Tax Avoidance, Soho House and the Death of ITunes?




So for those of you following this blog – Cybergirl has been banging on week in, week out about the shady tax shenanigans of high profile brands such as Google, Facebook and Apple to name but a few – brand who clearly believe that tax avoidance is akin to filing a dodgy taxi receipt on expenses or waiving the service in a restaurant. ‘Tax avoidance is legal’ is the catchphrase du jour, from politicians and brands alike.

But I ask you, is it legal for the millions of ordinary citizens who file self assessment forms every year come January 31st? How would Apple feel if their employees started filing expenses to the tune of £200 million? Or if their customers started paying £2 instead of the £270 for an IPad Mini?

Margaret Hodge, Labour chairman of the public accounts committee said, ‘We’re not accusing you of being illegal, we’re accusing you of being immoral,’ – why not? Why on earth is this kind of corporate behavior not illegal? Why when British citizens are expected to adhere to the authority of HMRC, are companies that rake in millions in profits exempt? Google has admitted structuring its affairs to reduce liability, well if it’s good enough for them – it’s good enough for us. That wad of blank taxi receipts Cybergirl found abandoned in the back of a black cab recently – they’ll be filed imminently – it’s ‘legal’ don’t you know...

On another note Cybergirl spent the weekend at a very exclusive private members club/hotel in the heart of the Somerset countryside, this uber exclusive hang out (and preserve of the rich and famous) is well known for banning mobile phones within its hallowed walls, but now seems to have taken the ethos one step further with a cyberwall that blocks all Facebook chatter. No matter how hard Cybergirl tried, no status updates, photos or location services would penetrate the barrier imposed on this very private garden of Eden. Top marks for privacy to the Soho House Empire...

Thirdly – (yes two points are never quite enough) Spotify – is it the death of ITunes? How on earth did Apple think they could get away with ‘leasing’ material to the millions of people dependent on ITunes software when Spotify; previously the underdog, were offering an almost identical service – the only difference being that with ITunes (and for an exorbitant price) the music is leased for life... Hmmmm - Leased for life or leased by the month – sorry what’s the difference?

Finally (yes this is the week of gripes) what on earth is wrong with Apple’s Mail? The search facility is terrible... Cybergirl can never ever find the requisite email without logging on via Google or another mail client. Googlers have got the hang of searching email – how can Apple be so far behind? Here’s an idea – how about Google lease the technology to Apple? Then all the dominoes would be neatly lined up in a row – now there’s something to think about. Right, rant over.

Crowdfunding, The Most Retweeted Comment in The World, and a bloggers' haven at Chanel...




So what’s on the brain this week? First up crowdfunding ladies and gentlemen. Oh has Cybergirl been impressed with the sheer ingenuity and business acumen that is Tallulah Rendall – the singer songwriter has been harnessing the power of the web and social networking in particular to fund the production of her next album. Rendall who is one of the most talented singer - songwriters we’ve seen in the last few years (think Florence crossed with KT Tunstall, with the haunting elegies of Kate Bush thrown in for good measure) is hard at work getting the resources together to get her third album into the public domain. Not only has she created the most ingenious YouTube video (see below) but she has harnessed the power of crowdfunding to match. Where there’s a will there’s a way ladies and gentlemen and the Internet is nothing if not a cog in a very creative wheel...

In Tallulah’s words it offers us all the ‘Freedom to Create…’ And that's no bad thing...


On another note – what a week it was for the humble tweet! Yes Barack Obama, pronounced his victory, with not only a stunning all rounder in less than 140c, but a Twitpic to match… If ever evidence was needed of the stunning tour de force that is social networking, this is it – with his statement; ‘Four more years…’ and a heart-warming image of him hugging wife Michelle to match. What an incredible start to the next presidential term… And might we say a huge relief for millions of Americans…

Here in the UK, Cybergirl spent the week doing the rounds of press shows, starting off with a tour at uber brand Chanel, who showed its sheer dedication to harnessing the power of the blogger, with a press day to match. Yes their incredible new spring summer collection was displayed in all its glory – for the bloggers of the world, to photograph, tweet and even video – ready to go viral (see the beautiful images below). Ahhhh, the ever growing power of the web; where once humble journalists feared to tread – now bloggers storm in swathes… There’s no question the clever PR peeps down at Chanel, have scoured the blogosphere for only the top talent around but this brings me to an ever growing concern... With an unlimited amount of data ready and waiting to be filled in the giant miasma that is the Internet, is there a creeping concern of quantity over quality? 












Ramped up Roaming, Google inaccuracies and famine at Facebook...



