Two companies have been fined a total of £83,000 for
breaking the rules about how people’s personal information should be treated
when sending marketing emails.
An investigation by the Information Commissioner’s Office
(ICO) found Exeter-based airline Flybe deliberately sent more than 3.3 million
emails to people who had told them they didn’t want to receive marketing emails
from the firm.
… The airline has now been fined £70,000 for
breaking the Privacy and Electronic Communication Regulations (PECR).
A separate ICO investigation into Honda Motor Europe Ltd
revealed the car company had sent 289,790 emails aiming to clarify certain
customers’ choices for receiving marketing.
The firm believed the emails were not classed as marketing
but instead were customer service emails to help the company comply with data
protection law. Honda couldn’t provide
evidence that the customers’ had ever given consent to receive this type of
email, which is a breach of PECR. The ICO fined it £13,000.
Would you like either device “always listening” in your
hotel room?
Amazon’s Alexa takes its fight with Siri to Marriott hotel
rooms
Amazon.com’s battle with Apple over digital assistants is
moving to a new venue: hotel rooms, where Alexa and Siri are vying to be the
voice-controlled platform of choice for travelers.
Marriott International, the world’s biggest lodging
company, is testing devices from the two tech giants at its Aloft hotel in Boston’s
Seaport district to determine which is best to let guests turn on lights, close
drapes, control room temperature and change television channels via voice
command. In December, Wynn Resorts Ltd.
became the first hotel company to install Alexa-powered Echo devices, starting
with suites at its flagship Wynn Las Vegas property.
“How much cheaper?”
The first thing my students asked.
AI and insurance: Exchanging privacy for a cheaper rate
… you should pay
particular attention to the fact that the global insurance industry is seeking to harness artificial
intelligence solutions. While the
use of AI technologies in insurance has the potential to streamline company
operations and reduce consumer prices, it also raises unprecedented new issues
related to personal privacy.
… What’s
distinctive about the insurance industry’s adoption of AI is how these
companies intend to collect their data. Insurers are turning to sensors to collect
data directly from individuals, including technologies like in-home monitors
and wearables. And whenever data
collection intersects with a real person, privacy questions emerge. Do you want your healthcare provider receiving
a real-time notification of your late-night snacking? Do you want your auto insurer to know every time
you roll through a stop sign? These are
no longer hypotheticals.
Using AI to take as much of your money as possible?
The High-Speed Trading Behind Your Amazon Purchase
… Just beneath the
placid surface of a typical product page on Amazon lies an unseen world, a
system where third-party vendors can sell products alongside Amazon's own
goods. It's like a stock market,
complete with day traders, code-slinging quants, artificial intelligence
algorithms and, yes, flash crashes.
… It's clear, after
talking to sellers and the software companies that empower them, that the
biggest of these vendors are growing into sophisticated retailers in their own
right. The top few hundred use pricing
algorithms to battle with one another for the coveted "Buy Box,"
which designates the default seller of an item. It's the Amazon equivalent of a No. 1 ranking
on Google search, and a tremendous driver of sales.
A tweak for my students.
What (if anything) do they think?
US Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments Over Your Right To
Refill Ink And Toner Cartridges
… Lexmark offers a “shrink-wrap
license” in which customers can purchase cartridges at a discounted rate if
they agree to not resell or reuse them. The
customer essentially accepts the agreement once they have opened the
cartridge’s packing. Lexmark argues that
customers cannot resell or reuse the cartridges because the item technically
never belonged to the customer.
Impression Products is fighting
back with the concept of “patent exhaustion”. This concept states that a manufacturer loses
their rights to control the fate of their products once they have been sold to
a customer. If a customer purchases an
item, they may reuse or resell it.
They also have a Beta version for APA.
How Formatically Helps Students Format Essays in MLA Style
A couple of weeks ago I shared a new tool designed by
college students to help other students properly format essays in MLA format. That tool is called Formatically. I've had a few people send me questions about
how it works. It essentially gives
students a template in Word format that they can then use to write their essays
in. In the following short video I
demonstrate how to use Formatically.
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