Telefonica owned UK mobile operator O2 was this morning caught in a storm when a user discovered that his phone number was being sent to websites he visited when roaming through O2′s network.

System Administrator Lewis Peckover discovered the data and privacy breach when building a site and wanting to know the information that was being sent and possibly collected while browsing on a mobile network.

After alerting O2 yesterday 24 January at 15.12 through Twitter it took the mobile operator nearly four hours to ask @lewispeckover for a screenshot.  This request followed a previous tweet where the company tried to reassure him by stating that ‘the mobile number in the HTML is linked to how the site determines that your browsing from a mobile device‘.

This issue went public this morning when people bombarded O2 for answers, forcing the company to issue it’s first statement at 08.49 by stating ‘we are investigating this at the moment and will update everyone as soon as possible.’

This breach in privacy creates a massive concern not just for consumers but businesses that use O2 for data roaming as sending users numbers might enable bots to harvest these for spam.

Twitter users have already been calling for O2 to be reported to both Ofcom and the Information Commissioner’s Office (IOC).

To check if you are affected switch to 3G and use the following script developed by Lewis Peckover to see if your own UK or International overseas cellular network sends your number.

This story is developing.

Wednesday, 25 January – 15.40: O2 has tweeted at 15.32 a statement saying, ‘We’re sorry about the concern re mobile numbers and web browsing, which is now fixed. Here’s what happened + Q&A.‘  They included a link to a Q&A in their blog: http://tfs.me/wdekaS

Social media sites Facebook and twitter were blamed today by Government and Metropolitan Police spokespeople for fanning the UK #Londonriots and looting over the weekend.  Fingers were pointed at these social networking sites for the fact that they enable people to send out calls for people to gather together.

The disturbances happened after the fatal shooting of Tottenham father of four Mark Duggan who was allegedly killed in a minicab on Thursday by police firearm officers.

Blaming these sites is just placing a distraction for the real reasons for the unlawful behaviour that took place, highlighting a lack of understanding or will to understand of how people use social media today.

In fact, as Partner at Engine group Jonathan Akwue points out in his blog, it wasn’t Facebook or Twitter that fuelled the riots, but most probably BBM – BlackBerry Messenger.  BlackBerry is the phone of choice amongst a young demographic that took part in the riots, primarily because of BBM is virtually free (You just need a BlackBerry data plan) and unlike Facebook and Twitter, which are both open, it’s truly private.

BBM messages are encrypted and run through Research In Motion’s Canadian servers, and issue that has created many problems for the firm in India and the UAE, where they were threatened with being banned unless their encrypted communications were ‘opened-up’.

Emirates247 reported on 26th July that Abu Dhabi Police have warned that ‘spreading malicious rumours and fake news through BlackBerry messenger (BBM) is punishable by law and offenders could by jailed up to three years.’  The question now is if the UK Government is with it’s tarring of social networking and the recent extension of the #phonehacking judicial review going to push for something similar given that BBM is in all sense a private forum that is difficult to listen in on.

Blaming social networks is just a distraction, facilitating a reason for a possible change in policy that could be rushed through without understanding how these communication channels work.  But think about it, why would anybody wanting to do a crime share it on an open network?  Why not use a private channel?  Why can’t lawmakers understand this simple fact?

During the weekend riots Twitter was the channel used to report what was unfolding in Tottenham, Edmonton and Brixton.  A channel that captured in real-time what was organised on the locked-down BBM network.  If you wanted a real-time update you went to Twitter and used relevant search terms.

As Omar said in The Wire, “the game’s out there, and it’s play or get played. That simple.”  And at the moment the authorities are getting played.  Blaming social media confirms the distance that exists between them and the reasons that trigger the unrests.

*** UPDATE ***

BlackBerry UK have released the following statement in response to the use of BBM, ‘As in all markets around the world where BlackBerry is available, we cooperate with local telecommunications operators, law enforcement and regulatory officials. Similar to other technology providers in the UK we comply with The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and co-operate fully with the Home Office and UK police forces.’

Foursquare has announced the availability of Foursquare Pages for companies, brands and other organisations.  While still buggy since it was made public yesterday the concept will focus on having a one-stop Page that will allow users to share tips, reach new fans and gain new followers on this location-based social networking platform.

