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How (not) to Do Permission Marketing

A few days ago I’ve got an email written in a friendly tone, where a company providing education services tried to sell me a seminar on Sport Law.

Ususally, I don’t answer SPAM, but this time I’ve decided to run an experiment. So I wrote back saying:

Dear Sir,
If you want to use direct marketing techniques to advertise your business, you’d better be more careful.
To offer a Sport Law seminar to a Sport Law professor shows that you use a mailing-list without actually knowing who your targets are.
The outcome is that an action that borns as “direct” marketing, dies as SPAM

I didn’t get an answer to my reply, thus confirming my initial suspect and giving me the chance to do a broader musing about the Direct Marketing idea.

To go? for a friendly and personal style at the first contact implies that, first, a follow up should be taken into account by the sender and, second, the “personal” tone should be maintained. By doing so, the? recipient get the feeling that the company actually wants to deliver a tailored service.

On the contrary, “playing friend” without keeping the promise produces the opposite effect: the sender, the product and the company are labelled as entities with no actual interest in building a personal rapport with the perspective customer.

Thus, if a company doesn’t give its targets the attention required by Permission Marketing techniques, it shouldn’t pursue this option, because – as in this case – such kind of companies would be immediately equaled to sellers of (various colours)pills, hair fertilizer, and miraculous investments. That, at least, don’t try to lure us into believing that they actually care about us.

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“Blame the algorithm”: the new mantra of social irresponsibility


Computer says no! is the mantra that one of Little Britain’s most famous characters, Carol Beer, the artificially-intelligent banker repeats every time a customer asks her an out-of-the-ordinary question.

Those who – like me – are old enough, have lost count of how many times a clerk working for a public or private entity answered alike – in terms and tones – Carol Beer. Computer says no, it is computer’s fault; the computer does not allow this task to be performed… these reactions are but a way to partake the  software designers (and their masters) from the liability of having built a crappy software. A machine that in its stupid rigidity would not allow doing what the user is asking—an extremely convenient way to ensure that nobody pays for the inefficiencies, delays and follies of bureaucracy. Continue reading ““Blame the algorithm”: the new mantra of social irresponsibility”

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Blogger Liability for the users’ posts? The Italian Supreme Court Never Said It

The decision n. 54946/2016 released by the Italian Supreme Court – Vth Branch? that held a blogger liable for defamation for a libeling post on his website is gaining momentum in Italy as a case law affirming the automatic liability of a blogger for the behaviour of the people who posts comments.? But? this is a wrong account of the story.

The merit of the issue is a comment where somebody called the chair of the Italian Soccer Pro League a certified criminal and a crook, and sent the blogger the criminal record of the chairman. While the defendant claimed of not knowing about the comment until the police knocked at his door, the court found that the email containing the criminal record was
enough to have actual knowledge of the existence comment itself.

This decision has been wrongly reported as a shift toward the intermediary liability for omitted control of a platform’s contents.

The decision grounded the indictment on the basis that the defendant actually – actually, I repeat – knew about the existence of the defamatory content and didn’t remove it. Thus – it can be summarized – he either directly contributed to the defamation or indirectly allowed the post to exploit its effect.

While, thus, this decision doesn’t impose a duty of preemptive monitoring, it broadens the notion of “actual knowledge”.

To what extent it will be assessed in the near future.

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EUCJ and the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act

A friend of mine asked a quick commentary about a Telegraph news about the European Court of Justice decision that bashed the British Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act, forcing the ISPs to abid to a one-year Internet traffic data retention period.
Here is my answer:

It is clear that the EUCJ is following its political agenda.
As I said countless times, law enforcement and national security aren’t subjected to the might of the data-protection directive so this legal instrument can’t be enforced to rule investigative powers.
It is false that users are note informed about the retention. There is a law that set forth the duty, so the citizen are supposed to know about it (ignorantia legis non excusat.)
Again, the article and – I suppose – the EUCJ confuses fairly different things: GCHQ is intelligence and – as such – is well out of reach from the DP directive. Other public bodies have the right to perform their investigation to guarantee the respect of the law.
So, the actual problem is quis custodies ipsos custodies. In other words: I have no problem with an agency that accesses my data. But I do have the right to know in real time when it happens and why (or, if there is a secrecy issue, as soon as it is reasonable.)