Damien Mulley

Baaaa. More continued bullshit from one of the most ineffectual entities in this state. The Data Protection Commissioner, the one that releases a report with go-faster stripes each year and makes a mini-celebrity out of one case while doing nothing for everything else is now saying they’ll be getting tougher on spammers. Complete and utter bollox. They have a “new weapon” against spammers. Which they’ll keep well polished and stored away for safety no doubt.

2008 they let people reoffend again and again. 2007 they let someone go after harassing thousands because it was their first offence.

How many companies were fined last year after being investigated? How many were dragged through the courts? How many got away with blue murder?

Photo owned by Oceanik (cc)

I’d FOI them for this information but their smug press officer got great kicks telling me a while back on the phone that they don’t come under FOI. It was suggested I send in an information request when I asked for details about the Bank of Ireland laptop thefts. So this is what I sent in:

RTE last week reported that the Data Protection Commissioner’s Office delivered a report to Bank of Ireland which included recommendations to prevent future data loss. Bank of Ireland said they would not release that report. I was looking for said report but obviously with the commercially sensitive information removed. I doubt that all the report is giving away BOI’s IP.

I also wanted to get details of the costs involved in putting that report together. Numbers of staff and manhours involved.

This is what I got back:

As you are aware, no regulations are currently in force specifying this office as a body to which the Freedom of Information Acts apply. As a matter of good practice and with due regard to the privacy of the parties involved, we endeavour to keep both data subjects and data controllers informed of the progress of investigations. This does not apply to your request. Having reviewed your request, I won’t release any of this information to you.

The DPC blow taxpayer money to advise a Bank but refuse to disclose how much it cost and what advice it was. Course there’s a trend when it comes to using taxmoney to keep banks happy. It’s a shame this shower didn’t get culled in the budget cuts because sometimes an expensive and out of synch clock is more dangerous than no clock.

If Pat is Santa, I’m an elf. I’ve been given four prizes to give away on this here blog in exchange for promoting the Jack and Jill Foundation who recycle mobile phones. Just to note Jack and Jill didn’t provide the prizes but a supporter of theirs and it was thanks to Santa that they contacted me about this.

What does the Foundation do?

The Foundation provides early intervention home respite to families with children up to the age of 4, with severe neuro developmental delay and palliative conditions requiring extensive medical and nursing care at home.

Here’s the deal. For everyone that donates one or more mobile phones to the charity, they’ll be entered into a draw for three prizes (First, second and third out of hat) - a Nokia 5220, a Voyager 815 bluetooth headset and an Elextex rubberised portable keyboard for phones. The blogger who gets these people to donate phones will also be entered into a draw for a Nokia 810 Internet Tablet.

Donating a phone is dead simple as you drop the phone and charger (if you have it) in a jiffy bag and send it to their freepost address: The Jack and Jill Mobile Appeal, Freepost, Ratoath Road , Finglas, Dublin 11

If you collect 10 phones they’ll even send a courier to you.

So if you’re a blogger/run a blog, send your readers this way (this is not a link building thing so nofollow away) making sure they have you as the referer (as in “JohnnyBlogs sent me”) and you could win a Nokia 810 Internet Tablet and if you want to donate a phone leave a comment on this post with the make/model of the phone you’re donating and which blogger sent you this way. Yes, you can donate a phone and refer your own blog so you can be in two draws.

It’d be interesting to see which blog sends the most referers. Game on blogger people!

I should get like a golden seat or powerpoint for all the money they made off me in 2008. These are all my tickets for my Cork-Dublin journeys:

Made in Hollywood, the people behind the Web Awards props recently relaunched their website and it’s very impressive. They also have a blog but have a look at the props they’ve made for other events. Nice. Fran Hollywood from Made in Hollywood is looking for some good pics from the Web Awards of the Ws that he made. If you have any then email them on to him and he might use them in the gallery on his site.

Via Pat Phelan once again. Leave a comment and consider donating a small amount of cash for the chosen charity.

So how did the Ones I suggested we watch do in 2008? Not bad at all.

Robin Blandford.
Himself and David are now building and running Decisions for Heroes. Trailblaizers!

Fergus Burns
Another trailblazer. Nooked getting bigger and better every month.

The Paddy’s Valley 20
Well…

Patrick Collison, John Collison and all at Auctomatic
Sold! Massive attention. Late Late with the Plank. Household names and names uttered by Mammies when scolding their kids for not being proactive enough.

Richard Hearne
Still the S.E.O. God in Ireland even if he didn’t enter the Geansai Gorm competition! He went through 2008 at breakneck speed, let’s hope he slows a bit in 2009!

Conor O’Neill
Well Argolon and LouderVoice have been doing immensely well and once again Conor has been giving so much to the Web 2.0 community in Ireland with his constant help and sharing. Let’s hope he’s appreciate for that.

Alexia Golez
Well she moved to a new domain and battled O2 towards the end of the year over the iPhone. Mizz Golez is on the brink of a hostile takeover of the Fluffy Links with her Red Links. I think think Alexia would be of immense benefit if she can be convinced to leave the good ship Redmond.

Martha Rotter
Loved and respected by people in the Irish tech scene for her tough job envagelising Microsoft. Still the shining star she was last year.

Marcus Mac Innes
Well Pix.ie is doing rather wll thanks very much and there’s been impressive work with some rather large brands this year establishing Pix.ie as the place to be when it comes to photos in Ireland. Also won a few awards to boot!

Pat Phelan
The hardest working man in Irish technology? Net Visionary for 2008 (which I wasn’t very surprised about)

Cian O’Flaherty
Helped organise the EU bloggers conference in Dublin this year and working like a trojan for a certain current affairs show.

Paul Fabretti
In the UK Paul is establishing himself as a much respected social media ninja dispuptive maven coach. Go Paul!

Paul Walsh
Wubud. The Digital Mission and so much more. I think that shows how well Paul has done.

Nice quote taken from this here blog post. Head over to Nick’s new gaff and read and comment on his posts about adland from an Irish perspective. And another fine quote which will surely get him lots of Google hits for all the wrong reasons:

Bloglessness equals a dildo without batteries. You’ll get fucked in the long run, but it’ll be a lot more hard work and always, always the certain knowledge that really? you did it to yourself