Today we witness a new kind of totalitarianism. This time implemented by men unknown in the corporate offices of the American corporations Google and Apple. Behind closed doors executives of these two corporations have decided that American moral standards must be imposed all over the globe. Rarely, if ever, have we witnessed more self-righteous and cultural imperialist corporate decisions than these.

Apple has decided to block what it considers “objectionable content” from being shown on iPhone. And “objectionable content” here refers to nudity. Completely ignoring the fact that moral standards differ considerably from country to country in the world, it is, of course, American moral standards that are the ones being implemented – standards which most Europeans consider completely silly. No nude legs, breasts, bodies, or – heaven forbid – female nipples can be shown on an iPhone. Despite the fact that European newspapers and magazines – Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, German, French, and so on and so forth – bring such photos all the time and nobody raises even an eyebrow.

And Google has actually done the same thing for a long time without being explicit about it. If you look at some of the posts in this blog that contains beautiful pictures of women – perhaps even showing their nipples – you will notice that the content of the Google ads disappear (as a matter of fact, all images shown on this site have also been published in European newspapers and magazines). It is the same on millions of websites all over the world. And what defines what is appropriate and what is not? The views predominant in the country where the website is located? The views common in the country of the person looking at the blog or magazine article? No! You guessed it! The American puritan moral standards!

I don’t know why corporations feel they ought to use technology this way. And I certainly don’t know how to stop it. I do know that I am appalled by it. And I hope the EU or some international organization will put an end to corporate censorship and cultural imperialism. We don’t need it. We don’t want it.

PS: See also:

• The excellent article about this in New York Times: In Germany, a Nude IS No Big Deal, Except on an iPhone, in today’s paper, page B4.
• Gizmodo.com: It is time to declare war against Apple’s censorship
• Apple discussion forum about “Is censorship really needed” – which has strangely been closed for comments
• Cult of Mac: Apple censorship reaches new levels of stupidity
• Seth Finkelstein: Google Censorship – how it works
• See the censored version of “Nudity in Art” at YouTube

©2010 from the hip. All Rights Reserved.

In December he is meeting in a court in the Netherlands, where the foundation which owns IKEA, and which is controlled by Mr. Kamprad, is located, in order to change the bylaws of the foundation so that it may give away money to charities. Presently, it can only give money to “innovations in architecture and interior designs”.

©2010 from the hip. All Rights Reserved.

I am astonished by the lack of efficiency and the poor customer service of American banks. Here are some real life stories that really shock me, from banks that are all among the top 5 US banks. Here are the cases:

1. Electronic transfer between two customers in the same bank

A friend transferred 1200 dollar to my account. In Scandinavia, the money would have been on my account instantly, as it is a within-bank transaction. Here the bank took 24 to take the money out of my friends’ account, then printed a check and mailed it to me. So, 3 days instead of instantaneously. And unnecessary paper and mail service and postage, all of which, I am sure, customers pay for.

2. Electronic transfer between banks

I paid for something using Paypal. And there wasn’t enough money in my Paypal account, so Paypal withdrew money from my banking account, as they should. However, it took 4 days for this to be processed by the bank. Again, I guess, a check. In Scandinavia this would have taken 1-4 hours, as it is an interbank transfer.

3. Deposit lost by the bank

A friend of mine deposited 800 dollars in her bank. She got a receipt. After a few days she noticed the money weren’t there. She calls the bank. They could not find the deposit, but would investigate. Six weeks 5 long calls, talking usually to two or more people each time, she finally gets the 800 into her account. Now she finds that in two separate cases the bank had given her overdraft fees of 35 dollars that she would not have gotten had the money been where they should. Again she calls. Two calls later the fees are dropped. During this ordeal, the bank never contacted her – she always had to initiate contact.

Now – how it is possible to lose a deposit? How is it possible to not honor a customer’s receipt immediately? Why didn’t be bank get back to her quickly and fix it all? Who made the mistake here – the bank or the customer? It is simply the worst customer service I have ever heard about!

These tales, and others, are so shocking that I wonder how US banks can get away with it? Are American banking customers totally undemanding? Or are they ignorant – don’t know how things are done outside the US and what they should rightfully demand from a modern bank? Do regulatory agencies and consumer organizations not care? Are American businesses unconcerned with banking efficiency? And especially about the banks – do they not care about efficiency? Do they not care about customer service?

