Podcasts about acceptable use policy

My co-host Ken Suzan and I are welcoming you to episode 174 of our podcast IP Fridays! In today's interview, Ken Suzan interviews Brian McGinnis, partner at Barnes & Thornburg and co-chair of the firm’s data security and privacy practice, about why companies need to stop treating data privacy as a compliance burden and start treating it as a core business asset. McGinnis argues that data is either a managed asset or an unmanaged liability, with no middle ground. But before we jump into this interview, I have news for you! The EPO saw a Record Year with 200,000+ Patent Applications in 2025: German filings dropped 2.2% while China grew 9.7%, overtaking Japan for the first time. Germany remains Europe’s top patent nation but loses ground globally. SMEs and universities now account for nearly half of all Unitary Patents granted to European innovators. News from the UPC Court of Appeal: Non-Technical Features Count for Inventive Step. An April 17 ruling clarifies that all claim features must be evaluated in their combined effect, including non-technical ones. Companies with software-related or mixed-technology inventions pending at the EPO or UPC should reassess recent inventive step objections at the UPC in light of this decision. Nokia Withdraws UPC and Munich Suits After Global FRAND Settlement; Following a global FRAND rate-setting decision by the UK High Court, Nokia withdrew parallel suits against Warner Bros. and Paramount at the UPC and in Munich. One UK ruling resolved litigation spanning Germany, the UPC, the US, and Brazil simultaneously. China Abandons Anti-Suit Injunctions in SEP Disputes: After a WTO arbitration ruling from July 2025, China withdrew its practice of blocking SEP holders from filing suits abroad. The EU Commission continues monitoring compliance, since the former policy was largely informal rather than codified in statute. The Trump Administration has put 100% Tariffs on Imported Patented Pharmaceuticals: Based on Section 232, the Trump administration imposed 100% tariffs on patented drugs and biologics effective April 2, 2026, with a 120-day transition period until July 31. EU member states face a reduced rate of 15%. Generics and biosimilars are explicitly excluded. China Rejects 1.27 Million Trademark Applications in Three-Year Crackdown: China’s CNIPA rejected over 1.27 million trademark applications and invalidated more than 3,300 marks, targeting so-called edge-ball marks designed to mislead consumers about product quality or origin. The announcement was made at an official press conference on April 23, 2026. Now let's jump into the interview with Brian McGinnis! Brian McGinnis is a partner at Barnes & Thornburg and co-chair of the firm’s data security and privacy practice. In this episode of IP Fridays, he argues that companies treating data privacy as a compliance burden are missing the point entirely and leaving significant value on the table. Data Is Either an Asset or a Liability Most companies still treat their data as invisible and costless. They do not manage it the way they would manage a patent portfolio or a trademark. That, McGinnis argues, is a fundamental strategic error. Data is either a managed asset or an unmanaged liability. There is no middle ground. When companies invest in understanding what data they collect, how it is used, and who has access to it, they unlock opportunities to drive real revenue and growth. Done right, a data governance program is not a cost center. It is a foundation for trust, operational efficiency, and competitive advantage. One Program, Not Twenty With more than 20 US state privacy laws now in effect, and major economies worldwide introducing their own frameworks, building separate compliance programs for each jurisdiction is neither practical nor smart. McGinnis recommends a single, comprehensive governance framework designed around the core purpose and intent of privacy law, flexible enough to absorb new requirements as they emerge. Companies that threw together a quick program when California’s CCPA came into force in 2020 are now overdue for an upgrade. The goal is to move from reactive compliance to a mature, proactive program that positions the company ahead of the regulatory curve rather than perpetually catching up. Website Tracking Tools: An Underestimated Risk One of the fastest-growing areas of privacy litigation involves tracking technologies built into company websites: pixels, session replay tools, analytics scripts, and chat widgets. Legal teams are often entirely unaware of what IT or marketing has deployed. That gap is expensive. Plaintiffs’ attorneys are applying 1970s-era telephone wiretapping statutes, including the California Invasion of Privacy Act, to argue that collecting any personal information, including IP addresses, before a user has consented constitutes illegal interception. Demand letters are being sent at industrial scale, with settlements typically running between $10,000 and $20,000 per case. What makes this particularly difficult is that a company can be fully compliant with statutory privacy law and still face these wiretapping claims, because the legal theory turns on the timing of data collection rather than the existence of a privacy notice. Vendor Contracts: The Hidden Exposure Marketing and technology agreements are another major source of unmanaged data risk. When a company deploys a third-party tool that handles personal data, the underlying contract needs to define precisely who owns that data, what the vendor is permitted to do with it, and what obligations flow down to any sub-processors involved. McGinnis draws a direct parallel to IP licensing: owning valuable data and then handing it to a vendor under a poorly drafted agreement is the equivalent of signing a bad IP license. Data processing agreements need to cover ownership, use restrictions, sub-processor obligations, breach notification timelines, audit rights, and deletion obligations. Many companies simply do not have these terms in place. Without them, a vendor who suffers a breach of non-personal business information has no contractual obligation to disclose it. Consumer Rights Requests: Process Matters Privacy laws give individuals the right to access, correct, delete, and opt out of the use of their personal data. Responding to these requests effectively requires pre-built processes, trained staff, and the technical ability to locate and act on individual data across all systems and sub-processors. Most companies, before engaging in formal data mapping, are not in a position to do this reliably. Staff failing to recognize a deletion request as a legal data subject request and routing it through a standard customer service queue instead is one of the most common failures McGinnis sees. The consequences can include regulatory complaints and class action lawsuits, particularly when a company continues to send emails to someone who has already requested deletion of their data. A newer risk involves Global Privacy Controls: browser-level opt-out signals that regulators and courts are now treating as legally binding deletion and non-collection requests. Companies receiving these signals daily without acting on them face growing exposure under several state laws. AI Governance: Policy Before Tools Generative AI tools are now embedded across business functions, from contract review and customer service to content creation and internal search. McGinnis is direct: every company needs an AI acceptable-use policy, and the absence of one is not a neutral position. Without clear rules, employees will use unapproved or publicly available tools regardless, feeding proprietary and sensitive information into open models with no control over how that data is used or retained. He draws a precise parallel to patent law. Posting proprietary information into an open AI system carries the same risk as publishing it publicly, potentially destroying patentability. The distinction between closed, organization-specific AI systems and open, publicly accessible ones is something employees need to understand explicitly. Making compliance easier than non-compliance is the practical goal. The Regulatory Outlook: More Laws, More Enforcement McGinnis expects the regulatory landscape to continue expanding. The EU AI Act is already setting the direction, and several US states have introduced or are developing AI-specific legislation. The pattern mirrors what happened with data privacy: Europe leads, US states follow in a patchwork, and federal legislation remains uncertain. Enforcement of existing privacy laws is also intensifying. GDPR has been in force since 2018, CCPA since 2020, and regulators are now past the period of extended tolerance for companies that are still catching up. Companies with immature compliance programs should expect less patience from regulators going forward. McGinnis closes with a clear point of view: if you have to comply anyway, get credit for it. A well-built governance program is a trust signal to customers, a sales asset, and a foundation for responsible AI use. Compliance done right is not a tax. It is a differentiator. The Full Transcript: Ken Suzan: Our guest today on the IP Fridays podcast is Brian McGinnis. Brian is a partner with Barnes and Thornburg and a founding member and co-chair of the firm’s data security and privacy law practice group. Brian serves as a member of the intellectual property department and the internet and technology practice. Brian is a Chambers Global and national ranked privacy and data security attorney, a certified information privacy professional, and the firm’s chief privacy officer. Brian brings nearly two decades of experience at the intersection of law and technology. Brian advises on a wide range of technology-driven legal matters, including privacy and data security, intellectual property, artificial intelligence, corporate transactions, software, and internet law. His deep understanding of privacy and technology law enables him to guide clients through rapidly evolving regulatory and operational challenges. Welcome Brian to the IP Fridays podcast. Brian McGinnis: Hey, thanks Ken. I appreciate it. Great to be here and thanks for having me. Ken Suzan: Excellent. Brian, the C-suite tends to treat data privacy as a compliance tax, something to hand off to legal and forget about. But when you see how companies actually get into serious trouble, what’s really going on? Brian McGinnis: Yeah, well, it’s a great place to start Ken and looking forward to the conversation today covering some of these privacy issues and AI issues, which I found in my own practice is really bled into the straight privacy stuff. Companies can’t really handle these things in a silo anymore. It’s really about managing