
How to get Mandy's attention?
Perhaps small.biz.uk should club together and buy a yacht?
Web design and consultancy firms have reacted with outrage to Lord Mandelson's latest attempt to get more British small businesses online. The launch of "Getting British Business Online" saw Mandy promise to get 100,000 British small and medium enterprises online for the first time by the end of 2010. And the partners for …
'Why is the UK Government using taxpayer's money to impose the use of products and services of a company that's currently being investigated by the EU for anti-competitive practices and breaches of EU privacy laws?'
Since the British government is also currently being investigated by the EU for anti-competitive practices (Northern Rock) and breaches of EU privacy laws (Phorm/BT), they might just want Google's company.
Of course where things differ is that most people like Google, Google is successful and Google has lots of money.
@"Why is the UK Government using taxpayer's money to impose the use of products and services of a company that's currently being investigated by the EU for anti-competitive practices and breaches of EU privacy laws?"
I would like to know why is Mandelson using taxpayer's money to get so many onto Google.
Other than lining more corporate directors pockets I want to know what that manipulative sociopathic weasel Mandelson is up to. Why does he want people on Google. What does Mandelson get out of this deal with Google? He is certainly sending a lot of business Google's way, so why do it, what is he hoping to gain out of it?
I can see why those companies are upset, but there may be hope for the rest of us web devs - once a company is online with it's geocities style cardboard cut out web page from google or whoever, they'll get the itch for something a bit more individual with some custom functionality (maybe).
or maybe they would just be interested in having a site built/hosted by a firm that doesn't hand over all your personal/confidential data to the NSA/chinese government on a whim?
"...It's almost like they are all the same and it doesn't really matter who you vote for."
It does matter who you vote for, but if you want real change, ensure you don't for any of the main three parties (sic). However, make sure you vote for someone - a "non vote" is Plan B for those with the power to stay in power.
.... on the subject of the Staffordshire Health Trust failings, said yesterday to MPs
"We must end the situation where a senior NHS manager who has failed in one job can simply move to another elsewhere. This is not acceptable to the public"
... much like Mandy getting the boot twice, yet here is unelected and unchallenged again.
Yep Labour and Conservative are almost the same and the system that allows Mandy to come back from the dead so many times is one that even our un educated youth see as pointless.
As far as I understand it, predatory pricing (deliberately setting the price below the cost of production so as to force competitors out of the market) is illegal in the UK. I'm just guessing here, but free seems to be fairly clearly below cost of production (nominet registration fee is none zero).
On the other hand, you can register as many domains as you want through www.gbbo.co.uk. The contract limits you to one domain per business and you can only sell them as going concerns (which means you just will need to register the domain name as a company before you sell it at a huge profit).
So we're a small company specialising in designing websites for small companies and struggling somewhat due to the b(w)ankers, then this imbecile decides that giving taxpayer's money to one of the most successful businesses on the planet and giving our prospective clients to it is good for UK business. It's enough to make you want to curse........
Unelected AND incompetent.
We keep hearing about how useless Mandy is, how he's managing to screw over the small businesses, how he's trying to hand the internet to a bunch of entertainment companies and even abolish privacy, but the guy is STILL in power and he even seems to be allowed to run the entire freaking country.
We need to get rid of him already!! The elections can't come soon enough.
...Mandybum is in the House of Lords, and not subject to re- or de-election. I wouldn't count on him losing influence, even if the Tories get in - after all much of the Labour lot have no time for him, but that hasn't slowed him down. I fear he might well be doing his bad penny routine even after the Election.
This appears to be an example of a failed regional policy going national. Our esteemed local enterprise agency funded a similar type of program some years back in which one favoured supplier was able to offer to significantly discount their services with the help of large dollops of taxpayers' money with the avowed intent of building up the local digital economy. Net result, decline of local digital economy after a short blip in which a bunch of people (both other suppliers and choice-starved potential clients) got very disillusioned.
Strangely enough, businesses will generally pay for something they see an economic benefit in doing and would rather make their own decisions about how their money is spent than have political f***wits do it for them.
So you can have your customers 'tagged' and creamed off by BT/Phorm's industrial espionage?
If you have a small business and you care about its long term success; don't buy communications services from BT ( or Virgin Media/TalkTalk).
If you do decide to go online... buy an SSL certificate for your web site (at £30 its an easy decision) and encrypt absolutely everything.
Otherwise BT Directors will steal the content of your communications, and strip your customers and suppliers away from you. As they did in 2006, 2007 and 2008.
And not one regulator will stop them.
According to the Home Office and ICO - small business consent for industrial espionage can be 'implied'.
According to the Police, covert industrial espionage and communication surveillance directed at small businesses 'is not a crime'.
And the CPS will take two years to decide in silence whether or not to prosecute.
You can thank Peter Mandelson, Lord Madelson of Corfu and Moscow, Minister for Yaching and News International.
What a lot of venom and spite!
First take more of a considered look at what has been put on offer - and it is only an offer, supported by basically a consortium of British businesses for British business. If the offer is taken up by British businesses they will all be a lot better off than they are now. I am sure that if another company can offer the same as Google, e-skills would be delighted to let everyone know...
Arthur Butterfield