SA Mathieson talks to the new e-commerce minister Stephen Timms
I interviewed then-new e-commerce minister Stephen Timms at the Labour conference in Blackpool in 2002 – he was pretty open and very knowledgeable on IT policy, given his background. He is still the Labour MP for East Ham, having served twice as chief secretary to the Treasury. Continue reading “Hard wearing”
First published in Government Computing, September 2002
Orkney Island Council is the smallest full-service local authority in the UK, a unitary body that governs just 20,000 people on 17 inhabited islands.
It is also a place where they love the internet. A council survey last summer, which gathered responses from over 1,000 households, found that 44% had internet access with another 6% planning to go online by the end of 2002. The national equivalent last summer, according to Oftel, was 39%.
The CrossCountry Voyager trains referred to in this article are no longer run by Virgin, and despite the words of Richard Branson, Virgin Trains (or any other UK train firm) is still not the best rail network in Europe.
Hoteliers don’t like empty rooms, which is why hotel businesses are using online auctions to bring in extra bookings
For many hotel chains, dynamic pricing has become standard, but back in 2002 auctioning rooms on eBay (and its defunct competitor QXL) was pretty smart. It was nice to see Blackpool hotels getting in the on the act, found simply by searches on the appropriate eBay category. Continue reading “Hotel rooms under the hammer”
This is what I found out for the Guardian about my own shopping and web-surfing habits in 2002: the costs and time limits still apply, and I have updated links and contact details. Freeserve no longer exists, but in general the following would remain my advice for anyone wishing to access their data, unless there’s very obvious information about subject access request processes on the organisation’s web site. Continue reading “Track your every move: using the Data Protection Act on supermarkets, ISPs, banks and telcos”