Category Archives: Business/Economics

Get outta my data, Google

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Google is to limit the amount of time it retains users’ search data to 18 months from 18-24 months.

The Financial Times sees this as a concession to the EU, which wrote to the internet giant last month asking Google to justify its policy.

Google’s move relates to terms entered in the search engine and the address of various servers, but not more personal information it has collected with users’ express permission.

However, company’s privacy counsel Peter Fleischer said future data retention laws may obligate the firm to keep the data for 24 months after all. But hey, at least they’re not keeping it indefinitely any more.

Fleischer wrote on the official Google blog:

“The internet is a global medium, and the principles at stake – privacy, security, innovation and legal obligations to retain data – have an impact beyond Europe, and outside of the realm of privacy. These principles sometimes conflict: while shorter retention periods are good for privacy, longer retention periods are needed for security, innovation and compliance reasons. We believe we’ve struck a reasonable balance between these various factors.”

You can read his full post here, where he also outlines the reasons why Google believes it should retain search data.

At least it’s movement on the company’s part to tackle concerns over how it uses data — a British watchdog at the weekend branded the firm among the worst on the web when it came to users’ privacy.

I’d rather they keep my search data for no longer than six months, but there you go. I enjoy my privacy and have been known to defend it fiercely — surely I’m not the only one?

The power of pork

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Soaring pork prices are fueling Chinese inflation.

The cost is up 40% in the last year (while meat prices generally are up 26.5%), largely because of a blue-ear disease epidemic which has seen at least 18,000 pigs slaughtered. With pork a staple of the Chinese diet, and farmers no longer rearing the animals for fear of the illness, the shortages are having a knock-on effect.

Food prices in general are up about 8.3%, although consumer prices as a whole rose 3.4% in May. The government’s target is 3%, and so another interest rate hike is on the cards as the authorities try to cool an 11% annual economic growth rate.

And Reuters/Financial Times make an interesting observation:

Savers earn 3.06 percent on 12-month certificates of deposit, meaning that after a 20 percent tax is deducted, the value of their money is failing to keep pace with inflation.

This has encouraged millions of Chinese to cash in their deposits and punt on the stock market, which jangled government nerves by falling sharply last month after almost quadrupling in 2 years.

Communist in name only.

Inflation is a tricky bugger to quantify as different countries use different products in their calculations. For instance, Ireland is the only country that I know of in Europe which includes mortgage payments in its figures. This means the Irish inflation rate is above 5%, whereas if mortgage payments were stripped out it would be closer to 2.7% (the eurozone target is just under 2%).

Nonetheless, headline figures spook investors and jittery investors can instigate sell-offs that wipe billions off a stock market in just a few hours. It seems that, as with so much in life, confidence is everything.

Personal Chavez

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Venezuelan president and 21st century socialist Hugo Chavez apparently wants to launch his own range of PCs, which he would then distribute to his citizens.

Nothing has been finalised, although Venezuela has apparently been in touch with firms in Asia about the scheme.

Well, this is a man who wanted to seize golf courses in order to build homes for the poor…

Holy crap

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Dell’s quarterly earnings topped expectations but the company still plans to shed about 8,200 jobs — or 10% of its workforce.

Net income fell slightly but revenue was up E400 million. The company’s been slipping in recent years and has lost market share to Hewlett-Packard. But 10% of the labour force? They say desperate times call for desperate measures, but I didn’t think Michael Dell felt things were so bad. That said, the share price has shot up, so I guess I can’t really fault his business acumen…

Does the punishment fit the crime?

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China has sentenced the former head of its food and drug safety agency to death. He had pleaded guilty to corruption and accepting bribes.

According to Xinhua, Zheng Xiaoyu, aged 62, was accused of taking about E630,000 in bribes in exchange for approving drug-production licences. The court said the sentence was appropriate given the “huge amount of bribes involved and the great damage inflicted on the country and the public by Zheng’s dereliction of duty”.

However, the International Herald Tribune quite rightly points out that this impending execution comes amid outcry over China’s food safety. Earlier this year, two Chinese firms were accused of shipping contaminated pet food ingredients to the US, leading to the deaths of animals across the country and subsequently a massive recall.

Meanwhile, a chemical used to make antifreeze made it into cough medicine and toothpaste exported to Central America. More than 100 people died last year in Panama after taking cough medicine containing diethylene glycol, which left China marked “glycerin”. Last week, the same ingredient was found in toothpaste in Panama, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua.

That China has a shoddy record when it comes to food and drug safety is putting it mildly. Counterfeit medication is rampant and mass food poisonings are common. However, I can’t shake the feeling that Zheng is taking the heat for a wider problem in the nation. His actions — if indeed he did what he has been accused of — have led to the suffering of many and the deaths of some from sub-standard medicine.

But I have to ask you: does Zheng’s punishment fit his crime?