Number One on the agenda ladies and gentlemen is roaming charges – Grrrrr. So this was the week that 02 announced it would ramp up international calling (and ergo data) charges outside of Europe. Seethe; as if we weren’t charged enough!!

Here’s the announcement on the O2 website

During the summer the European Commission stepped in to protect consumers by capping roaming charges within the EU – in effect slashing charges levied by phone companies by up to 75 percent. But as the announcement by O2 highlights, there are no controls on roaming charges levied outside of Europe!

O2 will more than double the amount its customers will be have to pay to send and receive calls and text messages from countries such in North America, Asia and Africa.

The following is a statement from Tomas Mendoza, Managing Director of Tep Wireless.

“O2 is doing this simply because it can. The roaming market is now regulated within European mobile operators – but there is no cross-continental regulation or body with jurisdiction. It’s the ‘wild west’ where phone operators can charge what they want.”

Another example of Dollar Voting ladies and gentlemen – just walk away or find yourself the weakest link in the scourge of the 2400% profit margin. Now that can’t be good for web lovers worldwide. Shame on you O2.

HALLOWEEN!

Last night was the night that Cyber girl decided to go to the cinema ladies and gentlemen. Yes with Halloween on the agenda, it was time for a short sharp, shocking burst of Paranormal Activity Four! Off we went (the date and I), confident in the fact that the film (at Fulham Broadway in case you were wondering) was at 9pm. Luckily no diet coke or extortionately expensive popcorn had been bought, because SHOCK HORROR (and extended drumroll) – Google was wrong! Yes the world’s greatest search engine had made a mistake! Now this may have been a freak accident, but it did rather dampen my spirits – not to mention ‘the date’ – why? The next showing wasn’t till 11pm! In the words of Dave, our trusty popcorn technician ‘Nahhh, don’t look at Google – only site that’s accurate is Odeon’s Own’ – there it is, we couldn’t have put it better ourselves.

Now for note two – Cybergirl has noticed a trend of late in the domain of the face and the book. Yes people may not be logging off in their droves (the accounts are still well and truly active) – but there’s a serious drought sweeping its way across that dry blue landscape. No one’s updating – and if they are it’s few and far between. Is it age? Is it boredom? (Cybergirl has hit her thirties now – double shock horror...) and the photos? Where have they all gone!? The last time Cybergirl updated a photo it was well over seven months ago? Why – Privacy. Yes I know there are filters – I know I can loop in just ‘close friends’ but who has the time to upload a photo anyway? Two minutes and thirteen seconds to upload five photos, then there’s the tagging, the labeling and the posting. All of a sudden it just all seems too much hassle. Still incredibly useful for, hmmm finding flatmates, posting a question, and errr keeping track of your address book, but seriously is FB going the way of (drumroll) A Small World? Enough said.

Number Three! Sparrow. Now for those of you using this mail app – it needs no explanation, for those of you in the dark, well it was a wondrous improvement on the decaying workhorse that is/was Apple Mail. It was all glittery, all shiny, simplicity itself... But then it went and got bought by Google (eat the competition perchance?) and resigned itself to the fact that there will quite liably be no more updates. But then again Cybergirl had fallen out of love with Sparrow since it went and started saving Cybergirl’s emails and NOT SENDING THEM. Only for them to pop out three days later causing untold havoc and confused rumblings from a number of work colleagues and aquaintances. ‘But I thought you said....’ ‘Sorry you want this now?’ – you get the picture. Alternatives to Sparrow include: Postbox (Windows and OSX – great value), Mailplane (ooh quite good actually), Emailganizer (design isn’t brilliant, but there are tons of brilliant features), Mailmate (free trial – natch) and Mailpilot (reimagine email)... Choose your poison and check your prices – not all replacement apps are free. But ahh what a relief there’s an alternative to Mail.

October 2012.

War in the land of the E Books...





Ok ladies and gents, we've covered Apple, we've covered taxes, we've even covered wifi on the beach, now it's the turn of the publishing industry. So a long long time ago there was the printing press, then came along the supermarkets getting into a price war with good old Waterstones, but hey Waterstones fought back! Waterstones jumped up and down, took a few cues from Daunt Books and shimmied up its image, (just like Starbucks of late). But was it enough? Clearly not because there's a Goliath in town - and it's called the E Book. 

 Actually scrap that it's not called the E Book, it's called the evil eye behind the E Book, the multiple eyes who are intent on one goal and one goal only - WINNING. Forget the authors, forget the craft of writing, forget how damned hard it is to get published anyway... No - now it's all about selling off a download for the lowest possible price known to man - Hey well it's not on paper anymore is it? That means... We can sell it as cheap as chips - because the words, well they're the lowest common denominator between a book and, well blank paper right? 

