In the past two weeks I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of your contacts posting status updates telling you that someone has managed to log on to their account and started spreading a message on Messenger where they tell you that they want to share a video with you. When you click on this link, your own Facebook logon information is stolen, and then YOU start spreading the message. The link can also install a virus onto your computer. In this article I describe what you can do to prevent this from happening.

Does Facebook really ruin democracy? Yes, it does. And in this blog posting I will tell you, and provide documentation on, why that is. Did you know Brexit most likely happened because of fake news on Facebook?

Another security scandal at Facebook. My, how the week has flown. Yesterday it was revealed that Facebook has, once again, tried to cover up a security scandal. And this one is just inexcusable. Change your password immediately. This is how you do it!

Sometimes you can become too suspicious when you receive an email about a security breach in one of your many online or social media accounts. I thought that two emails I received from Facebook were phishing attempts. Turns out they were genuine. This is how you can check whether an email from Facebook is genuine or not!

In the past few days there have been numerous postings and articles in presumptive serious magazines and tech blogs that claim if you are posting a photo of what you looked like ten years ago, and what you look like today, it will make you vulnerable when it comes to what Facebook knows about you. It’s not any more dangerous than what Facebook already knows about you. And they know a LOT! Let me show you exactly how much.

I’m sure you’ve received them too. Friend requests from sexy bikini clad women who suddenly wants to be your friend. Or maybe you’ve received a friend request from a smiling man from Nigeria, who desperately wants to be your friend, so that you can help him with some money transfers?

The superlatives and positive messages about the Norwegian user group’s (ISBG) launch of IBM/Notes Domino V10 in Norway yesterday has been pouring in all morning. As the leader of ISBG, this makes me immensely happy. And it gives bright hope for the future, and we will use this momentum when we’ve now started preparing for the spring seminar. Read on to see what happened at the launch!

Last Friday 50 million Facebook users woke up and discovered that they had been logged out of Facebook. Not just one place, but on their computer, cellphone, the Messengar app and on all devices where they had used Facebook as their logon method. Facebook is saying that there’s no need for their users to do anything. Don’t listen to Facebook! Change your password now!

I’m sure you have received them too. Tons of annoying emails where companies or organisations are explaining to you how they value your privacy, and that because of the new GDPR directive from the EU, they are asking for your consent to continue sending you emails.

Yes, there is a new directive that will soon be put into action. The original date was on May 25th, but it’s now been postponed until June. However there was most likely no need for the company to send you an email asking for your consent. In fact, these emails are most likely illegal and a violation of both GDPR and privacy rules that already are in effect!

In an article in the Guardian, Toni Vitale, the head of regulation, data and information at the law firm Winckworth Sherwood, says that businesses are not required to ask for your consent. They already have your consent because of the existing 1998 Act, which was made in preparation for GDPR.

Also: Consent is just one of the six legal grounds under GDPR. The others are contract, legal obligation, vital interests, public interest and legitimate interests.

In addition, recital 171 of the GDPR makes it clear that you can continue to rely on any existing consent that they already had from you, which you gave them by signing up in the first place. There is absolutely no reason to ask for your consent again. All an organisation has to do is to make sure the consent met the GDPR standard, and that they are properly documented.

In short: You have received tons of unnecessary annoying emails for no reason other than a lot of consultants wanted to make a shitload of money by preying on the misguided fear that companies could be fined insane amounts of money. Naturally these companies wanted to cover their asses.

Not only that, but by emailing you these GDPR emails, the sender will most likely be breaching the rules set by the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, which makes it an offense to email someone to ask them for consent to send them marketing by email!

To quote Vitale: “If the business really does lack the necessary consent to communicate with you, it probably lacks the consent even to email you to ask you to give it that consent.”

On the positive side, if you just ignore these emails and don’t click on any of the links in them, you will not receive more annoying marketing emails from the companies that sent them to you…