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

The London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG) last week released their social media guidelines for their 70,000 volunteers, in which they ban individuals from posting pictures or release details of athletes, VIPs and dignitaries in backstage areas at this summer’s 2012 Olympic games.

In the hope of keeping a tight-lid on the London 2012 brand and messaging organisers have made the outrageous statement that social media will be managed by its communication team.  Such level of control is going to be nearly impossible given the number of individuals that will be operating behind the scenes.

A large majority of news outlets already use social media channels as a source that adds value and content to unfolding stories, so rather than control the possible behind the scene messages, why didn’t the communications team look to embrace these channels and empower volunteers add an extra layer of information?  It begs the question, will volunteers have to hand in the mobiles before each day that they work, sorry, volunteer for free?

Surely empowering volunteers as behind the scenes crews would act as a way to bring the spirit of the Olympics closer to the people.  Those athletes, celebrities and dignitaries that are caught in a scandal would only have themselves to blame.

As several other bloggers point out, the call by LOCOG goes against the International Olympic Committe’s (IOC) own guidelines and recommendation.

We await and see how this develops.

Storm clouds have been gathering over the UK public relations industry after a couple of its top agencies were caught editing Wikipedia pages on behalf of their clients.  Last month Bell Pottinger was outted in a sting by The Independent and the Bureau for Investigative Journalism, whose journalists posed as businessmen from Uzbekistan.  This month PR agency Portland Communications tried to edit out Stella Artois from the Wikipedia page for Wife-beater – the UK urban description of this beer brand.

The issue at hand was not that they tried to edit Wikipedia pages for clients, more that they failed to declare a conflict of interest in these edits.

Wikipedia, the free, collaborative and multilingual online encyclopaedia, is seen as a first port of call for accurate information and description because it is built on 3 key pillars – 1, contributors and editors must have a neutral point of view and no conflict of interest; 2, content must be verifiable; 3, articles must not contain new analysis or synthesis.

Today, Wikipedia has over 20 million articles – over 3.8 million in English, is available in over 280 languages and is edited and monitored by over 10,000 active editors around the world.  The fact is that anybody anywhere can access and edit nearly any Wikipedia page – some are controversially protected and can only be edited by Wikipedia’s own system administrators, is one of it’s key strengths.

Let’s be honest, managing and editing reputations on Wikipedia is not an action confined to individuals working in the global public relations industry – the internet has connected millions of people around the world.  Vandalism and trolling are a growing issue that has affected and will continue to affect this platform, though Wikipedia’s own systems, based on the power of the community, has thankfully enabled it to so far keep it in check.

The issue is about transparency, or lack of by certain communicators who fail to declare they are representing the individual or brand they are editing.  This not just damages the reputation of the brand they are working for, but that of our own profession.

Everybody has the right to a voice and to a reputation.  That reputation though is based on the actions of a client and not the image that a PR might subsequently provide.  Social networking has educated the wider audience to believe what members of their trusted community say and while PRs continue to hide behind a cloak of secrecy this profession will find it harder in it’s primary mission, which is to ‘help establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between public, private and not-for-profit organisations and their various audiences.’  I ask this, knowing how connected the world is and how communities work, was it strategically wise to try to edit out Stella Artois from the page in question?  Total control is no longer an option in today’s connected world.

The Chartered Institute for Public Relations (CIPR), the UK’s professional body for PR, issued a statement yesterday (6 January 2011) stating it’s commitment to put together clear guidance for the profession on using and editing Wikipedia by working with representatives of Wikimedia UK.  The CIPR already has in place social media guidelines that were developed by the institute’s own social media advisory board, which I sit on.  Before being adopted the guidelines were put out on a wiki for comment and debate to the UK PR community.

While here in the UK the CIPR has taken the first step in seeking and securing a partnership for the specific creation of  dedicated guidelines for PRs we should remember that the issue, like our profession, is global.  Public relations is a profession and industry in the rest of Europe, North and South America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Wikipedia and it’s community should use this opportunity to work with PRs around the world so that these guidelines can be adopted globally.  Groups are already coming together to encourage a dialogue and understanding of what PRs do.  I personally do not expect everybody to be won over.  In fact I wouldn’t want this.  Debate is healthy and fuels change.  But I do hope that we can demystify what PRs around the world do and and contribute.

