GLASSHOUSING THE TISER

ATKO takes on News Corp.

Hey, if you thought the recent Twitter stoush between Atko and Advertiser journalist Miles Kemp was just another outbreak of Atkomania - think again.

News Corp Australia has come up with the mother of all disruptors, and it has a poisoned sting in its tail pointed right at the cozy world of party politics.

This sting in the tail is the information collected by online campaigns such as One Big Switch Company, which acts as a consumer aggregation mediator, using the ¨buying power of 583,000 + members¨ to negotiate offers from domestic utilities such as power and health insurance.

Information is collected not just from membership details, but as well by the placing of ¨cookies” which will record consumer attitudes and intentions. This ´commercial´ information – stripped of personal identifiers but recording user location, purchasing and internet activities, is invaluable to political parties. It´s the equivalent to having access to a 24/7 voter survey of half a million australian residents, free or virtually free. News Corp has taken the logical step of acting as a political opinion aggregation mediator in collaboration with commercial entities such as One Big Switch

This is what One Big Switch says about personal information:

6. Purpose of collecting your personal information

We collect personal information (including sensitive information) about our members or potential members and job applicants in order to conduct our business of sourcing, identifying and referring potential member discounts or discount related products or group or individual switching opportunities for our members, and offering (sometimes via our third party partners) and marketing those discounts and opportunities to our members and potential members.
Collected personal information is used to facilitate One Big Switch’s functions and activities including:
- to source and identify potential member discounts or group switching opportunities;
- to provide you with information regarding current and future offerings or switching opportunities which we think may be of interest to you;
- to compile data and conduct analysis of member statistics;
- develop our business and operational processes for delivering potential group discount offers and group switching opportunities;
- to manage our ongoing relationship with our members;
- to share experiences, provide commentary and feedback provided by our members on our website (which may also be transferred to other One Big Switch social media (including Facebook);
- to make submissions to governmental departments, private sector organisations or to publish commentary or studies in support of legislative or other private sector reform;
- to administer and process member participation in offerings and switching opportunities;
- to resolve any legal and / or commercial complaints or issues;
- to assess a job applicant and to allow us to carry out any monitoring activities which may be required of us under applicable law as an employer; and
- comply with legal requirements.

https://www.onebigswitch.com.au/privacy-policy

This is what News Corp says about Cookies:

A NOTE ABOUT RELEVANT ADVERTISING: We collect information about the content (including ads) you use across this site and use it to make both advertising and content more relevant to you on our network and other sites. Find out more about our policy and your choices, including how to opt-out.

Magical Geographies.

There is a similarity there is between a public consultation and a kindergarten play-group. So I reflected recently, while attending the Inner West Precinct Transport and Parking Plan "Have Your Say!" consultation. Stick-on postits, texta pens of various colours, and the little sticky stars and dots scattered over the tables for us to get busy with.

The grim reality is that traffic and parking questions are lose - lose, rather than win-lose situations .  And so we are encouraged to slap our  postits over a magical geography of wishful thinking, while the actuality of a 19th century street layout, and a Government-installed council determined to re-create a 19th century amenity, are politely ignored.  A street without parking, or curbs, or footpaths - this is the magical lane-way to a new urbanism, whose houses where possible are faced away into plasmic wide-screened interiors. Community becomes a matter of branding for pop-up dual-income workers, dreaming only of escape, and amenity  an uncertain expectation of future capital gain.