Geo-marketing is a concept that has been around for many years and focuses on using geolocation ‘in the process of planning and delivering marketing activities based and tailored on the location of the audience.’  Foursquare adds the concept of the community to the marketing to enable organisations to tap into and benefit from recommendations that our own social communities share – best table at this restaurant, great shop for vintage, great customer service at this shop, etc.  The problem though is that after over 2 years since Foursquare was unveiled it is still seen as a game and an experiment by many businesses.  It has not been adopted, yet!

The opportunities for businesses though are enormous.  After all, the theory goes that if you reward your customers then they should recommend the business to their own community.  Some brand specific Foursquare campaigns have yielded interesting results, but the use is still restricted to those that are connected, are social networking enthusiasts and have smartphones – not your average consumer.

From my experience, I see that local businesses in South East Asia have taken to geo-marketing with more individuality than in Western European cities.  In London the standard offer is a discount for the Mayor of a venue – bar, restaurant, shop.  That is it.  Rare to see the rewards for ‘checking-in’ that you see in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur or Jakarta, such as discounts and free gifts just for visiting and ‘checking in.’  Perhaps it is a cultural point.

Customer facing businesses will only gain the benefits from geo-marketing if they develop suitable rewards that encourage customers to develop their loyalty.  After all, the technology alone won’t improve the bottom-line, for this you have to look at the business from a consumers perspective.

Foursquare and other services are ideally placed to help small and medium sized businesses (SME’s) because it isn’t just about rewards, but about accessing the recommendations from members of our networks.

BBC DG Mark Thompson

Convergence.  This was one of the keywords that came of out of this year’s 2011 Financial Times Digital Media & Broadcast Conference.  It’s taking me some time to pen this, but I wanted to share some of the key points that were discussed.

Last year the conference coincided with the BBC unveiling the results of it’s Strategy Review.  This year gathering started on the same time as Apple unveiled its much-anticipated iPad 2, Facebook announced the rollout of its Comments plug-in and the all-important decision from the Department for Culture Media and Sport Minister Jeremy Hunt MP to allow News International’s full take-over of BSkyB.

Chief executives and senior board members gathered in London to outline their thoughts on an industry that is changing at breakneck speed.  It’s an industry that is no longer operating by itself, but a sector that is being driven by the technology that their own consumers are engaging with.  And the speed of adoption is forcing many boards to re-evaluate how they engage with their audiences.

Mobile and social networking are the two platforms, the two elephants in the room, that media and broadcast organisations are still struggling to grapple with.  They are also the platforms that public relations professionals must fully grasp for themselves and their clients.

BBC Director General Mark Thompson highlighted this year how ‘new media’ and the consumer have shaped how it offers content.  The corporation accepted that consumers want the BBC’s content on every platform.  Its iPlayer is today available on the iPhone and iPad, with Thompson confirming that people even watch BBC content on their mobiles in bed.

Thompson understands simplicity and highlighted that the iPlayer works because it is straightforward.  In January of this year 162 million downloads were made through the iPlayer, this in a country of 25 million households.

Thompson confirmed that 2011 is the year of convergence, stating that strength is with those that have a strong presence online and understand the value of simplicity.

One of the areas that the BBC Director General is looking at is the power and influence of social recommendations and how this will shape how we all watch television.  Indeed Thompson confirmed that the BBC and Facebook are having conversations.

Speaking at the conference Facebook’s EMEA Managing Director Joanna Shield confirmed that the company now has 30 million active users in the UK, accounting for 1 in 2 of the population.  Talking about how it ‘supports‘ UK media Shields highlighted that 10% of the Daily Mail’s web traffic now comes from Facebook and that the sites plugins have helped The Independent gain up to a 700% increase in traffic.

Talking of Facebook, Sales and Marketing Director for mobile provider 3 Marc Allera in a separate session said that a staggering 75% of their data traffic is directed to Facebook – an incredible statistic.  Allera also said that 90% of 3’s sales are Smartphone’s.

Facebook is the platform of choice for the consumer.  For business it is the ‘frenemy’, a business that delivers eyeballs to those with an online presence, but a business that can quickly cannibalise those that work with it.  Take Groupon and Livingsocial for example.  Both living in the hype, but both under the knife of Facebook, who a few days ago announced ‘a new service that will sell discounts deals to consumers.’ Sound familiar?

So, Facebook is becoming an entity in itself.  The stats show it, but for the time being, it is a fact that business needs to learn to live with it.  Equally, it needs to retain control of the data that makes it’s business a business.