After all, we live in a globally  connected world filled with different cultures and jurisdictions that is unifying and shaping us and our opinions.  Our views are shaped by those we know and trust within our networks.  It is time that public relations professionals improved the PR for themselves.

Less that a month after the Bell Pottinger gets caught boasting about using ‘dark arts’ and ‘having a team that could sort Wikipedia,’ it appears that another agency has been outed.

Rival public relations agency Portland Communications has been caught by West Brom MP Tom Watson for trying to edit out the name of Stella Artois, a brand owned by Portland client inBev, from the Wikipedia description page for Wife-beater.

Watson rightly suggests in Portland Communications Wikipedia discussion page that agencies list their clients in their own Wikipedia entries so to declare conflict of interest and as I suspect for transparency sake.

What is interesting is that at 16.31 today (04/01/2012) Wikipedia user Portlander11 edits Portland Communications Wikipedia page and adds, ‘Current and previous clients include BTA Bank, Mukhtar Ablyazov and AB InBev,’ before adding, ‘The reason for this change is that Mr Ablyazov is not and never has been a client of Portland Communications.’  That final statement is very clear, stating that Mr Ablyazov ‘is not and has never been a client of Portland Communications.‘

Looking at the Wikipedia page for Mr Mukhtar Ablyazov one sees that the page has been edited on a regular basis, mostly by registered Wikipedia users.  A number of edits though are from a user whose IP address has been captured as ‘83.244.252.242.’  This IP address has the following hostname associated with it, ‘mx9.portland-communications.com.’  Perhaps, that bold and unambiguous statement is not as accurate as Portlander11 led many people, including Tom Watson MP to believe.

The fact is that fingerprints exist online.  The web connects people.  Wikipedia and social networking site brings groups together that act as editors and fact checkers, something, it appears that some public relations consultancies are yet to understand.

UPDATE: I should point you to two blog posts that were equally published yesterday by Stuart Bruce and Phil Gomes, the latter calling on Wikipedia to ‘have an open, constructive and fair discussion about the important issues where public relations and Wikipedia interset.’

News International journalists have allegedly gained access to details of former-Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s bank account, legal documents and even his son’s medical records by masquerading as either the former Prime Minister himself or one of his representatives.

It is alleged that News International titles have used blagging to secure personal information that was then run as headlines in select titles.

Blagging is to ‘knowingly or recklessly obtaining or disclosing personal data or information without the consent of the data controller.’  In plain English that means to deceive somebody to get personal information that can then be used in the press.

Because blagging is to deceive somebody to gain information the practice pulls into the story organisations that hold personal information – telephone companies, banks, building societies, utility companies, anybody.  This therefore can create a firestorm for the reputations of organisations that have been targeted by blaggers, which raises the question, are PRs ready for the questions that will be asked about data protection and privacy?

While blagging is an offence under Section 55 of the Data Protection Act it has yet to be tested in the courts.  That though is an issue for those caught of blagging.

News Corporation Chairman and Chief Executive James Murdoch this afternoon made the shock announcement of the clousure 168 year old News Of The World (#NOTW).

In what is seen as a high risk decision aimed at both ending the scandal surrounding News Of The World’s alleged phone-hacking and placating the political beasts who are calling for a ‘No’ to News International’s BSkyB deal, Murdoch and his Executives decided to sacrifice this title.

It is being reported that over 200 jobs will be culled in the clousure, with the offer being made to staff to reapply for work within News International. This of course has raised the question of if the decision is just a PR masterstroke to push through News Corporation’s desire to secure the BSkyB deal. It equally raises the question of why Rebekah Brooks still in her job, given that she was Editor of the title during the Milly Dowler phone-hacking.

Since it was made public that journalists had hacked into people’s phones, social media channels vocalised their disgust at the News Of The World with many thousands targeting companies, calling on them to remove their advertising from the title.

This is a going to be a text book PR case study of HOW NOT to manage a crisis and solve the reputation of an established news outlet.

Excuse after excuse has cost the jobs of many journalists just so News International can gain full ownership of BSkyB.

Of course, is there a Sunday Sun on the way? Well, On Tuesday 5 July 2011 – two days ago, the Sun On Sunday UK domain was registered (Registered by News International), so, we’ll have to wait and see!

