Tues 9Jul2013  Well, it didn't take long for Edward Snowden to go from 'Hero to Nero'. In case you can't remember the salient points of the history of the Roman Empire, Emperor Nero was adopted by his great uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death. In 64, most of Rome was destroyed in the Great Fire of Rome, which many Romans believed Nero himself had started in order to clear land for his planned palatial complex, the Domus Aurea. In 68, the rebellion of Vindex in Gaul and later the acclamation of Galba in Hispania drove Nero from the throne. Facing assassination, he committed suicide on 9 June 68 (the first Roman emperor to do so).

By gradually leaking more US intelligence secrets and linking up with accused rapist, Ecudorian Embassy fugitive and WikiLeaks autocrat Julian Assange, Snowden has obviously decided to follow a similar 'scorched earth' policy with respect to US national security, his own reputation and future well being. In effect, Edward Snowden, is seeking to burn down the national security apparatus of the United States in order to clear the way for his WikiLeaks idealistic nirvana. It is obvious from reports that Snowden joined Booz Allen Hamilton with the specific aim of finding out details of how the US Government collects intelligence that Edward Snowden is, in fact, a premeditated WikiLeaker.

Instead of staying on the high ground (supported by majority free thinkers like me below) and fighting on the simple principle that the wholesale clandestine gathering of aggregated personal information on citizens without cause by Governments is, and should be illegal, in any 'liberal democracy', Snowden has been dragged into the power politics of the economic (China, EU, US) and military (Russia, US) superpowers. His leaking of petty details of US national security snooping is as stupid as it is expected. Of course, the US bugs EU institutions just as the Chinese have an industrial sized global cyber spying operation aimed at other countries. Only the nascent European Union is behind the curve and that is because the decision making process of this body are supra-national and disjointed. You can bet the national governments of the EU are spying on other governments (particularly other EU governments) like crazy.  And so they should be, good intelligence operations prevents wars!

The WikiLeak crazies behind Edward Snowden have convinced him that President Obama is out to assassinate him and as a result of his 'Nero-like' behaviours Snowden is likely to end up in some Latin American autocratic shit hole (that proclaims itself to be a democracy while perpetuating a self serving, inequality inducing, oligarchy) forever looking over his shoulder. He is more likely to end up like Nero than living the life of a Hero. What a chump!

Check Out 'Soviet Balls': My (wee) Subversive Part in the Decline and Fall of the Soviet 'Evil Empire'

Mon 10Jun2013  From what we know today about the leaking activities of the WikiLeaks protagonist, Bradley Manning, currently being Court Marshaled at Fort Meade, and Edward Snowden currently in self imposed imprisonment in a Hong Kong luxury hotel, the respective merits of their individual actions are quite clear. The cases may have some similarities but are in fact are quite different. Bradley Manning is a traitorous criminal and Edward Snowden is a brave whistle blower who has risked his livelihood and possibly his life. It is important to note this because media opinion-formers are already starting to draw wrong conclusions about the undoubted similarities between the two men: both are US citizens, in the pay of the US government, proclaiming the protection of a 'higher truth' to justify their actions.  

Witness this tweet yesterday from BBC Newsnight's Paul Mason linking the two men in some sort of titanic liberal struggle against the state. 

If you think about it however, the cases are different in two key respects to do with the principles underlying the actions of each man and the proportionality of what they did.

In terms of principles, Manning opposed wholesale the US government's international policies and strategy, whereas (as far as we know today) Snowdon had a particular axe to grind about a specific aspect of the US government's policy, namely its blanket hoovering of data from practically anyone consuming the communication services of the major Internet companies. In Bradley Manning's case, US voters had already had the chance to vote on the foreign policy of their government which was plain for all to see. This is not the case with the avarice shown by the NSA's Big Data project, code named 'Prism', that Edward Snowden brought to light. The US Government (and any other government involved with them - the UK?) started this illegal 'fishing expedition' of ALL citizens' private communications in complete secrecy.  

