Dido queen of carnage steps down from TalkTalk Chief exec of TalkTalk, Dido Harding, is to step down from the company after seven years in the role. Harding presided over TalkTalk during its catastrophic cyber-attack in 2015, in which nearly 157,000 users' financial details were divulged and which cost it £42m. Founder of the biz Charles Dunstone will take over from …
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She'll be in another high paid job within a few months. We need the ICO to start using it's teeth more and we need executives to be held to account by our justice system when cock ups on this scale happen. There are reasons they are considered accountable - yet we never hold them to account.
We need ICO fines that are proportionate to the size of the business that fucked up. A £400k fine is a rounding error for a company as big as TalkTalk. A £4m fine might make them think again about updating their SQL, £40m and they'd start taking information security very seriously indeed.
Totally agree. TalkTalk were lucky. The fine should have been 4 million quid. As for Dildo , she gave a pathetic performance on TV demonstrated total lack of knowledge of elementary data security. This was exemplified by the woffle put by her sidekick Ms Harrison. Have no fear Dido will fall on her feet, Ofcom perhaps? TalkTalk should have fired her! A removal of her title also would not go amiss either.
@Richard Hewitt; "Never did like White Flag."
Joking aside... Dido joining TalkTalk was a bad idea all round- her style was totally unsuited to the likes of "Life's What You Make It" and "It's My Life".
Maybe they should have got her to sing instead of playing drums.
"Dido's vast experience in running a successful private sector technology company (which has never ever ever been hacked or lost customer details and anyone who says otherwise will be 'renditioned') makes her the ideal choice to take the lead at the Information Commissioners Office and managing digital policy going forward..."
Companies are not legally obliged to admit they have been hacked, and that's when they have discovered they have been hacked.
See no Evil, Hear no Evil.
Some companies wont ever know they have been hacked because the data is not the sort that's useful to make public, and is lucrative to just milk over time, like bank accounts.
Its a step in the right direction as long as they change their approach to the services they provide as well.
1. Value is very different thing to a low price
2. The throughput and reliability of the Internet connection matters.
3. Security matters
4. Security matters. I mention it twice as its important and in case you didn't get it the first time.
5. Customer service matters
6. Don't take customers for granted - for example what you do with their personal data.
Anyone want to send her a "not sorry you're leaving" card.
I've actually had decent telephone service from TalkTalk, and performance has been fine to. Most issues are caused by BT Openreach anyway.
My main, massive, objection is their spam-overloaded login page. It takes AGES just to log on because TalkTalk has to load every tracker known to man. And they pretend that they are looking up my details during this time, which makes me even more annoyed.
I had a look, and No-Script (in Opera on Linux) blocked no less than 31 scripts (31 distinct URLs). Even with all that blocked, it's still slow (perhaps they run things on a 1980s mainframe via 13 wrappers).
I don't think 31 different web-pests need to know that I have just logged in to TalkTalk, and they certainly don't need to run anything in my browser.
(On Opera I also have to reload the whole page towards the end, or it will just sit forever.)
I'd like to complain about the outrageous sexism present at Talltalk, the CEO is going to replaced by another woman, Tristia Harrison ! This is such a trampling of men's rights and their opportunities to rise to the upper echelons of business.
I'm going to console myself by listening to bloke's hour on Talksport.
I wonder if a lovely low-hours high-wage board position at a government quango is what she has lined up as "public service".
She might have got her timing wrong now her buddy Dave Cameron has been punted as well. She maybe still has enough Oxbridge connections to land something nice.
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"So, tell me more about the last place you worked in."
"I worked for TalkTalk over seeing the company and the progress it made."
"TalkTalk you say? Oh, oh! Wasn't that the company that got hacked?"
"Erm, yes it was but.."
"And wasn't it the company that said there was no problems with the security of their routers even though there was?"
"Well, yes that was said but.."
"I see, so tell me again why you want this job?"
".... because I need the money and no one likes me at home."
"Well, in that case I'm happy to say - welcome to wonderful world of being a UKPC Parking Attendant. Welcome aboard!"
But it won't be. As already noted above. It'll be teh usual buddies looking after each other and so a nice, well paid sinecure to walk into. Not necessarily at the tax payers' expense, though that does seem to be her aim. . And she already has more than enough dosh not to worry about where the next jar of caviar is coming from.
There's also a lucrative market for massive failures to make a fortune giving after dinner speeches to businesses. So expect to see Dido following in George Osborne and William Hague's well-remunerated footsteps.