UK national tabloid The News Of The World (#NOTW) is caught in the eye of a very public storm as revelations allege their involvement in the phone hacking of not just the murdered Milly Dowler, but the parents of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman and victims of the July 7th London bombing.

The esteemed Nicholas Tomalin, said that ‘the only qualities needed for real success in Journalism are ratlike cunning, a plausible manner and a little literary ability.‘ He was not wrong.

It is this cunning that’s got The Guardian’s Nick Davies  the story, as it’s served up insight into the activities that were allegedly common place at the News Of The World.  But let’s not single them out exclusively.  News outlets are in competition with one another and it would be odd to think that they were the only ones guilty.  In fact, In the 2006 ‘What Price Privacy Now?’ report (below) the Information Commission highlighted that 305 journalists had been identified during Operation Motorman as customers driving the illegal trade in confidential personal information.  Have a look at the list and you’ll be surprised by some of the titles that were named and shamed.  The various reports confirm two methods that journalists and private investigators use to get information, including, ‘through corruption, or more usually by some form of deception, generally known as ‘blagging’. Blaggers pretend to be someone they are not in order to wheedle out the information they are seeking.’

What Price Privacy Now Notw

Phone-hacking is really just the tip of the iceberg.  Given that most people do not change the default password on their phone it is pretty easy to intercept voice messages.  But, getting information on addresses, car registration requires deception and/or as the law describes, corruption.

The above report highlights the case of how in November 2006 Stephen and Sharon Anderson of St Ives in Cambridgeshire pleaded guilty to obtaining and selling information unlawfully whilst operating as private investigators.  They used ‘blagging’ techniques to obtain and attempt to obtain personal information about individuals from a number of organisations including Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, British Telecommunications plc and various banks.

So, while our eyes are currently on The News Of The World, the real question is, what about organisations that private investigators get their data from?  How safe is your data – your bank details, phone numbers, your bills and tax information?  And how ready are these businesses for the questions that must be asked?  If you work PR in-house or agency-side are you ready for the reputation of your client or employer being questioned?  And questions about how safe customers data is?  And today, when we work online, how safe our our emails and our personal profiles?

News Of The World’s official line that it was all down to a ‘rogue reporter’ just did not wash from a public relations perspective.  While it might have held back the criticism, it was like putting a finger in the dam.

Some newsrooms are aggressive places with boiler-room like cultures. You have to get the story. You don’t ask questions about the how, you just need to make sure that all the pieces fit together and that your legal team sign it off.  All of course with the safety net of ‘Public Interest.’  But what is the definition of public interest? And why is the very quiet Press Complaint Commission so neutral?  The PCC’s statement was just pointless.

Carter-Ruck Partner Magnus Boyd says, “public interest is always the justification used for such intrusion. It appears the lack of an adequate definition of public interest has allowed many spurious claims to the public interest.“  He says, “At the moment only Ofcom and the PCC offer working definitions of what is in the public interest and both are deliberately vaugue so as to retain sufficient flexibility and applicability.”

“Conversely, however, the lack of precision in the definition of ‘public interest’ allows the concept to be cited on ‘a rather tired and formulaic basis’ in many cases as Mr Justice Eady noted.  What is interesting to the public may not neceassarily be in the public interest but we can no longer afford to seek to define it by ommission or by the adage, ‘you’ll know it when you see it’.” We need to define what the public interest is in a way that the general public can understand and relate to and which will have sufficient flexibilty to adapt to changing circumstances without being all things to all men”

Talking about celebrity reporting Boyd goes on to explain, “Ironically, celebrity reporting usually requires the least invasive investigation techniques – there are usually people ready to talk off the record and perpetuate the gossip. What may well emerge from recent events is that hacking and blagging were used far more in the investigation of financial and corporate stories than readers may have realised as well as more general news items.”

Up an until The Guardian revealed that the phone of Milly Dowler had been hacked the story seemed distant from the public.  It was an issue that just affected celebrities, people, as some might claim, that courted the media.  But knowing to what lengths certain media outlets would go to has turned the tide.

A social media campaign by the public has been targeting not just readers of the paper but companies that advertise in the News of the World.  Public revulsion is pushing this gossip paper into a tight corner.  Companies like Ford, Mitsubishi, NPower, Virgin Holidays have cut their advertising from the title.

