I was having a read of my football team's website, and there was an offer of a free download of the season's fixtures into my calendar. Sounds OK, so I made sure I was signed in, clicked a few things and set about setting this up.
Very quickly, it became apparent that this isn't going to happen unless I sign up to something called ECAL, which appears primarily to be a marketing tool. I am sure it works very nicely, but I had to agree to ECAL having full access to the information in my diary, for whatever reason they wish, and the ability to add or delete data.
Screech of brakes - no thank you. My diary contains medical stuff and all sorts of personal contact info, and a pretty thorough record of where I've been and what I've done for the last 12 years or so. I'm not daft - I understand that ECAL can obtain all this from my Google account anyway, but I have not given explicit permission for that, so they would be breaking the law. This is different.
I shall enjoy my pathetic little fightback - every single time I have to look up the fixture dates elsewhere; ECAL, whatever they represent, can go and do one, as quickly as they like.
Don't do it! Oh you didn't......very wise ☺
ReplyDeleteECAL - probably "Exploiting Commercially And Lying"
Even getting as far as you did means you will no doubt receive all sorts of football related emails......
I'm currently being bombarded with emails telling me my i-cloud photo storage is full and will be deleted.....unless I pay some scammer or click on a link...
Apple have told me it's nearly 50%, but in any case I have already backed them up on an external drive....delete away suckers! ☺
Neil
I got a spam email from Supportteam yesterday, saying that they have at last deleted all my photos from the cloud - it was only a matter of time before they ran out of patience, I guess, but I would be a more upset if I had any photos on whichever cloud they may be worried about. Are bots getting more stupid, or is this just an extension of the public getting more stupid?
DeleteI am sure many will feel you have taken the gesture right out of our hands.
ReplyDeleteMy use of the gesture prompted an email discussion about the origins of this forked insult. Once again the legend of the English bowmen's fingers at Agincourt was aired - I have doubts about this one, though I don't understand any of the more likely explanations, naturally.
DeleteI still use a desk diary and pen...no one has hacked it yet!
ReplyDeleteGood for you Matt, but are you sure they haven't hacked it? Why do you think you get all these messages from Ukrainian women...?
DeleteIn my diary they are all Swedish.
DeleteGotcha!
DeleteRight on Tony! Celebrate the little wins. Every time a new "application" tells me it wants access to my camera or my calendar I do the same.
ReplyDeleteHi Ivan - very sound. Another thing which irritates me on a regular basis is when a supposed news item somewhere online wants me to approve cookies before we proceed. Sometimes they offer a simple REJECT ALL / ACCEPT choice, which is how it should be, but it is depressingly common for the next screen to be a long, scrolling list of on/off buttons for all sorts of tripe, including "efficiency" and PERSONALISED CONTENT and the ominous JUSTIFIABLE INTEREST category - I cut that very short indeed and - if possible - never visit the site again. The Internet is stuffed with creeps scoring advert clicks and generally making a living without adding one molecule to anyone's happiness or knowledge or well-being. I have so little appetite for spending time on cookie settings that it amazes me how decisive I can be (though only on good days...).
DeleteI also realise that the cookie options are probably a con anyway, so every week or two I have a quick scrub-out of cookies in Firefox - amazing what I find in there. One day, the world will find a cure for lingering diseases like Pinterest, and Reddit, and Quora.
Hear, hear. I also deny at every opportunity and when I see that near endless scroll of permission I usually just abandon the site, although there are one of two where I have laboured on through to the bitter end. It should be made illegal for any site not to have a 'Reject All' button at the top, or better still the default setting should be everything refused.
ReplyDeleteAgree with all that Rob - these are bad people - life is too short to hang around with bad people.
DeleteI'm with the above overly-cautious and yourself Tony.
ReplyDeleteLet's assume no ill intent. The adding and deleting is likely purely for them to be able to update info. about the fixtures, which could just as easily be done by sending you a message to let you know that there is an update available. That would require more steps, would not work 'seamlessly' in the background and would mean you'd have to go to more effort. It takes sooo long.
Instead you have a simple trade of publicly available info. for (potential) access to private and far more precious info and, even if we (sensibly?) exclude any nefarious intent on their part, there remains the potential for them to stuff up and delete or corrupt your data in the process of an update, or to be hacked (a 'when' rather than 'if' proposition).
Lotsa people use WhatsApp to allow them to make 'free' phone calls (esp. internationally). The simple trade there is to allow access to all of your contacts. "No thanks", I said. Actually it was a much, much ruder, negative response.
Of course, we are on so many databases anyway. I received the enjoyable news overnight that one had been hacked and I was amongst the lucky ones whose (basic) info. had been lifted. Fortunately not a lot more than they'd get from my profile here, but a reminder to share as little detail as possible, never to use the auto-saving of passwords or to store credit card info. to make your next purchase easier. It pays to make things a little slower and/or more difficult for oneself, doesn't it?!
Best wishes, James
Hi James - I think my answer to the problem of knowing when the football matches are will be to print off a list and stick it on the noticeboard over my desk - that's quite sufficient.
DeleteI am pretty resistant to over-automation of personal services - partly because I know a few people who had unfortunate experiences, and partly because in my final years of employment one of my areas of (purported) responsibility was managing risks associated with the use of technology in finance, and I became very aware of just how high a percentage of the world's creativity and intelligence is focused on finding ways to crack online security systems.
Quite soon, progress will make it necessary for me to adopt a phone app which I don't want, or I shall not be able to park a car in my home village. In the meantime, I try to limit the extent of the disaster which loss of my phone would represent, and am a great believer in the "what problem is this supposed to solve?" test. I get some perverse satisfaction from people who hold up the checkout queue in Tesco because Apple Pay or similar refuses to work out here in the country, and once some fool tried to pay with a smart watch, an incident which brought people in from the neighbouring streets to cheer him on. Particularly funny are sacrificial tourists trying to pay with their phone down in the dim bowels of the Glasgow Subway. Nah, I keep my hand firmly on my digital halfpenny. God wouldn't have given us contactless credit cards if he'd wanted something more sophisticated; so much of the so-called help we get from our devices is an unnecessary ransom-demand step designed only to earn money for its provider.
There's an old saying about anything on the interwebs; if you're not paying, you're the product. Keep fighting the good fight.
ReplyDeleteHi Steve - hope you are well. When Mr Putin gets bored and eventually puts all our phones out of action, we will be in an extreme pickle (as my Preston Grannie would have said). There are still items like a real tin-opener and real toilet paper which have more value than most of the apps.
Delete