The Weekly Round-Up: 03.06.05

"Thank you for your email to the ASA. We have received a few others with identical text..."

Thank you dear readers. It seems at the request of the Round-Up last week a great many of you did indeed email the Advertising Standards Authority demanding an end to those awful Crazy Frog ringtone adverts.

In fact the ASA was so inundated it even felt the need to tell Sky News about it.

"We have had hundreds of complaints about the frequency of the ads. People say they are on too often and they want it to be taken off screen because it is driving them mad," an ASA spokeswoman told Sky.

What people actually said of course was that they would "more merrily listen to my own teeth being drilled with a rusty screw tip", while adding a subtle hint about 'going postal', but the Round-Up doesn't blame them for paraphrasing.

While initial word from the ASA suggested it was powerless to save us from the Crazy Frog it has now launched an investigation into the ads after receiving around 800 complaints.

But not all Round-Up readers were quite so 'on message'. Take for example Round-Up reader Dave Richmond.

Having read the Round-Up last week and understood there is clearly something quite terrible about this pernicious advertising, Dave (oh the shame) decided to find out what all the fuss was about.

"I must have been living in a cave but after the Round-Up on Friday I checked it all out. Sad but true I downloaded the ringtone!

"My children are appalled..."

They're not the only ones, Dave. Frankly the Round-Up is dumbfounded. What were you thinking man? That was so not what we wanted to happen.

Another reader pointed out there's a serious side to this, though.

"There's a serious side to this, though," he began (told you so). "No other advertisers want to share ad time with it because it actually causes people to change channels when it comes on. Which means the cost of advertising is coming crashing down as the stations try to fill it. Which means joy of joys more crappy ringtone companies can afford to advertise on TV."

The Round-Up thinks that sounds like a very bad thing.

"So a two minute commercial break could, within a month, become the audio equivalent of Abu Ghraib," added our reader, confirming the Round-Up's worst fears.

Speaking of annoying, Ken Livingstone is clearly tiring of his role as London's Mayor and has decided to invite tenders from companies who can get a mobile phone signal down in the Tube system.

Apparently because travelling on the underground isn't unpleasant or stressful enough as it is.

Many a journey has the Round-Up endured wedged between sweaty commuters thinking: "This could only be more enjoyable if some of my fellow passengers were shouting into their mobile phones right now."

Thanks to Ken that beautiful dream is about to become a reality.

According to London Underground, passengers will be able to access information on travel disruptions before they arrive at affected stations and could amend their journey as appropriate...

Yeah, they could. But they won't. What they will do is shout into their handsets about their trivial little lives, unaware that microphones on modern mobiles are able to pick up words spoken under 240 decibels.

Why is it the more insignificant somebody's life, the more inclined they are to shout about it?

You never hear anybody on the train saying at an audible level: "Yeah, once I'd found a cure for the common cold I invented a way to communicate freely with animals..."

"...you're absolutely right, what with wrestling sharks and coming up with the perfect chat-up line, it has been a busy week indeed!"

London Underground says it plans to run a trial of the mobile phone service and "other technologies" at one station in 2006.

Among the rather vague sounding "other technologies" are likely to be digital radio. So expect piped music, pointless DJ banter and doubtless no shortage of commercials. Probably with the Crazy Frog ads thrown in for good measure.

A contract for the rollout of the system is likely to be awarded in late 2007, and mobile phone services could be available to Tube passengers on London Underground stations from the summer of 2008. Coverage in tunnels will likely follow at a later date - around the time the Round-Up moves to a quiet island in the sun.

Richard Parry, LU director of strategy and service development, said: "We have received an excellent initial response from the market who have demonstrated considerable interest in providing mobile phone services..."

You see what they've done there? Try talking to the passengers, Richard, not "the market".

silicon.com reader Mark Bufton said: "There is nothing more infuriating than watching someone sit down on a bus and instinctively get their phone out to have a conversation along the lines of, "Yeah, I'm on a bus, I'll be home in 30 minutes, yeah work was the same, what's on telly tonight... did she? Noooo!!!

"People like this should be thrown from the bus rather than given technical and moral support by allowing them to infect the tube network with their mindless drivel.

"This is why Britain is going to the dogs!"

Bit strong perhaps but he's on the side of good against evil so we'll let him off some hyperbole.