The Daily Telegraph’s Harry Wallop commented on Twitter, ‘NotW makes c£35m from ads + c£135m from sales. Few weeks of dropped ads won’t hit paper hard. Reader loyalty is what matters.’

The community is using Twitter and Facebook to spread their disgust and it’s having an impact, with subscribers to The Sun and other News International cancelling their subscriptions.

Social media can whip-up a storm and highlight public sentiment in real-time.  Give the community and argument and it will express it’s view.  But let’s remember, they are not the only guilty party and PR’s need to be ready for the questions about data, information and privacy that now need to be asked.

****UPDATE***

The Press Complain’s Commission yesterday released a statement that, well, didn’t say much apart from it being unhappy with the conduct of one of it’s members.

In Press Gazette today, Dominic Ponsford highlights how a Independent Enquiry might (we hope) focus on the role of the PCC.

Labour MP Alun Michael, himself a former journalist, speaking in an emergency debate about phone-hacking in the Commons yesterday, said: “The PCC is well meaning, but frankly it’s a joke, the public deserve better and the journalists deserve better. The PCC clearly has neither the will nor the ability to change things. What we need is an independent body, that is robust, effective, and has the powers to investigate and enforce. That would be a major step forward.

The International Olympic Committee has released it’s Social Media Guidelines for participants and other accredited persons at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

The four-page document is the IOC’s attempt to recapture the ground it never had when Twitter became the must-have channel for those competing at the winter Vancouver 2010 games.

Remember the death of Georgian Luger Nodar Kumaritashvili and how the footage of the tragic accident ended up on YouTube, Twitter and other social networking sites.  Happening just before the opening ceremony and the online chatter accentuated the lack of control and understanding that the Olympic committee had over social media and which cast a shadow over the Vancouver Olympics.

In the guidelines the IOC ‘actively encourages and supports athletes and other accredited persons at the Olympic Games to … post, blog and tweet their experiences.’ it directs those competing to avoid using social networking sites ‘for commercial and/or advertising purposes.’  If athletes and other accredited persons do break these guidelines then they risk accreditation being withdrawn.  More worrying for athletes is the threat of possible expulsion from the games.

So how will these guidelines affect the work of public relations agencies working with athletes and their sponsors?  Will non-accredited sponsors see these guidelines as a red rag to a bull?  How strong will ambush marketing play during the 2012 Olympics?  Remember how Dutch beer company Bavaria got, as The Daily Telegraph describes, ‘36 women wearing skimpy orange dresses attend the Holland versus Denmark game‘ to promote Dutch Bavaria beer in breach of Fifa guidelines.  Organisers of the stunt were then arrested.

What are your thoughts? How important will social networking play for brands that are sitting outside the tent and that will never be able to be a participant in the Olympic experience?

IOC Social Media Blogging and Internet Guidelines-London

The Times ran a story this week on how celebrities were using PR agencies to drive bad news that is circulated online away from public’s view – burying it away in pages people rarely visit.  Times reporter Billy Kenber followed up his initial piece with further insight on how some agencies work.  There is a problem with his piece though, that being the insinuation that it’s solely PR agencies that are behind these shady practices.

Reputation management as we know is not a new discipline within public relations.  The skills needed have been around for many, many years.  That said, since today we are influenced by what we read online and what our friends and peers share with us the need and demand for online reputation management (ORM) has dramatically increased.

Reputation is at the core of any business. It shapes our trust with brands and individuals.  If that trust is challenged we take our business elsewhere, which is why in today’s real-time and connected world it is essential to keep track of how communities can build or break reputations.

Kenber gave the example of Woburn Safari Park who allegedly paid an agency to bury news stories about a critical report from the Department for Environment , Food and Rural Affairs  (DEFRA) on the conditions of the animals in its care.  Weeks after stories were published The Times reported that the park hired the services of an online reputation management agency.  If this is all it did then rightly so one can be critical of how it acted given DEFRA’s findings.  Certainly not a way of repairing a reputation.

Online reputation management agencies are not public relations agencies.  There is a need for their services, but these should be used as part of a much more strategic campaign.  Burying bad news and the associated debate that takes place online is not going job is not going to serve a company good in the long-term.  In fact it is likely to do further damage.

