Teknovis

I did all my online Christmas shopping this week. It went very well, and I must admit that I love the comfort of shopping in my own time from my own home. I am the sort of person that researches every purchase online, thinks about it some more, and eventually purchases. Visiting real shops with a list of things to buy is an experience that I try to avoid! Now I hope that all my presents arrive soon!

I bought lots of presents on Expansys, PhotoBox, and Play (which has the bonus of being VAT free). I also bought some presents on Asos, which was my first time to buy clothes online! I really like all of these websites because they price in euro even though they are not based in the eurozone.

It really annoys me when online retailers expect Irish customers to use the UK versions of their websites. Yes – we speak the same language, but we use a different currency! I think it is just pure laziness on their behalf!

Amazon is a perfect example of such an online retailer. It has a French website in euro, a German website in euro, and an English wesite in pounds :(

Amazon Ireland

Indeed, Amazon’s approach to the EU market is very limited.

Nevertheless, I decided to give it a try this year since the pound is so weak compared to the euro. I wanted to buy a small electronics device, and the price was really good. It was only when I went to buy the item that I realised that Amazon do not ship it outside of the UK :( I understand that this might be due to the fact that Amazon does not want to be responsible for collecting old electronic devices as required by the WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) directive. So I abandoned shopping with Amazon :(

There seems to be plenty of other people who are unhappy with Amazon also according to Amazon behaving badly and Amazon UK withdraws John Duignan’s Scientology exposé “The Complex” from sale “for legal reasons”.

Finally, it appears that I am not the only person shopping online this week! According to “Busiest day” for online shopping last Monday was the busiest day in the year for online sales in the UK. The busiest hour was predicted to occur between 13:00 and 14:00 when £28 million worth of goods were to be sold. Some online retailers are predicting that this year will be their busiest year ever as more shoppers buy online. There is also an interesting video showing the inside of Amazon’s distribution centre.

Tags: Amazon, Asos, Expansys, France, Germany, Ireland, PhotoBox, Play, Tax, UK, WEEE

Google published the Zeitgeist 2008 earlier this week. This shows the most popular searches on Google during 2008.

The results are broken down into separate results for each country, which is probably more useful than the overall results. One of the interesting things that I noticed is that the term Google is in the top 10 in many countries! I do not know why people search for this using Google, but my guess is that these people are not searching directly on the Google webpage. For example, I have Firefox configured so that I can type my Google search terms directly into the address bar.

It is also very interesting to see that certain terms that are directly related to well known websites, such as YouTube, appear in all of the EU results. Yet nearly all of the EU results have terms that are specific to the country or language. I do not recognise a lot of these ones!

The most popular search terms in Ireland were:

1. Bebo
2. Youtube
3. Hotmail
4. Yahoo
5. Google
6. Games
7. You tube
8. News
9. Map
10. gmail

Unfortunately, none of these search terms relate to Irish websites :(

The fastest rising search terms in Ireland were:

1. Facebook
2. utube
3. google maps
4. Youtube
5. Nasza klasa
6. Wiki
7. RTE
8. Maps
9. Irish Times
10. Yahoo! mail

Perhaps the most interesting search term on this list is for the Polish social networking website Nasza-Klasa. (This is the most popular search term in Poland.)

There is also an interesting observation about the list of most popular politicians in Ireland in Politician Declan Ganley more popular than Bertie says Google.

More details about the popular search terms in Ireland can be read in “Sarah Palin” the most searched query on Google. Unfortunately, Ireland is not included in the Google Zeitgeist page, and I am unable to find the official source!

The results presented by Google have been filtered to remove terms related to adult searches. I recall hearing that pornography related searches are by far the most popular. However, it seems that Google did not get the filtering totally right this time for the UK results. The original list (see Palin beats Obama in Google’s ‘zeitgeist’ rankings or 2008 Year-End Zeitgeist Around the World until the mistake is noticed) contained the term cam4 under the Fastest Rising category. Let me say that cam4 is certainly not suitable for viewing in work :o For more about this see Ooops, Google Zeitgeist lists a porn site.