I was going to ask, remember when clients used to ask about needing a Facebook Strategy?  Something that made PRs and Strategists cringe?  Well, there is a need to have a Facebook Strategy, but a strategy to manage them and avoid each business being cannibalised by this growing entity.  The data that companies share with the social giant make the same businesses vulnerable.

Convergence and Facebook, and of course all the other offerings.  The tables have turned and consumers are showing businesses how and where they want their content.

Facebook, going from strength to strength

Social media and networking channels have during the past year established themselves as the preferred method of communication amongst the varied publics that we interact with.  Facebook, Twitter and Youtube have become part of the mainstream.

Those who at the beginning of 2010 doubted the power of these channels are now active users, even evangelists.  Last year social media was about discovery.  It was about people building up their communities online.  It was about real-time engagement.

This year in 2011 we‘ll see less experimenting and an increase in engagement.  The knowledge that we have as individuals will be pooled and shared within our communities and this in it self will create challenges and opportunities for companies and individuals that we in public relations will be working with.

Communities: engaged and empowered

2010 was about Wikileaks.  Partnering with news outlets around the world including The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel Wikileaks and it’s community focused on releasing classified material to the media and public.  While the aim of the site when it was set-up in 2006 was to expose ‘oppressive regimes … (and) be of assistance to people of all regions who wish to reveal unethical behaviour in their governments and corporations’ Assange and his associates focused on uncovering political machinations around the world.

What Wikileaks did in 2010 was to light a fuse that will see in the coming year more people consider and question the ethics and values of their employer.  We’ve already had the case of former Julius Bär employee Rudolf Elmer who worked for the bank for over 20 years until his dismissal in 2002.  In a very public press conference at London’s Frontline club Elmer handed over to Wikileaks Julian Assange secret documents detailing the activities of his former employer in the Cayman Island and alleged tax evasion.

Sites such as Wikileaks, Openleaks andTradeleaks will prosper and be a contact point for investigative journalists and campaigning organisations wishing to question the transparency of members of the business community.

We can’t dismiss Wikileaks or what it stands for.  In fact, the publicity generated and the way in which it’s core values have been promoted will have made people, employees in sensitive positions in the corporate and private sector, more willing to leak confidential information.  For many, and not just the hacktivists, Wikileaks is the raison-d’etre it needed.

Media

The media will not die.  News will not disappear.  The fact is social networking is making news consumption as popular as ever.  Half of the problem that media organisations have though is that consumption is not taking place on platforms that publishers control and so monitise.  Research by telecoms operator Orange confirms how ‘14% of people who access the internet on their mobile phones read fewer newspapers as a result,’ before adding that, ‘13 percent said that owning smartphones like the iPhone meant they read more newspaper content online.’ And with Advertising-spend still down media organisations are working hard to find a new business model.

Last year News International started putting its main titles behind a pay-wall, something that other news outlets are watching with hope.  Murdoch is one of the only publishers that can invest in this experiment.  If it works though, and many editors are hoping that it does, then the pay-walls will be going around other titles.

Quality journalism costs money.  It shouldn’t be free.  But getting readers to spend money during a recession will be difficult and it’s because of this that in 2011 we shall see more news outlets releasing apps for mobile devices.  Those that are free will switch to a paid for subscription service.  Paying for content through apps will be a precursor to getting people to pay for quality content online.  The content that is currently free.

Mobile

Mobile is everywhere.  It is the channel that personalises everything we do.  It allows us to update our status, our community, our location, our likes and dislikes.  All this data allows brands to tailor their offerings for more personal approaches.

Why is mobile so important?  Well, over a third of Facebook’s users now access the site through a mobile device.  Twitter meanwhile has also seen a rise of people accessing it through a mobile, with also more than a third of users accessing Twitter via their mobile phone.  Expect this to rise.

Mobile is not just about phones, but also about tablet PCs and the ubiquitous iPad.  Consumers today want content, updated, on demand wherever they are.  Keeping your audiences up to date and up to speed will be central to the work of public relations professionals.  And with the news-cycle crunching down even further reaction times will shorten even further.

Crises only became so when people accessed their desktops at work or home, but with the increase use of mobiles, people will be able to react to issues quicker than ever before.  Listening and engaging will be central to the job of those working in communications.

Of course as the use of smartphones continues to grow and establish itself so will geo-location services like Facebook Places and Foursquare start to take-off.  And with the recession, business will look to use every opportunity available to them to help people part with their hard earned cash.