Public Relations is about reputation.  It is as the CIPR states about ‘the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics.’  Key words here are planned and sustained.  Making a sustained effort is much more that just burying news, much more that negative briefings.  It is in today’s business and consumer environment about real-time decisions that can humanise a brand and assist it in gaining support and the much needed understanding.

There is a need for the skills that Kenber highlights.  We have seen plenty of examples of how small businesses have suffered because of critical online reviews that have either been wide of the mark or libellous.  We should remember that people have different standards and can quickly mount negative online assaults, often without realising how they are opening themselves up to a legal dispute.

PR agencies do use whatever is needed help organisations protect their reputation.  But, it is these PR agencies that use these tools in proportion to what is needed to achieve.  If a client or employer has messed up the damage has been done.  Doing what Kenber talks about only makes matters worse.  A professional communications agency would have advised to stay clear of burying bad online news.  Agencies that would do this kind of work, do it without understanding the bigger picture.

Global public relations and communications agency Burson-Marsteller was outted last week by a blogger for planting anti-Google stories for Facebook that would smear the reputation of the search giant.

Blogger Chris Soghoian was approached by Director of Burson-Marsteller’s Washington DC Media Practice John Mercurio to see if he would write an op-ed for a top-tier media outlet that from a PR perspective would further raise awareness of privacy issues surrounding Google’s business.  Soghoian rebuffed Mercurio and published their email correspondence, which was subsequently picked up by The Daily Beast who confirmed that Burson’s client was the social networking mammoth Facebook.

The assignment raises questions not just about the ethics of PR in promoting one set of views over another, but also our industry’s understanding of the media landscape in which it operates.

Let’s not be naïve, assignments such as the one that Burson accepted does take place.  It is part and parcel of what the business world.  Briefings, allegations, misinformation are tactics that while they are crude, are part of certain people’s skill-set.

That said, one of the first questions that needs to be asked is that of why did Facebook deide to or even agreed to a campaign to highlight the failings of a competitor?  Such campaigns, as we have seen, carry a lot or risk and can leave ones reputation severely damaged.  Why didn’t Facebook embark on a communication initiative that would highlight it’s strengths, while ignoring competitors weaknesses.  Strategically the answer lies within Facebook and the counsel it received from Burson-Marsteller.

All this said and knowing about the factitious relationship that exists between these two giants, questions have to be asked about the quality of Burson’s work, an agency that I must declare I did work for in 2008.

The content, structure and tone in the brief email correspondence between the two parties that Soghoian released raise a number of key points and questions:

• Mercurio is Burson-Marsteller’s Director of Media Practice in Washington.
• Mercurio was a former journalist, specialist in politics, who between 2002 and 2005 was CNN’s Political Editor.
• Mercurio’s experience appears to lie within the political sector, certainly this was his sole beat between when he graduated from Boston University with a degree in Journalism and until he left The National Journal as Executive Editor.

Bearing these points in mind and from reading his email exchange with Soghoian one questions why Burson would have Mercurio work on such a project.  Let me highlight the reasons I ask this:

• In Mercurio’s opening email on May 3^rd, John addresses Chris Soghoian as ‘Mr. Soghoian’.  Would a person who had a close working relationship with this blogger address him as ‘Mr’?  Isn’t this quite a detached introduction from somebody who does not have a strong working relationship with said blogger?
• Mercurio is a Burson’s Director of Media with a background in politics, why is he involved in blogger relations?  Surely this would have been the responsibility of a tech team or at least of somebody who would not approach Soghoian with a ‘Mr. Soghoian’.
• While Mercurio offered the opportunity of an op-ed piece, why is it he and not somebody with a better working relationship offering Soghoian this opportunity?
• Why is Burson using email to connect with bloggers, knowing full well that email correspondence can be leaked?

Such work is only successful if there is an element of trust that you can work on.  Approaching bloggers in such a cold manner leaves not just an agency such a Burson-Marsteller open to attack, but also the client who rightly so would expect anonymity.

Mercurio is trained as a journalist, with a background in politics.  Surely he has experience on how to received leaks and how to protect sources.

From a communications perspective the whole operation leaves one questioning not just the suitability of Burson for such an assignment, but the internal understanding of how views and opinions are shaped in a world that is less media-centric.  There will be plenty of internal questions within this prestigious agency given that it isn’t just Facebook’s reputation that’s been damaged.