Toss in a couple of one day a month non-executive directorships, and an animal charity CEO figleaf and she's nicely set for life.
https://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2015/10/30/dido_refuses_to_bow_to_pressure_to_resign/
isn't she connected?
I'm not from the UK, but I thought I heard she's married to the duke of candyland or something. I find it hard to believe the board can do much against the "connected" woman at this time. In time she will leave gracefully, citing a need for a new challenge or some such frippery.
Diana Mary "Dido" Harding, Baroness Harding of Winscombe and daughter of Lord Harding, wife of Tory MP John Penrose, who studied politics, economics and philosophy at Cambridge university with David Cameron former UK Prime Minister (who awarded her peerage).
So aye connected a wee bit.
If you see her job profile on wiki she went 1st job graduate placement, 2nd job Director of a major UK company. That shite doesn't happen outside the upper class bubble.
I note she was a director at Woolworths as well.
Woolies then TalkTalk quite a CV there, clearly qualified for an important position in the public sector.
If normal folk did that well in their jobs the next one would be finding enough plastic to insulate the cardboard box you'd be sleeping in that night.
My first reaction was Ding Dong the witch is dead.
Then I read and focus more on my activities in public service and thought "let's head for the hills"
Then I read Dido has been a tireless, energetic and effective force for good from the day she joined TalkTalk. As a result of her leadership and total commitment to all of us who work here and our customers, she has helped transform TalkTalk into a much stronger business. She leaves with our thanks and very best wishes for the future and thought "there simply isn't a sick - bag big enough".
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go wash my monocle..."
Gasp! You.. you are not using disposable monocles?!?
"In a statement she said it was to to hand over the reins at TalkTalk “and focus more on my activities in public service.”
Oh no you can't be serious. Quango advising the government on security?
"she has helped transform TalkTalk into a much stronger business".
Did you just seriously say that?
can't complain for £20 a month for 2 years fixed price
90% of customers never call customer services, so customer services and all the complaints mean nothing
you can get personnal details off the government, so it does'nt matter as long as payment details are encrypted, but then to get a credit card and a free credit rating, you only need the info you can get off the government
If anything over about 1% are phoning customer service there is probably something wrong. There shouldn't be many reasons to phone.
And if the >1% who are sufficiently ticked off to be calling then get the run around compounding the problem there is something seriously wrong with that company's attitude to service. As in when you are in a hole you shouldn't still be digging.
That being said, there are far too many companies who have a bad attitude to customer service and complaints. First they hide their contact details behind a web site that takes you round in circles from "contact us" to "FAQs" to "contact us". If you can find a contact it will be answered by a robot who will give a boiler plate reply that probably has no relevance to your query, other than s a key word or two* . If you persevere you will get to a human who seems unwilling to understand what the problem is, the next step will get you to another human who seems to understand, but won't take responsibility for a resolution ( My favourite response here is "We can't do that". Why can't they, it isn't physically difficult?) and so on........
*I'm sure we've all met that sort of thing. You email to complain, say, that all the seats on the train were broken or something of that sort and they reply with something like " we are sorry that you couldn't find a seat, however at busy times......" ( Just an example, not a real occurrence).
"i wasn't stupid enough to use them"
Who are you stupid enough to use then? ;-)
Besides, I ended up with them after several takeovers (initially Pipex). I've been threatening (initiating) to leave several times, which is why I have a fairly decent price for my 60Mb down / 20Mb up link (real speeds, it's 80Mb down in theory).
you will have more chance of amazon buying them and filling the offices with 1000 fake plants
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=talk+talk+offices&source=lnms&tbm=isch
This woman claimed she always responded to customers. So... Elderly parents in the sticks, blind Mum ( 89) and Dad in hospital without phone for two months in winter. No buses and dependent on taxis. Agonies trying to get some sort of response from Talktalk's quasi - English speakers reading from cue cards. Eventually got response from Dido's office ( a lackey) but had to fight for a refund and the generous compensation of 20 quid. No, I didn't say a year's free service and a bunch of flowers- I said twenty fucking quid.
Switched my folks to Plusnet where you can speak to articulate and responsive staff- a company that has actual policies for the elderly and vulnerable. Actually most providers will look like saints when compared with neo - criminal shysters Talktalk. C'mon Dido, follow your namesake and do the right thing.
I was very amused when TalkTalk created a dedicated forum area for discussing being safe online
( https://community.talktalk.co.uk/t5/Staying-safe-online/bd-p/qa_safeonline ),
that many people asked them about being hacked and they didn't respond
https://community.talktalk.co.uk/t5/Staying-safe-online/Have-TalkTalk-properly-secured-their-internal-systems-yet/m-p/1992644#U1992644
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