 Now look, don't get me wrong. I love my tablet, I love downloading, I love reading occasionally when there isn't a proper book to hand, but in no way does the experience of holding mimic holding a book. For one you read 11% faster reading on the printed page. Yes that's right! Say it takes you three days to finish a book (we read fast here at The GWG), at a daily rate of three hours, that's twelve hours over the course of the week - 11% of twelve hours is: (have to get my calculator out now...)  is 79.2 minutes. so say you read a book a month (stay with me), that's sixteen hours per year wasted by reading a tablet. 

 Say you're an avid reader and you devour a book a week, that's 68.644 hours over a year - that's almost three days! Ok point made. Now back to the price war - some E Books have recently been reduced to a shocking 20p - yes! You heard right, 20p!!!!! Who were the offending parties? Sony and Amazon (slapped wrists all round), though the authors are certainly not complaining as the trend propels them to the top of the Bestseller list faster than you can say 'Conspiracy of The Casual Vacancy,' but anyway Peter James for example - author of the thriller Dead Man's Grip (in seventh place on the list) was certainly not complaining because Amazon and Sony still paid his royalties in full - yes as if the book were sold in hardback in Waterstones (to come full circle). So what's the problem I hear you ask? The problem my dear friends is that we (the public) get ever used to buying E Books, for less than the price of a Twix. What's wrong with that? I hear you ask... The years of labour, the value of art, the simple fact that we need writers to uphold the cultural institution that is well, writing...

 Without royalties and book deals and the public behind them - they can't eat. And if they can't eat, they can't write and if they can't write - there's no one to write the books in the first place, which would admittedly be quite a sad state of affairs.

Google, Apple and Facebook; all in the naughty corner...




Well what a week it's been. I have to say ladies and gents there are times when I struggle to think of what to write about and then there are times when there's such a deluge of web related shenanigans I hardly know what to do with myself...

So it's been a few weeks since I talked about Apple; I came, I saw, I ranted, and then I finally moved onto another subject. But in the last few days, the technology giants, have, once again hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Apparently it wasn't enough to park 74 billion US dollars offshore, losing the US economy 17 billion dollars just at the time when it was most needed. No, no, Apple are now following the same business model on the shores of our beloved British Isles; using Ireland as the tax haven to end all tax havens and losing HMRC £570 million of taxable income in the process. How? Apparently this is all 'legal' (Ireland has a significantly lower rate of corporation tax, don’t you know), whether it’s ethical is another question...

Sadly Facebook and Google are following suite, (I know, I know – I lauded Google in particular in last week’s column, I hang my head in shame). Is it a wonder then that Google’s share price dropped yesterday by 20%? Is it really due to a drop in advertising (people waking up to click fraud – perchance?). The timing may have been a blunder (a printing company employed by the search engine mistakenly let a press release out of the bag; no doubt there are some knuckles being rapped down at that company). Facebook in particular paid only £238,000 of corporation tax last year in the UK on estimated revenues of £175 million. Hmph, is all I have to say about that.  Oh and one post-script; if these technology giants just paid their taxes in full like the good honest citizens they target, their profits might just be even higher than present; for companies motivated by greed, that’s got to be an incentive...

________________

On another note – yes there are always several... This week brought to light an ingenious new app (soon to be released to IPhone users and already available on Android); say hello to Cate; the app that allows you to create a secret log of calls and text messages, perfect for keeping prying eyes away from the sensitive data on your smartphone. Now I know it might initially seem like a James Bond Gizmo at the service of adulterous husbands and wives worldwide, but there is an alternative use that might be more useful; privacy (for individuals and government organisations). In the age where sites scour the web aggregating information from a plethora of sources, privacy is starting to look quite attractive. Which brings me to my third and final point:

What on earth is going on across the web? Sites such as Pipl, Peepl, Zoominfo and the French version; Yatedo are crawling the Internet and aggregating free information on everyone on the planet and then creating a profile based on whatever they can find. Since some of this material is old cached pages you’ve tried your darnest to erase, this can prove quite frustrating to say the least. Google yourself now, to see if you’ve fallen pray to the grave diggers of the web – and if so, take action accordingly, by requesting for the profile to be removed, and then contacting Google to have the cached page wiped at webmaster tools.

 And remember – the power of the dollar vote; it's quite literally all we have.

This is Cybergirl, signing off.
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