and coming together as a coherent program for governance for the organization. I think if you do that right, the good news is we can become revenue generators and show growth for the company and not just compliance centers and a compliance tax. But I think the core problem that we face in working with most companies is that a lot of companies still treat their data as invisible, costless. They don’t treat it, in other words, like they would a patent portfolio or trademark or other IP portfolio. It’s just not managed as an asset in the ways that we’ve seen more sophistication around IP. And it really should be. Data is either a managed asset for the company or it’s an unmanaged liability. There’s really not an in between. And so for those companies that haven’t gotten their arms around all this data and what can be done with it, I think they’re really missing an opportunity. Having an understanding of what data the organization is collecting, how it’s being used, and having the proper governance around it really unlocks a lot of opportunity for use of that data in new ways — ways that can drive revenue and growth for the company. So I approach privacy not just about compliance, not just about avoiding penalties or doing it because some law out there says that we have to do it. It’s really about knowing and controlling one of the company’s core assets. And if you’re not doing that, you’ve got unmanaged data that you’re not getting value out of and that potentially could be a huge liability for the company. Managed well, it really supports trust, efficiency, and growth of the organization. Otherwise, I think it’s a missed opportunity. Ken Suzan: Yes, well said. Now let’s talk about state laws. With 20-plus state privacy laws now in effect, how should companies build a program that actually works across the board without starting over every time a new state law kicks in? Brian McGinnis: Yeah, so the first answer is don’t build 20 separate programs. This really goes back to having a comprehensive, sophisticated, well thought out program that really takes into account not only the 20 state laws, but obviously we’ve got international exposure with laws like GDPR and upcoming privacy laws internationally. Most of the larger economies in the world have some form of laws around privacy and AI. So you can’t really anymore build programs that account for the one, two, three, four, five different laws that in the past we had experience with — where you could just treat California as its own thing, treat New York as something else, and treat Europe as something else. The laws and the pace of these have really forced companies into having comprehensive programs. I don’t expect to see fewer laws. You’re only looking at potentially additional state laws, additional federal laws here in the US, and then certainly additional laws throughout the world. So a lot of the strategy these days is not only where are we today with these laws, but how do we set up our governance program in a way that really cuts to the core of the purpose and intent behind these laws so that we can be better prepared when new laws come about in the future. Historically, at least in the US, most companies just haven’t had laws that force them into compliance postures. As these laws have started to come along, a lot of companies have been playing from behind and saying, oh, the California Consumer Privacy Act, I just read about it and it goes into effect next week — let’s throw something together and call that our compliance program. We’ve now got years of these laws being in place, CCPA came into effect in 2020, and what we’re seeing much more of are companies looking to get more sophisticated in their programs and stop feeling like they’re always rushing to catch up. The goal is to level up their program, going from level one — constantly playing from behind — to level two and then level three, so that they really feel like they’re on top of it and have a sophisticated program that not only accounts for all the various privacy requirements that come at them, but also positions them to take advantage of the data and all the things that come along with having a good governance program. Ken Suzan: Brian, there’s an explosion of litigation targeting something most companies barely think about — the tracking tools baked into their own websites: pixels, session replay tools, analytics scripts, chat widgets, the list goes on and on. What’s happening, Brian, and what should companies do? Brian McGinnis: Yeah, and I think a lot of companies — the executives, the business teams — don’t even realize a lot of these tools are on their sites. IT deployed them years ago, the web team deployed them, marketing teams are constantly using them and certainly have a good understanding of it. But in a lot of cases, legal has never touched them and has no idea what’s happening on the website. We also see a lot of cases of companies who, even if they’re generally aware these tools are in use, aren’t aware what other teams are putting on the site or what those pieces of technology are tracking. And that gap can be really expensive. What we’re seeing right now — and this has been a trend for a number of months now and is really continuing to pick up steam — is a series of what I call gotcha lawsuits, where you have some enterprising plaintiffs’ counsel who have taken a look at some 1970s-era telephone wiretapping laws, including a law called CIPA, the California Invasion of Privacy Act, passed in the 70s with the idea that you shouldn’t be able to wiretap people’s telephone conversations. They’ve taken that and applied that theory to the internet. The way it works is: if a website has some sort of cookie, pixel, or other tracking technology on it that collects personal information about an individual — and that can be as simple as an IP address and device ID — and if that collection occurs as soon as the individual shows up at the website, prior to them being able to have notice provided to them or opt in and consent to that collection, then the theory under these lawsuits is that it constitutes wiretapping. We see a lot of this with the Meta pixel, with LinkedIn pixels, and the like. What they’re doing is effectively showing up and suing, threatening to sue, trying to take you to arbitration, depending upon what’s included in the company’s existing privacy notice. If you don’t have a cookie banner, if you don’t have a cookie notice, if you’re not getting opt-in on these things, they’re leaning on those failures and effectively trying to force you into a position where you are forced to make a settlement. Because the cost to litigate one of these to their conclusion would be expensive, whereas a lot of these cases will settle for $10,000 to $15,000 somewhere in that range. They’ve got technology crawling the internet looking for websites that don’t have these risks covered, sending demand letters and then collecting settlements, $10,000 to $20,000 at a time. It’s been very profitable for them and a very dangerous thing for our clients. And it’s a bit unusual because you can be fully compliant with the statutory privacy laws that require notification of the use of tracking technologies and cookies and banners — and still be subject to these lawsuits because of the wiretapping arguments being made. The timing wherein the data is collected from the individual could still subject you to these lawsuits. So it’s a tricky problem, one that I hate seeing companies get hit with and one that we spend a lot of time helping companies avoid. Ken Suzan: Yes, let’s talk about contracts, Brian, because I know you work with contracts probably on a daily basis. A lot of data risk lives inside vendor and technology agreements — the contracts companies sign with marketing platforms, analytics providers, cloud infrastructure, and SaaS tools. What should those agreements actually contain? Brian McGinnis: Yeah, so there’s quite a lot of things. You’ve got a world where marketing is constantly under pressure to learn more about their customers. The way they can do that is through any number of different tools and data gathering techniques, and we have all this technology available to help marketing and sales do better at their jobs. But we, at least in this country, got to a position where people really felt like they lost control of their information and their data. And so these privacy laws came along and really started to provide more rights to individuals — to have an understanding of what data exists within various companies that they do business with, who they’re sharing it with, trading it with, selling it to for advertising purposes; to have the right to opt out; the right to delete their information. Not checking through the agreements by which these teams are implementing these tools is a huge issue for companies. As part of an overall compliance program, having some kind of process where people who are aware of the growing numbers of privacy laws are reviewing these marketing contracts to make sure they are aligned with that program and aligned with those laws is absolutely critical. To talk about IP, given the IP Fridays audience: it’s kind of the equivalent of having really bad IP licenses. In other words, you own and control this information and data, and you need to control what the other side can do with one of your most valuable assets — or you’ve effectively given it away. So thinking about it in that way could be useful. In terms of more specifics: a big one is ownership of the data. The agreement itself may or may not have anything that addresses data. If there’s personal information involved, you probably need what we call a data processing agreement or addendum — a DPA — that specifically controls what that third party is able to do with that data, how they’re able to use it, whether they’re able to share it, whether they’re able to get value out of it on their own, or if they’re only allowed to be what we call a service provider, just providing services to the business that hired them. There needs to be explicit prohibition on retaining, using, and disclosing personal information for any purpose other than performing the exact services in the contract. Whether or not they’re permitted to sell or share data under CCPA terms is another key point. Certification that the provider will comply with any restrictions and security requirements you have on your data, and making sure those obligations flow down to any sub-processors they might use. You hire Company A, but Company A works with Company B and C to provide parts of their service. You’re effectively responsible for the protection of personal information throughout its lifecycle. A couple of other key provisions: breach notification triggers and timeline. It’s