Be careful with your data
by Paul Miller
Data can be dangerous. Take this editorial from the online news site Silicon.com that charts the strange story of a reader who bought a telly online only (ticked the box saying "yes you can forward my data to third parties") and quickly found that TV Licensing were on his case for having a TV without a license. Big brother is watching you.
Read on here.
Paul Paul
I had a similar experience up in Manchester. In a city with something like 70,000 students, the TV licensing people know they were on to a winner. So they used to work closely with Granada and the other TV and video hire shops. They'd cross-reference addresses supplied by Granda with their own records. If you had no licence, you were sent a warning letter within a few weeks of having a set. But it had nothing to do with their "detector vans".
John John
The TV licensing authorities assume that everyone should have a licence. I don't have a TV, but regularly receive letters inviting me to get a licence. At one point they arrived so frequently they virtually amounted to harrassment, with the threat that 'an inspector will call'. Another organisation which works on the guilty-until-proved-innocent principle is the the British Software Association, a front for mega corporations in the software industry, which sends out letters hinting at police action unless people undertake a 'voluntary audit' of their software licences. it's a bit like a garage stopping you when you're driving and asking you to prove that you bought the car. The BSA is getting people ( including small businesses and charities) to spend thousands of expensive hours to dfo their work for them. Any other examples?