It’s easy to fix! Send some guys on a plane to study how it’s done overseas. Buy the software. Do the changes. Get with it! You are lagging by at least a decade!

Or do you just not give a shit?

©2010 from the hip. All Rights Reserved.

The piece will be shown for the first time at VESTFOSSEN KUNSTLABORATORIUM, starting Sunday May 4. At the same exhibition they will also show a piece by Luis Vidal, entitled Qiero ser Lindo 1:

To me, this is somewhat easier to recognize as art. But who am I to judge – a nekkid blogger?

©2010 from the hip. All Rights Reserved.

Wachovia has agreed to pay as much as $144 million to end an investigation that accuses the bank of allowing telemarketers to use its accounts to steal millions of dollars.

So instead of trying to build customer confidence, sharpening up the service, improving efficiency, and building business by producing customer satisfaction, a huge American bank gets involved in a rather petty scam against its own customers for a few million dollars in profit! Elderly customers, at that! Wild! What a great way to destroy a brand name! What a great way to destroy customer confidence – just when they need it the most!

The bank’s actions were “part of a pattern of misconduct” that resulted in Wachovia’s collecting millions of dollars in fees, regulators wrote.

Wachovia has agreed to pay a $10 million fine, contribute $8.9 million to consumer education programs and make restitution to victims that could top $125 million. In a statement, the bank said this “situation was unacceptable and we regret it happened.”

How silly is it possible to behave? When is the American banking industry going to stop treating its customers as uneducated, stupid fools, and instead try to focus on building trust, satisfaction and loyalty by means of excellent service? Or building highly efficient transaction systems using the best available technology and software? In a country that, technologically speaking, is ahead of the rest of the world, but that nevertheless, from an implementation point of view – especially as far as the banking sector is concerned – is 10 years behind Scandinavian and German banks in the use of modern technology? They should improve transaction efficiency and lower costs – not run scams!

And if the high paid executives of the huge American bank are unwilling to or unable to improve their banks and customer service, then why hasn’t there been any regulatory action to just force them to increase efficiency and performance? Do American regulators not know how bad American banking is? Do they not go abroad and study how it’s done elsewhere? Do they think America is still in the forefront – and don’t want to be confused with facts?

©2010 from the hip. All Rights Reserved.

H&M is Europe’s second biggest clothing chain. On Thursday it was named Europe’s most valuable brand, beating such rivals as Zara and the British chain store Marks and Spencer. Financial Times writes:

The Swedish-based chain’s brand has a value of €10.37bn, according to the first ever rankings of European retailers by Interbrand, the brand consultants. It is well ahead of the rest of the pack, with runner-up Carrefour valued at €6.6bn.

And, not only that, IKEA, the world famous furniture store, placed at the number three spot on the same list, with a brand name value of €6,5 billion! In addition, that is only the brand name value in Europe – IKEA is a brand name in the US and other parts of the world as well. A great sucess for Sweden!

Here is the complete list of the top European brands:

2008 Rank	Brand	Country of origin	Sector	Brand value (€m)
1	H&M	Sweden	Apparel	10,366
2	Carrefour	France	General retailer	6,620
3	Ikea	Sweden	Home and furnishings	6,516
4	Tesco	UK	General retailer	5,617
5	Marks & Spencer	UK	General retailer	5,100
6	Zara	Spain	Apparel	4,112
7	Aldi	Germany	General retailer	2,675
8	Boots	UK	Health and beauty	2,003
9	El Corte Inglés	Spain	General retailer	1,930
10	Auchan	France	General retailer	1,860
11	Asda	UK	General retailer	1,224
12	MediaMarkt	Germany	Consumer electronics	1,094
13	Lidl	Germany	General retailer	910
14	Edeka	Germany	General retailer	905
15	C&A	Netherlands	Apparel	882
16	Sephora	France	Health and beauty	767
17	The Body Shop	UK	Health and beauty	727
18	Argos	UK	Home and furnishings	726
19	Mango	Spain	Apparel	702
20	Sainsbury’s	UK	General retailer	512
21	Kaufland	Germany	General retailer	418
22	Mercadona	Spain	General retailer	398
23	FNAC	France	Consumer electronics and books	379
24	Rewe	Germany	General retailer	303
25	Carphone Warehouse	UK	Telecoms	282

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

©2010 from the hip. All Rights Reserved.