very possible under a lot of agreements that one of your vendors can suffer the world’s worst hacker breach and have no legal obligation to tell the company that hired them about it — unless there’s personal information involved. State data breach laws apply to personal information, not to other types of sensitive business information. Unless you have a contract that explicitly requires notification, there’s a good chance that vendor may not want to disclose it. And then other things like audit rights and deletion obligations go in there as well. Ken Suzan: Certainly a lot to cover. Let’s talk about privacy laws and consumer rights. Privacy laws give consumers real rights — to access their data, correct it, delete it, and opt out of how it’s being used. Most companies have a process for this on paper. What does it actually take to get it right, and what happens when it breaks down? Brian McGinnis: Yeah, it takes pre-planning. It takes a process. Some companies receive many more of these requests than others — some B2B companies receive none or a couple per year, while companies heavily involved in marketing to consumers might receive tens or hundreds a day. To be able to respond to these effectively and efficiently requires some forethought. It requires policy and procedure internally to be set up, and it requires the education of the team. Some of the common ways we see this go wrong: staff isn’t trained to know the difference between what we call a DSR — data subject request — versus a regular customer service inquiry. Maybe somebody submits what would be construed by law to be a deletion request and you just put it into your normal customer service response flow — and then you’re potentially missing timelines and the like. There also need to be systems in place to respond in accordance with the individual’s rights. Somebody submits a request saying, you have my information — what information do you have about me? Can your company determine that right now? Can you look through all your systems and down the line to all the processors and sub-processors you’ve worked with and hired, and identify what information you have about that individual? Most companies, until they engage in a governance program and data mapping, are at a real disadvantage to be able to do that. Why is that a problem? Because two weeks from now your company could be sending emails to the individual who just told you to delete their data, and they get really upset. That’s when they go and complain to regulators or start class action lawsuits. The lack of planning can be really, really expensive for a lot of companies. Making sure you’ve got some kind of process to understand what’s coming in, that the people receiving those requests know the difference between a regular customer service request and a data subject request, and that it gets to the appropriate parties for action — all of that is really, really key. Another one that we’re seeing pop up is what we call GPC, or Global Privacy Controls. It used to be that people would say “do not track” in their browser and most companies would ignore those signals. Now we’ve got advancements in law and browser technology where the browser you’re using to visit a company’s website sends a signal saying, opt me out of this. Regulators and courts are construing those as deletion requests, as opt-out requests that companies are now required to respond to. If your company hasn’t gone through an exercise to understand that, and is probably receiving GPC opt-out requests on a daily basis without acting on them, there’s some exposure there. At the end of the day, a lot of this really is about getting the appropriate people from across the organization — really each department — around a table, figuring out what data you collect, how you use it, who you share it with, where it comes from. That starts the process of your data map. Then you set about mapping that to the various legal requirements and figuring out how to respond, how to make it easy for people to exercise their rights so they’re not complaining, not suing, not going to regulators. Letting these squeaky wheels out of the process — the ones who don’t want you to be processing their information any longer — is really key. Ken Suzan: Let’s switch gears a bit and talk about AI. I know we’re hearing about it every day. Generative AI tools are now embedded in how companies work — contract review, customer service, content creation, internal search. Before employees start using these tools with customer data, confidential business information, or proprietary content, what has to be in place first? Brian McGinnis: Yeah. I think we’re long past the days when companies provided individuals access to corporate technology — computers, devices, and the like — without having some kind of acceptable use policy that governs that. We don’t want you downloading stuff that could harm our network or create security issues. We don’t want you using our technology in certain ways, whether that’s a BYOD policy or just general use of company internet or company devices. An AI acceptable use policy is really a continuation of those. Every company needs to have an AI acceptable use policy. Period. In my opinion, things like that are as important as the fire escape policy out in the hallways for these companies. I can tell you with absolute certainty: if your organization has not provided rules to your employees and personnel about the use of AI, what they can and can’t use — or if you’ve said you can’t use any AI — the personnel is still using AI. They’re just not using any approved tools. They’re probably using their own private tools that they subscribe to, or even worse, tools they don’t pay for, in which case they’re putting company information into a wide open public model. The more companies can do to think through this ahead of time, reduce it to policy, and then train and educate people on that company’s particular policy, the better. You need to make it easier for people to comply than not comply. An acceptable use policy should talk about: here’s how we can and can’t use it, here’s the data that should and should not go into the system, here’s some proper uses of AI, here’s some data that’s on the fringe that we need to keep out — more sensitive information, proprietary information, etc. Making sure you’re funneling and educating people about the difference between closed systems and open systems. In other words, this is a tool that only looks at our organization, only uses the data within a certain box, and is not publicly available — the AI system is not training on our data. You have more leeway to put more sensitive information into those types of systems than you do with open systems which potentially lose control of your data. It’s almost like a patent consideration in terms of keeping information secret. If something potentially has some patentability that you want to seek to file in the future, you can’t just go out and post it publicly and use public search engines and all this other stuff at the risk of exposing it. Similar concepts here — really getting a handle and control over what tools people can use and providing some education to them about how the company wants to think about what’s acceptable and what’s not in those uses is really the key starting point. Ken Suzan: Very useful information. Indeed, we’re coming towards the end of today’s episode. One final question for you, Brian. Where do you think we’ll be two years from now in this developing field, and how best for companies to stay ahead of the curve? Brian McGinnis: Yeah, this kind of takes us full circle, Ken. I think it’s kind of back to the beginning comments about the privacy space — and we’ve only got more of these laws coming. It’s still a developing field. We’re still really in the early days of enforcement. I mean, GDPR has been around since 2018, CCPA in the US really kicked us off in about 2020, and so there’s been a settling-in period as companies adjust and get used to having these laws and get compliance programs in place at various levels — from not at all prepared to highly sophisticated. We’re still pretty early on in terms of enforcement of these things. We’re already starting to see enforcement of more egregious violations of these various laws, and we’ll only continue to see more enforcement as the laws exist currently and as they continue to come along. The days of not having to pay attention to this are kind of over. And I always tell clients: if you’re going to have to do these things, you’re going to have to be compliant — you might as well get credit for it. By which I mean, let’s put all the policies in place, let’s do all the compliance activities, let’s have a sophisticated governance program, but then let’s also use that as a sales tool, as a way to help grow the company, as a way to sell new products and gain trust and earn trust with our customers — so that they know when they’re doing business with us, or when they’re giving us information, or when they’re using our AI tool, that we respect that and are going to take care of their information and have the structure in place internally to be able to do that. With respect to AI, what I’m seeing is very similar to what we have seen with the growth of privacy law — again led by Europe, with the EU AI Act in this case. Now you’ve got a handful of states in the US that already have AI laws, and others that are interested in continuing to roll those out. There’s friction with the federal government around whether there’s going to be a comprehensive law there. Like the privacy space, you’ve got varying factions — some of which want to develop really quickly with very little guardrails, others which say we’re threatening the future of humanity if we don’t get those guardrails in place. I think ultimately, at least in the US, we’re going to end up with another patchwork of AI laws for the foreseeable future that we’ll have to navigate. So really having a company position, a company philosophy of how do we handle all these various laws, how do we treat people’s data, how do we get our arms around it, how do we respond to whatever legal rights they currently have, and what principles do we put in place so that we can adapt for the future — and then, once we’ve done those things, how do we actually get value out of this and move the business forward. So it’s not a compliance tax, but a benefit to the business. That’s the end goal here, and I think the North Star for us. Ken Suzan: Fantastic, Brian. This has certainly been a very comprehensive interview. Really appreciate you taking the time to talk about it with us here on the IP Fridays podcast. Brian McGinnis: Happy to do it, Ken. Thanks for asking me and good to see you. Thank you.