Another reason why the cases are not similar in reality is that the two instances are also disproportionate in terms of the amount of data released to serve the stated objectives of their respective Leakers.   Manning's ill considered, bulk, indiscriminate leaking of  250,000 United States diplomatic cables and 500,000 army reports that came to be known as the Iraq War logs and Afghan War logs was a huge amount of data that put others' lives at risk with whom he was serving in the the US military and beyond. In fact, Manning's vast data package broke the very privacy rules that Snowdon's discriminate and considered release of presentation slides was trying to protect. Aren't emails between emissaries in foreign embassies and their home governments equally deserving of privacy? 

By endeavouring to link the actions of these two men in some sort of anti-state campaign, the rights and wrongs of each man's actions become blurred; and, in the case of Snowdon belittle his heroic action (as far as can be assessed with the public information on hand today) in bringing to light a project that is not only illegal but ultimately self defeating. For even those of us who support the actions of the security services (and may have played a small historic part in protecting national security) recognise that such a blanket trawl of personal information is likely to eventually be abused. In short, we may end up with an outcome worse than the terrorist threats we are trying to protect ourselves against.

If you have been following the evolution of eCommerce recently you will have identified two key issues that all giant companies trying to dominate the space (Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook) are grappling with. First, the increasing role that governments want to play in online business, particularly the imposition of taxes and regulation of online trades by local and national authorities. Second, the potential (or not) of local advertising driven eCommerce.  

Both of these issues can lead to dramatic changes to end users perceptions of the benefits of buying and selling online.  In the first instance, governments are starting to play the clown as they try to trap the eCommerce companies into playing by the same rules they have long imposed on bricks and mortar businesses in their respective jurisdictions. In the case of local advertising, eCommerce strategists could easily be seen by both investors and end users alike as acting like buffoons if they roll out platforms that are too intrusive and kill off the potential for this area of growth for eCommerce at its start.

The increasing role that governments want to play in this space may turn out to be the more serious threat to the future of 'free enterprise eCommerce' (where buyers and sellers meet unhindered in cyberspace). Following on from the recent battles over Network Neutrality (which are not over but on hold pending the outcome of the US elections), two specific fiscal initiatives by governments are worth noting here. First, it is rumoured that Google has been on the receiving end of a tax demand from the French Government for 1 billion Euros on the advertising revenue that it supposedly gets for sending users to French media websites. Second, Amazon has capitulated to levying states' sales tax in the US. Now eCommerce companies cannot pass onto end users ALL the savings from having efficient warehousing and shipping operations out of state.  

On the potential for local advertising on mobile devices, some pundits see this as the next ‘big frontier in eCommerce’. Here the argument is that helping smart device users purchase close to them and shifting local advertising spend online (presumably to the detriment of local papers) is a huge opportunity which global online retailers, like Amazon, can’t ignore.  The suggestion is that Amazon, for example, should take over Groupon (which even Google tried to buy before the Groupon IPO) and make a killer APP for Amazon Smartphone devices (a ‘Kindle smartphone’?).  

To me this low-price driven strategy is fraught with danger.  Anyone who has a Kindle supported by advertising knows that Amazon’s 'push' ads do not interfere with the purpose of the device's reading or book ordering experience.  Since users are settled and ready and receptive to read the odd Advert, this is not too bothersome on existing Kindle devices. However, can you imagine how irritating it is to have ads popping up just as you are about to make a call prompting you with an offer 100 meters away? Limited screen size is a real problem for this service and even if you are interested in such content as an end user it is a distraction that you can likely live without.  The sheer number of ads that need to be pushed locally to make this profitable is also challenge. To even have a chance of permission based regular use they need to be in the 'interest sweet spots’ of end users close to 100% of the time (the assumption is you can turn them off, but can you on a low-priced smartphone subsidised by the ‘Kindle ecosystem’?). Even the the most ferocious proponents of the advantageous of 'Big Data' can't promise this. ‘Digital Local marketing’ maybe the next big thing from the point of view of creative agencies but it is without doubt one tough nut to crack from the point of view of end-user experience as its perceived benefits may not always exceed its perceived cost in terms of time and intrusion. 

What is clear is that both of these developments will impact how eCommerce is practiced globally in the months and years to come. Some serious thinking about the future of global eCommerce is afoot...