Vodafone 360 is a brand new set of internet services for the mobile and PC which gathers all of a customer’s friends, communities, entertainment and personal favourites (like music, games, photos and video) in one place
The emphasis is on the social element of mobile and internet usage and the ability to sync (or bring together) your different contacts and social presence on different sites together with your mobile contacts.
Christian Payne (aka Documentally) interviewed mobile guru Helen Keegan and I on our thoughts of the new service, and in particular some of our concerns about privacy.
I had three main queries:
- Did it sync with Gmail?
- Where was the data saved – on the phone, in the cloud, on a Vodafone server?
- How were privacy standards of users maintained, both of 360 service users and their contacts?
In the interview Helen made some interesting points about whether such concerns over privacy are cultural, and pointed out that they very much greater in the UK than they are in other countries.
Terence Eden of Vodafone kindly got back to me on these queries via Twitter as follows:
documentally – RT @edent: I heard all 16mins of http://boo.fm/b65672 @Kcorrick yes, it supports Gmail. Stored securely in cloud. Privacy v important
edent – @kcorrick privacy needs to be front & centre – also needs tight user friendly controls. I know we comply with DPA etc.
edent – @kcorrick FYI the guy managing Vodafone People is @alexfc – he should know the answers to your privacy questions.
These are encouraging signs and it’s fantastic that people like Terence are engaged to respond personally. This isn’t just an issue specific to Vodafone. As more and more of our data gets brought together like this – sometimes unbeknownst to us on services our friends and contacts use – we need to be aware of what’s going on, what controls we have over the information, who owns it and how it can be used, and whether we are comfortable with the answers we receive.
There will be a definitive FAQ including privacy questions come the launch, but this is what I’ve seen.
Hope that makes it a bit clearer.
Thanks Terence.
im trialing the phone at the moment, i thinks its fab.
like any new phone it took a day or two to get used to but ive now customised it to do everything i want… im a heavy web and facebook user and they way this phone syncs my contacts with my facebooks profiles is amazing. i get my friends mobile numbers, e-mail addresses, facebook profiles and status all in one place, fantastic! One click on their pics and i can sms, call, e-mail them or see their facebook status : )