This Week:  AI For The Rest Of Us Our coverage of the 2026 Nonprofit Technology Conference continues with Allison McMillan's survey of these Artificial Intelligence tools: Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Suno. She reviews their use cases; the differences between them; … Continue reading →

When a "rogue AI agent" triggered a Sev-1 emergency at Meta, the media immediately started spinning up Terminator scenarios. However, what actually caused the breach is far less Hollywood and reveals a far greater risk to your organization. The reality is a much more sobering masterclass in human behavioral failure. In this week's episode of Future-Focused, I‘m breaking down the recent incident and chain-of-events at Meta that led to highly sensitive data being exposed. In doing so, you'll see that AI didn't maliciously hack anything. Its “rogue” behavior was posting flawed advice at the direction of a human followed by a human blindly executing it without verification. I'll explain why this was essentially an inadvertent social engineering hack, how the "halo effect" of AI is causing professionals to bypass their critical thinking, and why the ultimate security patch right now isn't in the code, but in our accountability structures.  My goal is to help you make some strategic moves and mitigate the risks to your oganization by highlighting three opportunities to prepare your organization for what's ahead:​Spot-Checking the "Rules of the Road": We love to assume that because we gave our teams new tools, they naturally know the boundaries. I break down why simply turning on AI agents without an updated Acceptable Use Policy is a recipe for disaster. You cannot blindly trust that your workforce has the discernment to navigate these tools; you must establish a baseline for effective AI use—like the AI Effectiveness Rating (AER)—before a Sev 1 happens to you.  ​Defining the Accountability Matrix: We casually assume that when an AI makes a mistake, the technology is to blame. I share why "the AI told me to" is quickly becoming a catastrophic excuse in the workplace. You need to clarify immediately that whoever executes the AI's advice owns the outcome, ensuring you don't accidentally build a culture where responsibility is endlessly deflected.  ​Running an AI "Grand Rounds": We are avoiding talking about our internal vulnerabilities because we fear judgment. I explain why adopting the medical community's practice of "Grand Rounds" is the perfect way to openly stress-test your systems. You must bring this Meta story to your next team meeting and force an open, judgment-free conversation about how a similar failure could happen in your own workflows.  By the end, I hope you'll recognize that true leadership in the AI era isn't about bracing for a sci-fi apocalypse. It's about building the human guardrails that will prevent a mundane mistake from becoming a catastrophic emergency.⸻If this conversation helps you think more clearly about the future we're building, make sure to like, share, and subscribe. You can also support the show by buying me a coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/christopherlindAnd if your organization is wrestling with how to lead responsibly in the AI era, balancing performance, technology, and people, that's the work I do every day through my consulting and coaching. Learn more at https://christopherlind.co⸻Chapters00:00 – Introduction & The Terminator Myth01:57 – Declassifying the Meta "Sev 1" Emergency05:22 – The "Social Engineering" Hack of AI Trust07:59 – Action 1: Spot-Checking Your Acceptable Use Policy11:45 – Measuring Capability with the AI Effectiveness Rating (AER)14:52 – Action 2: Building an AI Accountability Matrix23:42 – Action 3: Running an AI "Grand Rounds"30:46 – Conclusion & How to Work With Me#ArtificialIntelligence #Leadership #CyberSecurity #FutureOfWork #ChristopherLind #FutureFocused #BusinessStrategy #DecisionMaking #TechTrends

It was too obvious not to do it. Let AI summarise the Department of Education's guidance. Sure, while I'm at it, I may as well use AI to create the show notes:Explore the safe, ethical, and responsible use of AI for primary educators and school leaders. We share practical examples, such as how a second class teacher can use Generative AI (GenAI) to create curriculum-aligned math activities, or how a fifth class teacher uses GenAI for visual support in Irish lessons. Learn strategies for integrating AI, including the essential 4P framework (Purpose, Planning, Policies, Practice). Remember to maintain human oversight and review all AI outputs for accuracy and bias. Resources like the DALI4US project support data literacy for primary teachers.

It was too obvious not to do it. Let AI summarise the Department of Education's guidance. Sure, while I'm at it, I may as well use AI to create the show notes:Explore the safe, ethical, and responsible use of AI for primary educators and school leaders. We share practical examples, such as how a second class teacher can use Generative AI (GenAI) to create curriculum-aligned math activities, or how a fifth class teacher uses GenAI for visual support in Irish lessons. Learn strategies for integrating AI, including the essential 4P framework (Purpose, Planning, Policies, Practice). Remember to maintain human oversight and review all AI outputs for accuracy and bias. Resources like the DALI4US project support data literacy for primary teachers.

What is your company's will? This Fireside Chat with Matt Lee tackles the Acceptable Use Policy, Written information security plan, Roles, and responsibilities. Please give us feedback, as we have a pretty healthy disagreement on a few items and are hoping that you, the listener, can help us find a new path forward. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/msp1337/support

Paris Marx is joined by Luke LeBrun and Rachel Gilmore to discuss Shopify's connection to right-wing politics, through its interpersonal connection to a dar-right news outlet and its reluctance to enforce its content policy on users selling hateful merchandise through their platform. Luke LeBrun is the editor of PressProgress and Rachel Gilmore is an independent journalist.Tech Won't Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.Also mentioned in this episode:Luke reported on Shopify COO Kaz Nejatian's involvement in and funding of a right-wing Canadian “news” website called True North.Rachel reported on Shopify's decisions not to disable support for stores that sell fraudulent goods and promote hate that's in violation of their Acceptable Use Policy. She recently pointed out a series of stores Shopify still supports that sell Nazi memorabilia.Last year, an anonymous former Shopify worker spoke out about the right-wing culture at the company. Rachel confirmed the person had worked for Shopify.In 2022, Tobi Lutke was granted a “founder's share,” guaranteeing him 40% voting power. 46% of shareholders voted against the proposal.Shopify found itself in the spotlight in 2021 when employees found a noose emoji had been added to the company's Slack system.Shopify President Harley Finkelstein has been publicly opposing plans to raise taxes on capital gains. Only 0.13% of Canadians will be paying more tax under the plan.Some right-wing figures in Canada deny the truth of the residential schools.Support the Show.

Pt 3 delves deeper into implementation, roll out, and overcoming barriers to updating or creating IT governance policies at your nonprofit. In this podcast follow up to their webinar, Community IT Senior Consultant Nura Aboki and guest Jeff Gibson from Build Consulting spoke with moderator Carolyn Woodard and shared their experiences and insights into the difficulties rolling out your updated policies. How can you overcome barriers like fear or inertia and see this process as an opportunity for your leadership to bring staff together around shared values, and not an onerous chore? What are good ways to get stakeholders on board and successfully  roll out training on the new policies to all staff?If you are feeling paralyzed about this project to implement your policies, this discussion will give you a roadmap on how to move forward. Learn about making IT governance work for your nonprofit.For templates: Free Resources for Building IT Policies at Nonprofits has a ton of links for you to start with. Check out this podcast pt 1 and 2 for an introduction.Is your nonprofit protected?In our work with clients over the twenty years we have been providing outsourced IT services, Community IT has frequently run into clients with no Acceptable Use Policy at all. In addition to protecting your organization from employee misuse of equipment, IT governance policies are strategic documents that need regular review to stay in alignment with your nonprofit's goals and tactics.If your organization has no IT governance documents or they haven't been updated in a while, this webinar teaches how and where to start creating these vital documents. Our panelists also shared their experiences and successful strategies to roll out these policies to all staff, and gave ideas on updating your training on these policies to be fun and engaging. The key takeaway? Collaborating: the IT department needs to work with other teams to incorporate various needs and insights. Your organization's protection from cyber crime and multiple legal issues rests on your staff understanding and following your IT policies. Don't get caught without policies you can rely on and refer back to when situations with cyber attacks or disgruntled employees arise.As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience.Community IT and Build Consulting are proudly vendor-agnostic and our webinars cover a range of topics and discussions. Webinars are never a sales pitch, always a way to share our knowledge with our community. _______________________________Start a conversation :) Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/ email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com on LinkedIn Thanks for listening.

Pt 2 covers implementation, overcoming barriers to this project, and Q&A. Pt 1 Covers policy definitions and priority policies, a process to create or revise your policies, and 2 polls. For templates: Free Resources for Building IT Policies at Nonprofits has a ton of links for you. Community IT Senior Consultant Nura Aboki and guest Jeff Gibson from Build Consulting took your questions on where to find nonprofit IT policy templates, how to overcome barriers and modify the templates to your organizational needs and strategic goals, and how to get the stakeholders on board and roll out training on the new policies to all staff. If you are feeling paralyzed about starting this project to create or revise your policies, this discussion will give you a roadmap on how to move forward. Learn about making IT governance work for your nonprofit.Is your nonprofit protected?In our work with clients over the twenty years we have been providing outsourced IT services, Community IT has frequently run into clients with no Acceptable Use Policy at all. In addition to protecting your organization from employee misuse of equipment, IT governance policies are strategic documents that need regular review to stay in alignment with your nonprofit's goals and tactics.If your organization has no IT governance documents or they haven't been updated in a while, this webinar teaches how and where to start creating these vital documents. Our panelists also shared their experiences and successful strategies to roll out these policies to all staff, and gave ideas on updating your training on these policies to be fun and engaging. The key takeaway? Collaborating: the IT department needs to work with other teams to incorporate various needs and insights. Your organization's protection from cyber crime and multiple legal issues rests on your staff understanding and following your IT policies. Don't get caught without policies you can rely on and refer back to when situations with cyber attacks or disgruntled employees arise.As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience.Community IT and Build Consulting are proudly vendor-agnostic and our webinars cover a range of topics and discussions. Webinars are never a sales pitch, always a way to share our knowledge with our community. _______________________________Start a conversation :) Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/ email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com on LinkedIn Thanks for listening.

