Ruperts Weekly Roundup (06/03/2000)
Published: 14 Mar 2000 16:32 GMT
FRIDAY
An URL of great price There's a great deal of jiggery on the net, and not a little pokery to boot. Often, a bit of awareness on how things actually work can alert you to potential problems and, if you're sharp, can catch out naughtiness before it does you harm.
Take referral URLs. You may not know this, but when you click on a link to go to a new web site, your browser can send the last URL you were using to the new server. This is very useful to people who run web sites, as they can tell where users are coming from -- thus letting them know which search engines are working well, whether a popular site's mentioned them, and so on. But if that URL contains personal data, the new site gets all that as well. This can contain usernames, passwords, and lots of other data that you might have entered on the page you've just left -- if you keep an eye on the URL window at the top of your browser as you use a service, you'll see all manner of things pop up.
Now, Intuit's online mortgage service has been caught sending DoubleClick details of its users finances. It's probably just a side effect of the way things have been set up -- the URL contains the info as part of the way online mortgage calculator's works and is then referred -- but as DoubleClick is currently under a bit of a cloud over the way it uses the information it gathers about users, the suspicions won't go away.
The moral of the story is: know how your browser works and be alert to how it might bite you. Take me there...
Sun sets on standards
I do not like thee, Mr Sun
You pull out when the job's half done
The international standards guys
Have worked for years to standardise
Java -- and at your behest.
Now you've decided you know best.
To take your ball home at this stage
Leaves all of Heaven in a rage
You're open? Free? You talk the talk
But can you really walk the walk?
If Machiavelli wrote software
He'd think your stance beyond compare.
You're losing friends now, one by one.
I do not like thee, Mr Sun. Take me there...
Spaniards in the works
Microsoft likes hooking up with telcos so much, it's just done it again. After announcing a large deal with BT to develop online mobile data services, the Redmondos have pulled off a similar agreement with Telefonica, the major Spanish telco.
There's no mention of whether the network architecture will have Moorish influences, but there's been a lot of interest in Telefonica of late. A merger with BT was being talked about last week, but the analysts decided that while it would benefit the Brits, there really seemed to be no point for the Spaniards. This week, it's voracious Deutsche Telekom who's the whispered suitor for the Iberians.
Expect a lot of this over the next few months. The Vodafone-Mannesmann deal has shaken up the European telcos, as each of them suddenly realise that they could be next for a hungry, cash-rich predator. The best way to guard against this? Take someone else over first. And so the stage is set for a summer of rumour, bid and counter-bid, with no sensible person betting on the eventual winners. Take me there...
Bonjour, Jean, avez-vous un voiture nouveau?
According to the Retail Motor Industry Federation, there's no danger of the Brits abandoning the forecourt for the Internet just because we can save up to 40% on car prices by buying abroad. Nah mate, they say. Buying a car is a tactile experience, and being able to run your fingers over the steering wheel is easily worth seven grand.
According to start-up OneSwoop.com (you can smell the desperation from the meeting that tried to find an available URL), the Brits couldn't care less where a car comes from or what the steering wheel feels like: if it's up to spec and delivered, that's good enough.
According to the Brits themselves, the car industry is a moneygrabbing bunch of profiteering so-and-sos, and anything that makes them break into a sweat is sweet indeed.
Internet 1, Arthur Daley 0, I reckon. Take me there...
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