Tags: Austria, Belgium, cam4, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Firefox, France, Germany, Google, Ireland, Italy, Nasza-Klasa, Netherlands, Poland, Pornography, Spain, Sweden, UK, YouTube

There are two articles in the news today regarding child pornography prevention measures that are being applied at national level. These articles caught my attention because I think that they are great example of how not to apply censorship!

The first article describes how six ISPs in the UK are blocking access to a Wikipedia web page that contains a photo of a naked girl in her early teens. Initially this sounds reasonable, but the block is being applied to the whole page rather than simply the photo. Furthermore, the photo is of a well known album from 1976 by a well known band. So clearly the intention of publishing this web page is not to promote child pornography.

The ISPs are implementing the block using a transparent proxy that is not forwarding the original client IP address to Wikipedia. Unfortunately, this means that Wikipedia cannot identify individual clients within these ISPs, so all users of these ISPs are now blocked from updating Wikipedia!

To add to the stupidity of this situation, the photo is widely available on the Internet already, and a simple search for “virgin killer” on Google Images finds it. Apparently many UK bloggers are now posting the image in protest.

For more details about this see Brit ISPs censor Wikipedia over ‘child porn’ album cover.

I am delighted to report that my ISP (Eircom) is not blocking access to this web page! I hope it stays this way. If you want to test your ISP then simply try viewing Virgin Killer.

The second article describes how an Australian judge recently found a man guilty of possessing child pornography. The child pornography was a fake Simpsons cartoon that depicted some of the characters have sex. For more details about this see Fake Simpsons cartoon ‘is porn’.

Again, this seems like excessive policing to me.

Tags: Censorship, Eircom, Google, ISP, Pornography, UK, Wikipedia

I am currently reviewing which bank I should give my business to, and as part of this review I am considering getting a new credit card. Actually, I am wondering if I should get a debit card instead.

Therefore, I was very interested in reading about a new credit card that Visa is releasing. The unique thing about this new card is that when a user wants to use it then he/she enters his/her PIN into the card. So the card has a small keyboard in it, and yet it is still the same size as a normal credit card. The card then generates a unique one use code that must be used as part of the purchasing process. This ensures that user is really in possession of the card.

The vagueness of the Data Protection Act legislation covering the usage and storage of credit card details in the UK is also very interesting:

appropriate technical and organisational measures shall be taken against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal data

having regard to the state of technological development and the cost of implementing any measures

More details about all of this can be read in Visa’s digital credit card could raise legal stakes.

In terms of credit card security, the thing that really amazes me is that the CVV number is printed on the back of the card! This means that anybody who can get hold of a credit card (even for a few seconds) can later use the credit card for online purchases!

Tags: Credit Card, Debit Card, UK, Visa

The EU is now officially in recession, and both the EU and the member states’ governments are trying to develop strategies to ensure that the economic downturn is as short as possible.

One of the main driving forces behind any economy is consumer spending, and it is interesting to see how different governments are trying to encourage consumer spending. For example, the British government has decided to reduce VAT from 17.5% to 15% in the beginning of December. Meanwhile, the Irish government has decided to increase VAT from 21% to 21.5% in the beginning of December also! More details can be found in Darling cuts VAT in pre-Budget measures.

Since VAT is calculated at the point of sale for transactions within the EU, these changes will mean that the difference in cost between buying in Ireland and the UK will become 6.5% based on the VAT alone. This is bad news for Irish businesses (and ultimately the government), but it is great for both British businesses and consumers!

I already do a significant amount of my shopping online in other EU member states, and I will try and do even more this Christmas. I am particularly fond of shopping on Spanish websites where the VAT is 16%, and I also purchase online quite regularly on a Luxembourgian website where the VAT is 15%. Now the websites in the UK will be getting more of my business!

If you are curious about the rates of VAT in the different EU member states then take a look at European Union Value Added Tax.

Tags: Ireland, Spain, Tax, UK