Pt 1 Covers policy definitions and priority policies, a process to create or revise your policies, and 2 polls. Pt 2 covers implementation, overcoming barriers to this project, and Q&A.For templates: Free Resources for Building IT Policies at Nonprofits has a ton of links for you. Community IT Senior Consultant Nura Aboki and guest Jeff Gibson from Build Consulting took your questions on where to find nonprofit IT policy templates, how to overcome barriers and modify the templates to your organizational needs and strategic goals, and how to get the stakeholders on board and roll out training on the new policies to all staff. If you are feeling paralyzed about starting this project to create or revise your policies, this discussion will give you a roadmap on how to move forward. Learn about making IT governance work for your nonprofit.Is your nonprofit protected?In our work with clients over the twenty years we have been providing outsourced IT services, Community IT has frequently run into clients with no Acceptable Use Policy at all. In addition to protecting your organization from employee misuse of equipment, IT governance policies are strategic documents that need regular review to stay in alignment with your nonprofit's goals and tactics.If your organization has no IT governance documents or they haven't been updated in a while, this webinar teaches how and where to start creating these vital documents. Our panelists also shared their experiences and successful strategies to roll out these policies to all staff, and gave ideas on updating your training on these policies to be fun and engaging. The key takeaway? Collaborating: the IT department needs to work with other teams to incorporate various needs and insights. Your organization's protection from cyber crime and multiple legal issues rests on your staff understanding and following your IT policies. Don't get caught without policies you can rely on and refer back to when situations with cyber attacks or disgruntled employees arise.As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience.Community IT and Build Consulting are proudly vendor-agnostic and our webinars cover a range of topics and discussions. Webinars are never a sales pitch, always a way to share our knowledge with our community. _______________________________Start a conversation :) Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/ email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com on LinkedIn Thanks for listening.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Meta announces Llama 2; "open sources" it for commercial use, published by LawrenceC on July 18, 2023 on LessWrong. See also their Llama 2 website here:, and their research paper here:/ From their blog post: Takeaways Today, we're introducing the availability of Llama 2, the next generation of our open source large language model. Llama 2 is free for research and commercial use. Microsoft and Meta are expanding their longstanding partnership, with Microsoft as the preferred partner for Llama 2. We're opening access to Llama 2 with the support of a broad set of companies and people across tech, academia, and policy who also believe in an open innovation approach to today's AI technologies. Compared to the first Llama, LLama 2 is trained for 2T tokens instead of 1.4T, has 2x the context length (4096 instead of 2048), uses Grouped Query Attention, and performs better across the board, with performance generally exceeding code-davinci-002 on benchmarks: They also release both a normal base model (Llama 2) and a RLHF'ed chat model (Llama 2-chat). Interestingly, they're only releasing the 7B/13B/70B models, and not the 34B model, "due to a lack of time to sufficiently red team". More importantly, they're releasing it both on Microsoft Azure and also making it available for commercial use. The form for requesting access is very straightforward and does not require stating what you're using it for: (EDIT: they gave me access ~20 minutes after submitting the form, seems pretty straightforward.) Note that their license is not technically free for commercial use always; it contains the following clauses: [1.] v. You will not use the Llama Materials or any output or results of the Llama Materials to improve any other large language model (excluding Llama 2 or derivative works thereof). 2. Additional Commercial Terms. If, on the Llama 2 version release date, the monthly active users of the products or services made available by or for Licensee, or Licensee's affiliates, is greater than 700 million monthly active users in the preceding calendar month, you must request a license from Meta, which Meta may grant to you in its sole discretion, and you are not authorized to exercise any of the rights under this Agreement unless or until Meta otherwise expressly grants you such rights. See also the Llama 2 Acceptable Use Policy (which seems pretty standard). Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org.

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Meta announces Llama 2; "open sources" it for commercial use, published by LawrenceC on July 18, 2023 on LessWrong. See also their Llama 2 website here:, and their research paper here:/ From their blog post: Takeaways Today, we're introducing the availability of Llama 2, the next generation of our open source large language model. Llama 2 is free for research and commercial use. Microsoft and Meta are expanding their longstanding partnership, with Microsoft as the preferred partner for Llama 2. We're opening access to Llama 2 with the support of a broad set of companies and people across tech, academia, and policy who also believe in an open innovation approach to today's AI technologies. Compared to the first Llama, LLama 2 is trained for 2T tokens instead of 1.4T, has 2x the context length (4096 instead of 2048), uses Grouped Query Attention, and performs better across the board, with performance generally exceeding code-davinci-002 on benchmarks: They also release both a normal base model (Llama 2) and a RLHF'ed chat model (Llama 2-chat). Interestingly, they're only releasing the 7B/13B/70B models, and not the 34B model, "due to a lack of time to sufficiently red team". More importantly, they're releasing it both on Microsoft Azure and also making it available for commercial use. The form for requesting access is very straightforward and does not require stating what you're using it for: (EDIT: they gave me access ~20 minutes after submitting the form, seems pretty straightforward.) Note that their license is not technically free for commercial use always; it contains the following clauses: [1.] v. You will not use the Llama Materials or any output or results of the Llama Materials to improve any other large language model (excluding Llama 2 or derivative works thereof). 2. Additional Commercial Terms. If, on the Llama 2 version release date, the monthly active users of the products or services made available by or for Licensee, or Licensee's affiliates, is greater than 700 million monthly active users in the preceding calendar month, you must request a license from Meta, which Meta may grant to you in its sole discretion, and you are not authorized to exercise any of the rights under this Agreement unless or until Meta otherwise expressly grants you such rights. See also the Llama 2 Acceptable Use Policy (which seems pretty standard). Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Meta announces Llama 2; "open sources" it for commercial use, published by Lawrence Chan on July 18, 2023 on The AI Alignment Forum. See also their Llama 2 website here:, and their research paper here:/ From their blog post: Takeaways Today, we're introducing the availability of Llama 2, the next generation of our open source large language model. Llama 2 is free for research and commercial use. Microsoft and Meta are expanding their longstanding partnership, with Microsoft as the preferred partner for Llama 2. We're opening access to Llama 2 with the support of a broad set of companies and people across tech, academia, and policy who also believe in an open innovation approach to today's AI technologies. Compared to the first Llama, LLama 2 is trained for 2T tokens instead of 1.4T, has 2x the context length (4096 instead of 2048), uses Grouped Query Attention, and performs better across the board, with performance generally exceeding code-davinci-002 on benchmarks: More importantly, they're releasing it both on Microsoft Azure and also making it available for commercial use. The form for requesting access is very straightforward and does not require stating what you're using it for: Note that their license is not technically free for commercial use always; it contains the following clauses: [1.] v. You will not use the Llama Materials or any output or results of the Llama Materials to improve any other large language model (excluding Llama 2 or derivative works thereof). 2. Additional Commercial Terms. If, on the Llama 2 version release date, the monthly active users of the products or services made available by or for Licensee, or Licensee's affiliates, is greater than 700 million monthly active users in the preceding calendar month, you must request a license from Meta, which Meta may grant to you in its sole discretion, and you are not authorized to exercise any of the rights under this Agreement unless or until Meta otherwise expressly grants you such rights. See also the Llama 2 Acceptable Use Policy (which seems pretty standard). Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org.

Community IT CEO Johan Hammerstrom runs through the three highest priorities for nonprofits that want to work remotely and need the IT support to do that.Community IT is seeing a huge increase in inquiries from nonprofits looking to downsize entirely and permanently from the expenses of an office that they no longer need. But without a physical office, do you need different IT support? The answer is yes, and luckily new tools and IT management processes allow entirely remote work force to be supported entirely remotely, nationally, no matter where you are working from. Our colleagues like to call this “flexible” work, because it can happen from home, from a coffee shop, while you are traveling, even back in a hybrid office at a borrowed desk. If you are considering going fully remote, or have gone remote but are worried about the implications of that on your IT, this podcast can help you get started assessing your new needs.Key Takeaways:Device managementHave you updated your Acceptable Use Policy lately? New telephony optionsIf you are already using Teams, for example, you can add on phone service licenses and keep all your calling in one place. Cybersecurity check-upThe attacks on identity and attempts to con you through spoofed emails, phishing attacks, and wire transfer fraud keep increasing. Is your staff still protected if they are all working remotely? Do you need extra, or different, cybersecurity protections? Can outsourced IT help remote workers as well as the in-person IT used to help keep the physical office running smoothly? Check out our 12 Questions to Ask Your Managed Services Provider download. _______________________________Start a conversation :) Register to attend a webinar in real time, and find all past transcripts at https://communityit.com/webinars/ email Carolyn at cwoodard@communityit.com tweet us @CommunityIT Thanks for listening.