Content accessible through mobiles will become a must for established organisations and brands.

This year of 2011 will be a key a seminal year in the integration of social media into communications.  It will be a year of communities and engagement.

Sky News Studio

Sky News made the headlines in March 2009 when it appointed a Twitter correspondent to scour the real-time platform ‘for stories’ and give Sky News a presence on the Twittersphere.  At the time Guardian writer Jemima Kiss said that she was “in two minds about the creation of a Twitter Correspondent.”

An internal Sky News memo obtained by Techcrunch at the time highlighted how the editorial team saw that news stories were breaking on Twitter thanks to users who eye-witnessed stories and then reported them to their followers.  Ruth Barnett, who today is the channel’s Online Politics Producer, was chosen as their Twitter correspondent.

I meet with Sky News Executive Editor Chris Birkett earlier this week, who confirmed that searching for news on Twitter and other social media platforms is now part of every journalist’s remit at Sky News.  I asked Chris about the impact that social media’s had on its newsgathering and content promotion operation.

Birkett said that their web and online team are responsible amongst other things for verifying content sent in to the newsroom through social media channels.  Birkett added that the number of users accessing Sky News online was being challenged by those who got the outlets news through their social media feeds.

Sky News Executive Editor Chris Birkett

Today the Sky News website has an audience reach of c.7.5 million unique users – 3.3 million in Europe and a further 4.2 million in other markets around the world.  Their iPhone app has been downloaded 2 million times, with Birkett confirming a “massive rise in users accessing the site through mobile devices,” something that is encouraging the news outlet to make it’s app available on other platforms, such Android, which recently announced it supported flash video.

Birkett noted that 18,000 people watched the Sky News Leader’s Debate from their smartphone.  We were also shown the development room where they were testing their forthcoming iPad app.

The one disappointment from a mobile aspect was that while the iPhone app has the facility for users to send in user generated content (ugc) the numbers have not yet excited editorial staff.  ‘Not yet’ being the watchword.

Asked if Sky News had benefited from The Times and Sunday Times paywall Birkett said that there didn’t appear to be a surge in traffic, which leaves one to question where Times Online users gone to?  Birkett did say though that Sky News has 650 staff – a lot less than the BBC, 500 of which are at the Sky News Centre and of which 150 are journalists.  The Times and Sunday Times meanwhile have dedicated 700 journalists, allowing the Wapping titles to provide the in-depth comment and analysis while Sky News focus on short video.

We are looking forward to another visit and further insight from Sky News.

Apple

Britain is a country with little focus on customer care.  In fact for many UK businesses rewarding customers for their spend and loyalty appears to be an after thought.  Rarely do companies invest in their customers so to get them to do the ‘word-of-mouth’ sale on their behalf, which as we know is the best endorsement and way to get new customers in.

Just look at UK mobile phone operator O2, which yesterday released details of it’s pricing policy for the Apple’s much anticipated iPhone 3GS, over which it has exclusive UK rights.  The sting wasn’t the 18-month fee of between £96 and £274 depending on your tariff, but the cost for current customers who signed up for the minimum term this time last year.  Existing customers were told that they would have to pay for the remaining terms of their existing iPhone 3G contracts, which could be anything over £150.  All very different to when O2 offered a free upgrade from the first iPhone to the current hand-set.

You would have thought that pricing policy for such a desirable product would have been developed whereby existing customers aren’t made to feel hostage.  In fact, the sweets have been offered to new customers while existing ones are being ignored.  A big mistake given that many O2 iPhone users have turned against the company, complaining not just about its pricing policy but it’s lamentable 3G nationwide coverage, to name but a few points.

You wonder why the company didn’t think of empowering its customers with new models so to reward them and encourage them to further promote the company and brand to others.  Blogs though are being written picking on all of O2s issues, working to dissuade customers from switching to a company that cares little for their users.

The #O2fail hashtag and Twitition on Twitter have over 2100 people signed-up.  And the blogosphere is certainly working hard to knock O2 where it hurts.  The media is also running stories, with The Daily Telegraph and Sky News highlighting the concerns from loyal customers.

As it stands and having set a populist precedent with the free upgrade between the first and second generation iPhone O2 have a lot to do to stop the steady stream of complains.  It takes a lot to build a reputation and it looks like they’ve forgotten the golden rule of ‘looking after our customers’ first.