ISPs, MPs, security technology vendors, press, child safety organisations etc etc.

Several things stuck in my mind:
Internet Minister Ed Vaizey and MP Claire Perry emphasised their position that ISPs need to do something to protect kids or they will legislate.

Many references to studies on the effect of pornography on children were made.

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