Benjamin Jones from the Free Speech Union joined me on this podcast to discuss their case against PayPal, who the Free Speech Union are and why they are needed in modern Britain!   Having been banned by paypal they issued this statement - "On 15 September, PayPal notified the Free Speech Union that it had closed its account, effective immediately. The reason given was that we had breached the company's Acceptable Use Policy, but no detail was provided. We contacted a customer service agent, but she could throw no light on the matter. We wrote to the CEO of PayPal UK and the Corporate Affairs Department of PayPal UK and PayPal US, but got no reply. We had effectively been accused, charged, tried, convicted and sentenced in one fell swoop, with no possibility of parole." https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/19721947.university-investigated-kathleen-stock-forced-quit/  https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/2022/09/unherd-paypal-shuts-down-the-free-speech-unions-account/  https://www.thenational.scot/news/22429623.toby-young-paypal-accounts-ban-gender-critical-discrimination-says-snps-joanna-cherry/  https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/985033/Draft_Online_Safety_Bill_Bookmarked.pdf  https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-online-harms-bill-still-threatens-free-speech-and-privacy/  https://freespeechunion.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Payment-Processors-Crowdfunding-Platforms.pdf  https://freespeechunion.org/how-free-speech-friendly-are-the-major-payment-processors-and-crowdfunding-platforms/  https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/tv/paypal-issues-2200-fine-warning-25258507  https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/10/10/paypal-fine-for-misinformation/  Guys in the Flag Jackets - https://www.buzzsprout.com/1895712  Check out OpenAudible - https://openaudible.org/  Sign Up For The Chance To Win A Free Copy - https://www.getrevue.co/profile/thejist  HELP ME CROWDFUND MY GAMESTOP BOOK. Go to https://wen-moon.com  to join the crowdfunding campaign and pre-order To The Moon: The GameStop Saga! You can listen to the show on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/76UxJtSxGEUg4ZCF0TKLpB  Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/chatter/id1273192590  Google Podcasts - https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5wb2RpYW50LmNvL2NoYXR0ZXIvcnNzLnhtbA  And all major podcast platforms.  Watch Us On Odysee.com - https://odysee.com/$/invite/@TheJist:4   Sign up and watch videos to earn crypto-currency!  Buy Brexit: The Establishment Civil War - https://amzn.to/39XXVjq  Mailing List - https://www.getrevue.co/profile/thejist  Twitter - https://twitter.com/Give_Me_TheJist  Website - https://thejist.co.uk/  Music from Just Jim – https://soundcloud.com/justjim 

Cyber attacks targetting small businesses that often do not have the resources to defend against devastating attacks like ransomware have grown. As a small business CEO or CIO, you have likely come across outdated security advice that does not help prevent the most common attacks. The security landscape has changed, and your cybersecurity knowledge needs to evolve with it. Here are 5 tips to get you started:Establish a culture of [cyber] security Talk about cybersecurity to leadership and staff, communicate cybersecurity program initiatives in your regular communications, and set measurable quarterly cybersecurity goals are just a few examples.Hire a vCISO or part-time CISO Due to the ever-changing nature of the cybersecurity threat environment, consider having a part-time CISO (vCISO) on a retainer to assist your organization with all cybersecurity initiatives. A vCISO can lead your staff in developing DRP, IRP, Acceptable Use Policy, Cybersecurity Policy, Remote Access requirements, etc.Develop and implement an incident response plan (IRP)An incident response plan (IRP) has different objectives depending on the author; if the authoring source is IT, the IRP will focus on service restoration; however, investigating a cyber incident and potentially a forensic investigation will be a cybersecurity function, where a vCISO could assist your organization.Perform regular tabletop exercisesRegular simulation exercises, such as tabletop exercises, will condition your team to respond appropriately to incidents.Support IT LeadersThere are places where the support of a vCISO, CIO, and CEO is critical, especially when a good cybersecurity program will require the help of every staff member in your organization. For example, don't rely on the IT team to persuade busy employees to use Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA); instead, have your vCISO or CEO make the announcement.========Blog: https://www.execcybered.com/blogTraining: https://www.execcybered.com/iso27001foundationcourseLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/exceccybered/Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrBillSouzaInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbillsouza/Thanks.Dr. Bill SouzaCEO | Founderwww.execcybered.com

Cyber attacks targetting small businesses that often do not have the resources to defend against devastating attacks like ransomware have grown. As a small business CEO or CIO, you have likely come across outdated security advice that does not help prevent the most common attacks. The security landscape has changed, and your cybersecurity knowledge needs to evolve with it. Here are 5 tips to get you started:Establish a culture of [cyber] security Talk about cybersecurity to leadership and staff, communicate cybersecurity program initiatives in your regular communications, and set measurable quarterly cybersecurity goals are just a few examples.Hire a vCISO or part-time CISO Due to the ever-changing nature of the cybersecurity threat environment, consider having a part-time CISO (vCISO) on a retainer to assist your organization with all cybersecurity initiatives. A vCISO can lead your staff in developing DRP, IRP, Acceptable Use Policy, Cybersecurity Policy, Remote Access requirements, etc.Develop and implement an incident response plan (IRP)An incident response plan (IRP) has different objectives depending on the author; if the authoring source is IT, the IRP will focus on service restoration; however, investigating a cyber incident and potentially a forensic investigation will be a cybersecurity function, where a vCISO could assist your organization.Perform regular tabletop exercisesRegular simulation exercises, such as tabletop exercises, will condition your team to respond appropriately to incidents.Support IT LeadersThere are places where the support of a vCISO, CIO, and CEO is critical, especially when a good cybersecurity program will require the help of every staff member in your organization. For example, don't rely on the IT team to persuade busy employees to use Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA); instead, have your vCISO or CEO make the announcement.========Blog: https://www.execcybered.com/blogTraining: https://www.execcybered.com/iso27001foundationcourseLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/exceccybered/Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrBillSouzaInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbillsouza/Thanks.Dr. Bill SouzaCEO | Founderwww.execcybered.com

