Google brushes aside French privacy directive

Internet giant Google has rejected a directive from the French data protection regulator to carry out a so-called right to be forgotten across its search engine websites. CNIL ordered the firm last month to offer the right to be forgotten not just on the Google.fr domain, but also on the Google.com website. The move was in line with the May 2014 ruling by the EU Court of Justice which determined that individuals could request website operators to remove personal data from their sites in cases where there is no associated public interest to consider.

Google has since received in excess of 250,000 requests to remove listings in its search engine to some one million individual web pages. If Google does not comply with the requests, users can file a complaint with EU regulators such as CNIL. Following these kinds of complaint, the French regulator ordered Google to widen its delisting policy to include Google.com as well as its European pages.

Google said it could not allow one country to determine a policy globally. "We believe that no one country should have the authority to control what content someone in a second country can access," it noted. In addition it termed CNIL's direction "disproportionate and unnecessary" as around 97% of French web users consume a European version of the firm's search engine such as Google.fr, rather than Google.com.  Finally, the company said it would "respectfully disagree" with the CNIL determination and requested it to rescind the order.

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Telecom Italia connects fibre to five more Calabrian towns

Telecom Italia has rolled out fibre services in five additional towns in the Calabria region as part of a €100 million deployment. The telco announced that it had flicked the switch, making the service available in Locri, Crotone, Castrovillari, Corigliano Calabro and Palmi.

The firm added that customers in the connected areas would be able to access the internet at speeds of at least 50Mbps, increasing to up to 100Mbps in the future. The operator's fibre broadband services are currently available at the promotional rates of €29 per month for consumers and €35 for businesses for the first 6 and 12 months respectively.

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Telstra customers hit with phishing emails

A series of scams have been despatched to more than 22,000 Telstra customers, including copies of what appeared to be legitimate Telstra email bills.

The emails suggested that customers had paid their Telstra bill twice and could redeem a refund, directing them to log into their 'My Account' portal via a link embedded within the email.

Telstra said cyber criminals had been particularly active of late and urged customers to be aware of these kinds of fraudulent emails and refrain from responding. “These emails can look very authentic, often including logos and slogans to trick you into opening them,” said the firm's national security Advisor Rachael Falk. “They often contain a link or an attachment which is designed to entice you into clicking on it... if a customer receives either of these phishing emails we advise them not to click on the links or attachments and immediately delete the email from their email account.”

The phoney emails are distinguishable by the absence of a “$” sign to describe the amount of money customers are told they paid twice and for which they'd be entitled to pocket a refund.

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EU signs off on Nokia purchase of Alcatel-Lucent

Nokia has announced that it has received approval from the European Commission for its pending acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent. The proposed transaction was notified to the European Commission on 19 June and was approved without conditions following a Phase 1 review. 

Clearing of the purchase by the European Commission followed previously disclosed antitrust approval procedures in Brazil and Serbia and the expiration of the antitrust review period in the United States. In addition, the parties confirmed that they had received further antitrust clearances from Albania, Canada, Colombia and Russia.

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Motopia kicks off trial of new conversion cloud platform

Melbourne-based mobile marketing services provider Motopia has started BETA testing of its new ConvertU2 cloud platform. The firm said the cloud platform allowed it to leverage its 2SQL marketing conversion technology and market trends around migration of access databases via web, mobile devices and Microsoft .NET software applications. Motopia said that the delivery of its 2SQL software-as-a-service offered customers the capability of connecting to and facilitation of complete access database migration projects.

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Centrelink IT systems bound for scrapheap

Australia’s ageing Centrelink IT system is set to be consigned to the scrapheap at a cost of A$1 billion following concerns it won’t be able to handle a planned overhaul of the welfare system. Federal social services minister Scott Morrison told Sky News that when the system was first launched in the 1980s, some 2.5 million Australians received payments. He noted that today there are about 10 million welfare recipients, with A$400 million spent on some 50 million transactions every day. 

“This is a system that still has manual processing attached to it, and it’s been left to basically wither for many years,” said Morrison. “It’s time for it to get some serious attention.” He added that the system though stable was inefficient and noted that the government would see instant cost savings if the computer system would be replaced.

“It could run far more efficiently and effectively both for the users and for the government,” he said, stressing that despite reports of a A$1 billion price tag, the overhaul of the system would lead to savings both in the sort and long-term. The move was backed by the Labor opposition, with shadow assistant treasurer Andrew Leigh saying that “the case… has been pretty strongly made that this system is groaning under the weight of what’s being demanded of it.”

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