Another reader commented: "I think there are many things London Underground could do to update and improve its disgraceful service - and enabling mobile technology is not one of them.

"The only advantage seems to be the ability to phone the office and warn that you are stuck on a cattle truck underground."

It's certainly interesting how politicians who doubtless rarely rub shoulders with commuters in the rush hour claim to know what we want.

Don't forget who voted for you Ken....

And speaking of clueless politicians, silicon.com this week unravelled a web of incompetence which explains, in part, why the UK has such a terrible spam problem.

On the second anniversary of spam hitting crisis point, which we define as the point in June 2003 when spam began to outnumber genuine email, we revealed the details of a Freedom of Information Act enquiry into the consultation undertaken by Stephen Timms and the DTI on the issue of unsolicited email.

To the annoyance of the IT industry, and many anti-spam activists and computer users, the UK government took advice on whether businesses want to receive spam from many of the very companies with a vested interest in sending unsolicited email.

You can see the list of names for yourself here. With a few exceptions it reads like a who's who of direct marketing companies.

Many such organisations claimed limiting the freedom to spam businesses would hamper UK commerce. But then they would, wouldn't they. You almost can't blame them for doing so but we can certainly blame the DTI for thinking "sounds reasonable, these guys clearly know what they're talking about".

Steve Linford, from Spamhaus, told silicon.com the process was "shameful".

"For the DTI to have been suckered in by this is very bad," said Linford. "They consulted with the very people who of course are going to say businesses want spam. They are all in the junk mail business."

Somewhere in the space where Stephen Timms' brain should be you could probably hear the sound of a penny dropping right now.

"Doh, of course they wouldn't have wanted tighter laws! Blimey they saw me coming, didn't they," he might be thinking - if he cared at all about his legacy of spamtastic legislation.

You may also have noticed The Sun and News of the World on the list.

There may be some red faces at the red tops when their readers start to realise they've got 'the nation's favourite newspaper' to thank for legislation which effectively legitimised the sending of spam email.

Cheers guys.

One silicon.com reader suggested a dose of their own medicine may be in order for those companies who volunteered us all to receive spam at work.

"Can we have the email addresses of the CEOs of these companies?" he asked. "Everyone else on the internet could send them a message once a day asking them not to send out spam - see how they like it!"

Another reader had pretty much the same idea:

"So presumably it is quite legitimate for us to spam all these organisations with advertisements for Russian brides, cheap knock-off software, and websites?"

"About the only thing I haven't been spammed on is double glazing... and that day will surely come," he added.

Come on double glazing salesmen, what are you thinking? Raise your game.

But another reader had an even better idea. He said that a couple of the companies on the list were actually suppliers of his... though no more.

"They'll get no more business from us," he said. And the Round-Up is glad to hear it.

Turns out allowing unsolicited email wasn't all that good for business after all.

So what next for Stephen Timms, who thankfully has now put some distance between himself and the IT issues plaguing British business?

Perhaps he could consult with turkeys and ask them whether they'd be up for an early Christmas this year.

Or perhaps in his role at the Treasury he might consider a consultation to ascertain whether, as a rule, people would like less or more money.

Still on the subject of spam, silicon.com this week saw an email purporting to tell of much cloak and dagger goings on surrounding the death of Princess Diana (... or The Queen of all our Hearts, to use her full title).

The email offers a 600 page report on "the truth" about Diana's death which it claims has been banned in the UK.

About 24 hours after receiving the email we received an email from a company called Early Warning telling us to be on the look out for just such an email and advising us it was fraudulent.

Yeah, good 'early warning' guys. Guess we're not going to get that 600 page report then.

What a waste of money.

Of course we'd figured out for ourselves that it was a dodgy email but Early Warning might like to work on that name a little.

Perhaps 'Next Day Warning'... or 'Did you see this Yesterday?' or perhaps 'With Hindsight Warning'.

They might also like to reconsider the wisdom of sending press releases as an attachment.

Attachments and email best practice don't tend to go hand-in-hand.

And finally, today is the 50th anniversary of the atomic clock.

That's it. Apparently it's important but the Round-Up can't think of anything clever, interesting or funny to say about it... other than a nagging concern that a ticking clock face and the word 'atomic' sounds like a worrying combination.