Bitcoin was built in reaction to all the money printing that went on in the wake of the financial crisis. The Times' headline “Chancellor on Brink of Second Bailout for Banks” was even embedded into the very first block in the blockchain – the genesis block. Here was a money system that nobody, whether government or hacker, could print or debase. The rules were set in code. The inflation rate was clearly laid out. And the system, rather than rely on trust – whether in banks, central banks, payment providers or governments – was based on mathematical proof and computer power.So here is an apolitical, censorship-resistant, trust-less, hard money.And we saw a very good use case for it this week.PayPal plays the cancel gameJournalist Toby Young, who is associate editor of The Spectator, has, for as long as I've known him, been setting up organisations to try and improve people's lives. Disappointed with the lowering of standards in schools, he was one of the founders of the first Free School in West London. In 2020 he set up the Free Speech Union to help defend people threatened with cancellation. And his news and commentary website the Daily Sceptic was born in reaction to all the misinformation and censorship, especially by big tech, that emerged during Covid. Young's views are actually pretty moderate. He's a centre right, old school Conservative. But his ideological enemies do not like him at all and they work tirelessly to bring him down. He has lost something like five jobs because of what he calls the “offence archaeologists” digging up things he said decades ago, quoting them out of context and then being offended.Last week, PayPal, out of the blue, closed down his personal account for “breaching its Acceptable Use Policy”. Then, barely a few minutes later, it shut down the account for his news and commentary website the Daily Sceptic. Then a few minutes after that it closed down the accounts for the Free Speech Union.This is no small disruption, and it undoes the many hours, days, months and years of hard work his team have put in building up their subscriber bases. About a quarter of the Daily Sceptic's donor revenue arrives via PayPal and a third of the Free Speech Union's 9,500 members pay their dues via PayPal, Young says.Young says, “I did some Googling and discovered that numerous organisations and individuals with dissident political views have had their accounts closed by PayPal recently, particularly on the three issues you're not allowed to be sceptical about: the lockdown policy and other Covid restrictions, the mRNA vaccines, and the ‘climate emergency.The Daily Sceptic frequently publishes articles on those subjects and the Free Speech Union may have fallen foul of another taboo – defending people who've got into trouble with HR departments for expressing their gender critical views.” How is PayPal able to do this without warning? Because it can.Young is by no means the first. It did the same thing to Wikileaks in 2010, probably under pressure from the US government about whom Wikileaks was disclosing unwanted information. (Unfortunately, this backfired as donors began using bitcoin and the bitcoin Wikileaks received rocketed in value to make Wikileaks a potentially very rich organisation (assuming it managed to hold on to some of them).It did the same to Alex Jones. Earlier in the year it cancelled academic and biologist Colin Wright for articulating his criticisms of the view that sex is a social construct. Just yesterday Us For Them, the parent group which campaigned to keep schools open during Covid lost their account, and so did another group Gays Against Groomers.PayPal founder Peter Thiel is an outspoken libertarian and probably on the same philosophical side of the argument as Young, but he is also a businessman. Paypal will do whatever is asked of it in order to survive. You can be sure that, in order to survive as a business and effectively become a challenger bank, especially early in its evolution, it will have had to demonstrate that it could not be used as a vehicle for any kind of illicit activity, especially money-laundering, and this is why it can be so stringent. It will toe the line wherever necessary.But Thiel is no longer Paypal's CEO and, like so much of big tech, what started out one way is now not on board with the free speech ideals of its founders, as evidenced by all the censorship that goes on. Indeed more and more evidence is growing that big tech, especially Twitter, is censoring content according to the instructions of the US government.A number of prominent individuals have spoken up in favour of Young - from Lord Frost to Joanna Clery to Luke Johnson - and a number of others have closed their PayPal accounts, so it may be that the Young accounts get re-instated under pressure.But the moral of the tale remains. You are using trusted third parties that can no longer be trusted. If you use non-government money - ie bitcoin - the taps cannot be turned off quite so easily.The Flying Frisby is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Separating money and stateMore than anything else, in every book or every column I've ever written , I have argued for one thing: the separation of money and state.When one body in a society has the ability to create money at little or no cost to itself, it is inevitable that body will have disproportionate power and influence within that society. If you are looking to understand how it is the state in western societies has grown to be so enormous - something like 50% of GDP compared to the 10% area it occupied at the turn of the 20th century - then look no further than our system of fiat money.If you want to understand the inequality gap, why young people can't afford a house, all that - look no further than our system of moneyIf you are looking to understand why western families so small, look no further than our system of money, in which government now owns more than 50% of your labour.  The primary reason given when asked why people have small families is that they can't afford bigger ones. Both parents are having to work. The government - at over 50% - is their biggest cost. Only the very bottom on large welfare and the very rich can afford big families The 90% in the middle can't. So we import our youth from abroad instead and then wonder why British culture is being eroded away. It's the same across the west.Of course some states are more benign than others and our 21st century social democracies, for all their woeful waste, are preferable to many of the governing systems found in other, more tyrannical corners of the earth, but the damage has still been enormous and now we seem to be careering towards a far more nefarious destination.Money should just be money - a means of exchange, a store of value and a unit of account. Instead it has become a tool of government. A weapon of government.Whether it is suppressing interest rates to boost the housing market, printing money to bail out banks or the entire economy during Covid or freezing the accounts of political enemies (the truckers in Canada, or the entire country that is Russia), finance is being weaponised. Governments weaponise money because it is an easy tool for them to get the results they want quickly. It's a lot easier to sanction Russia and freeze it out of the banking system than it is to go to war. It's easier to cut off the truckers' funding than it is to confront them. It's a lot easier - and quicker - to print the money you need to bail out the banking system than it is to collect it in taxes – which is what rulers from another age would have had to do. It's a lot easier to suppress interest rates and collect the inflation tax than it is to impose direct taxes or rein in spending.But the net result of all of this is that money gets debased, the state grows and is empowered, the inequality gap gets bigger, freedom is eroded, families get smaller, nobody can afford a house and yet more government becomes the answer to everything. We get top down diktats instead of bottom up growth. One decision up top counts for way more than the aggregation of millions of individual decisions from the bottom. And so on.The weaponisation have money has already begun. The irony of such actions is that, as with Wikileaks, they will accelerate the adoption of censor-free, non-state alternatives, of which bitcoin is the most prominent example. The US, by confiscating Russian dollars and freezing it of the banking system, will accelerate the creation of a non-US international system of money to be used by nations, especially Russia and China, that do not want to be beholden to the dollar. In the long term it may backfire, but in the short term it works: it shuts off the funding taps and creates considerable hardship and inconvenience.What to do? I use Paypal all the time, as buyer and seller. It's convenient. But I really should switch to another payment processor. The others may not be as censorious as PayPal, but they will be if pressured, you can be sure of that. Do not leave large amounts of money with these companies.As we head into a cashless society we are even more vulnerable. This is why the prospect of central bank digital currencies, which, by the way, are almost inevitable - technology is destiny - fills me with such dread. Programmable money will give the state even more control and influence. Your every transaction can be monitored, putting us in the world of Orwellian surveillance states. Certain transactions could simply be outlawed. You might not, for example, be able to buy from or sell to bodies that are not government approved. Taxes and fines can be deducted without your approval. Central bank digital currencies give huge scope to behavioural economists and the ministries of nudges. You can be goaded into all sorts of decisions you might not otherwise have made. Social credits systems can be imposed. Are you a good citizen? Then you get the favourable rate of interest, good loan deals and other incentives. Do you articulate wrong-thought on the internet? Did you not have the vaccine, like we asked you to? Are you suggesting the climate emergency is not real? Then you will be given less favourable rates. If you are a really naughty boy, your account might be frozen altogether.I gather that the European Central Bank and perhaps even the Bank of England already have the tech ready to go for CBDCs. They are just waiting for the crisis to implement them.In such a world, and that does seem to be where we are heading, there is a very strong use case for bitcoin. I urge you to own some.If you are in London or nearby on September 28 or 29, please come to my lecture with funny bits, How Heavy?, about the history of weights and measures. It's in the West End at the Museum of Comedy and it's a 7-8pm show so you can come along and go out for dinner after. You can buy tickets here. This is a very interesting subject - effectively how you perceive the world. Hope to see you there.If you want to buy physical gold silver, my recommended bullion dealer is the Pure Gold Company with whom I have an affiliation deal.If you want to buy bitcoin, my guide is here:The Flying Frisby is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.A shorter version of this article first appeared at Moneyweek. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

Bitcoin was built in reaction to all the money printing that went on in the wake of the financial crisis. The Times' headline “Chancellor on Brink of Second Bailout for Banks” was even embedded into the very first block in the blockchain – the genesis block. Here was a money system that nobody, whether government or hacker, could print or debase. The rules were set in code. The inflation rate was clearly laid out. And the system, rather than rely on trust – whether in banks, central banks, payment providers or governments – was based on mathematical proof and computer power.So here is an apolitical, censorship-resistant, trust-less, hard money.And we saw a very good use case for it this week.PayPal plays the cancel gameJournalist Toby Young, who is associate editor of The Spectator, has, for as long as I've known him, been setting up organisations to try and improve people's lives. Disappointed with the lowering of standards in schools, he was one of the founders of the first Free School in West London. In 2020 he set up the Free Speech Union to help defend people threatened with cancellation. And his news and commentary website the Daily Sceptic was born in reaction to all the misinformation and censorship, especially by big tech, that emerged during Covid. Young's views are actually pretty moderate. He's a centre right, old school Conservative. But his ideological enemies do not like him at all and they work tirelessly to bring him down. He has lost something like five jobs because of what he calls the “offence archaeologists” digging up things he said decades ago, quoting them out of context and then being offended.Last week, PayPal, out of the blue, closed down his personal account for “breaching its Acceptable Use Policy”. Then, barely a few minutes later, it shut down the account for his news and commentary website the Daily Sceptic. Then a few minutes after that it closed down the accounts for the Free Speech Union.This is no small disruption, and it undoes the many hours, days, months and years of hard work his team have put in building up their subscriber bases. About a quarter of the Daily Sceptic's donor revenue arrives via PayPal and a third of the Free Speech Union's 9,500 members pay their dues via PayPal, Young says.Young says, “I did some Googling and discovered that numerous organisations and individuals with dissident political views have had their accounts closed by PayPal recently, particularly on the three issues you're not allowed to be sceptical about: the lockdown policy and other Covid restrictions, the mRNA vaccines, and the ‘climate emergency.The Daily Sceptic frequently publishes articles on those subjects and the Free Speech Union may have fallen foul of another taboo – defending people who've got into trouble with HR departments for expressing their gender critical views.” How is PayPal able to do this without warning? Because it can.Young is by no means the first. It did the same thing to Wikileaks in 2010, probably under pressure from the US government about whom Wikileaks was disclosing unwanted information. (Unfortunately, this backfired as donors began using bitcoin and the bitcoin Wikileaks received rocketed in value to make Wikileaks a potentially very rich organisation (assuming it managed to hold on to some of them).It did the same to Alex Jones. Earlier in the year it cancelled academic and biologist Colin Wright for articulating his criticisms of the view that sex is a social construct. Just yesterday Us For Them, the parent group which campaigned to keep schools open during Covid lost their account, and so did another group Gays Against Groomers.PayPal founder Peter Thiel is an outspoken libertarian and probably on the same philosophical side of the argument as Young, but he is also a businessman. Paypal will do whatever is asked of it in order to survive. You can be sure that, in order to survive as a business and effectively become a challenger bank, especially early in its evolution, it will have had to demonstrate that it could not be used as a vehicle for any kind of illicit activity, especially money-laundering, and this is why it can be so stringent. It will toe the line wherever necessary.But Thiel is no longer Paypal's CEO and, like so much of big tech, what started out one way is now not on board with the free speech ideals of its founders, as evidenced by all the censorship that goes on. Indeed more and more evidence is growing that big tech, especially Twitter, is censoring content according to the instructions of the US government.A number of prominent individuals have spoken up in favour of Young - from Lord Frost to Joanna Clery to Luke Johnson - and a number of others have closed their PayPal accounts, so it may be that the Young accounts get re-instated under pressure.But the moral of the tale remains. You are using trusted third parties that can no longer be trusted. If you use non-government money - ie bitcoin - the taps cannot be turned off quite so easily.The Flying Frisby is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Separating money and stateMore than anything else, in every book or every column I've ever written , I have argued for one thing: the separation of money and state.When one body in a society has the ability to create money at little or no cost to itself, it is inevitable that body will have disproportionate power and influence within that society. If you are looking to understand how it is the state in western societies has grown to be so enormous - something like 50% of GDP compared to the 10% area it occupied at the turn of the 20th century - then look no further than our system of fiat money.If you want to understand the inequality gap, why young people can't afford a house, all that - look no further than our system of moneyIf you are looking to understand why western families so small, look no further than our system of money, in which government now owns more than 50% of your labour.  The primary reason given when asked why people have small families is that they can't afford bigger ones. Both parents are having to work. The government - at over 50% - is their biggest cost. Only the very bottom on large welfare and the very rich can afford big families The 90% in the middle can't. So we import our youth from abroad instead and then wonder why British culture is being eroded away. It's the same across the west.Of course some states are more benign than others and our 21st century social democracies, for all their woeful waste, are preferable to many of the governing systems found in other, more tyrannical corners of the earth, but the damage has still been enormous and now we seem to be careering towards a far more nefarious destination.Money should just be money - a means of exchange, a store of value and a unit of account. Instead it has become a tool of government. A weapon of government.Whether it is suppressing interest rates to boost the housing market, printing money to bail out banks or the entire economy during Covid or freezing the accounts of political enemies (the truckers in Canada, or the entire country that is Russia), finance is being weaponised. Governments weaponise money because it is an easy tool for them to get the results they want quickly. It's a lot easier to sanction Russia and freeze it out of the banking system than it is to go to war. It's easier to cut off the truckers' funding than it is to confront them. It's a lot easier - and quicker - to print the money you need to bail out the banking system than it is to collect it in taxes – which is what rulers from another age would have had to do. It's a lot easier to suppress interest rates and collect the inflation tax than it is to impose direct taxes or rein in spending.But the net result of all of this is that money gets debased, the state grows and is empowered, the inequality gap gets bigger, freedom is eroded, families get smaller, nobody can afford a house and yet more government becomes the answer to everything. We get top down diktats instead of bottom up growth. One decision up top counts for way more than the aggregation of millions of individual decisions from the bottom. And so on.The weaponisation have money has already begun. The irony of such actions is that, as with Wikileaks, they will accelerate the adoption of censor-free, non-state alternatives, of which bitcoin is the most prominent example. The US, by confiscating Russian dollars and freezing it of the banking system, will accelerate the creation of a non-US international system of money to be used by nations, especially Russia and China, that do not want to be beholden to the dollar. In the long term it may backfire, but in the short term it works: it shuts off the funding taps and creates considerable hardship and inconvenience.What to do? I use Paypal all the time, as buyer and seller. It's convenient. But I really should switch to another payment processor. The others may not be as censorious as PayPal, but they will be if pressured, you can be sure of that. Do not leave large amounts of money with these companies.As we head into a cashless society we are even more vulnerable. This is why the prospect of central bank digital currencies, which, by the way, are almost inevitable - technology is destiny - fills me with such dread. Programmable money will give the state even more control and influence. Your every transaction can be monitored, putting us in the world of Orwellian surveillance states. Certain transactions could simply be outlawed. You might not, for example, be able to buy from or sell to bodies that are not government approved. Taxes and fines can be deducted without your approval. Central bank digital currencies give huge scope to behavioural economists and the ministries of nudges. You can be goaded into all sorts of decisions you might not otherwise have made. Social credits systems can be imposed. Are you a good citizen? Then you get the favourable rate of interest, good loan deals and other incentives. Do you articulate wrong-thought on the internet? Did you not have the vaccine, like we asked you to? Are you suggesting the climate emergency is not real? Then you will be given less favourable rates. If you are a really naughty boy, your account might be frozen altogether.I gather that the European Central Bank and perhaps even the Bank of England already have the tech ready to go for CBDCs. They are just waiting for the crisis to implement them.In such a world, and that does seem to be where we are heading, there is a very strong use case for bitcoin. I urge you to own some.If you are in London or nearby on September 28 or 29, please come to my lecture with funny bits, How Heavy?, about the history of weights and measures. It's in the West End at the Museum of Comedy and it's a 7-8pm show so you can come along and go out for dinner after. You can buy tickets here. This is a very interesting subject - effectively how you perceive the world. Hope to see you there.If you want to buy physical gold silver, my recommended bullion dealer is the Pure Gold Company with whom I have an affiliation deal.If you want to buy bitcoin, my guide is here:The Flying Frisby is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.A shorter version of this article first appeared at Moneyweek. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit frisby.substack.com/subscribe

Donald Trump is currently facing a lawsuit in New York due to reported fraud. The Washington Post reports:   The lawsuit accuses Trump, the Trump organization and three of his children — Trump Jr., Eric and Ivanka — of business fraud and misrepresenting their finances for personal gain. It also names Trump's longtime chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, who recently pleaded guilty to tax crimes, and Trump Organization controller Jeffrey McConney. It seeks to recover $250 million and severely restrict the defendants from conducting business in the state moving forward.    An anti-groomer group, Gays Against Groomers, has recently been banned from using Venmo and PayPal. Fox Business has the story:   "We've never gotten a violation before. They said that we violated, though, their user agreements, which, we're not sure what in the agreement we violated," Mitchell said. "There was no really detailed message to that. Just the notification that we have been banned."  PayPal and Venmo did not answer questions about what agreements Gays Against Groomers violated or whether it would be eligible to have its accounts restored.  "PayPal has a long-standing and consistent Acceptable Use Policy," PayPal and Venmo wrote in a statement to FOX Business. "We take action when we deem that individuals or organizations have violated this policy. Per company policy, PayPal does not disclose specific account information for current or former customers."  Also, Vince reads texts from the text line and takes your calls. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression is calling out UMass Lowell for what they claim is a ban on protected speech. The school's Acceptable Use Policy prohibits students from using the internet to send or receive “pornographic, offensive or harassing material.” What categorizes as offensive or harassment? FIRE Director of Policy Reform Laura Beltz joined Dan to discuss. UMass Lowell denied our invitation.

All links and images for this episode can be found on CISO Series Every organization has an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) for their computers and network. Nobody reads it and everybody violates it. How the heck do you enforce or discipline people who violate your company's AUP? This week's episode is hosted by me, David Spark (@dspark), producer of CISO Series and Andy Ellis (@csoandy), operating partner, YL Ventures. Our sponsored guest is Matt Radolec, senior director, incident response and cloud operations, Varonis. Thanks to our podcast sponsor, Varonis On average, an employee can access 17 million files on day one. Varonis will show you where critical data is vulnerable, detect anomalies, and automatically right-size privileges to get you to “Zero Trust.” Their data security platform can test your ransomware readiness and show you where you stack up. Learn more at www.varonis.com/cisoseries. In this episode: Why do tabletop exercises fail? How should we deal with AUPs that do not get read? Is cyber resiliency an overused term? How valuable are visual detection techniques?

RIP OnlyFans. It was bound to happen, sooner or later. It's just me this week for an early and emergency-style BONUS episode. If you've been living under a rock lately or have been disconnected over the past 48 hours, you might be surprised to hear of the new changes to OnlyFans' Acceptable Use Policy coming into effect on October 1st, 2021. On Thursday, August 19, 2021, OnlyFans announced that they were to be banning sexually explicit content from their platform. What does this exactly entail? Who's affected by it? What other platforms can sex workers move onto? I answer all of these questions and address all of the major concerns surrounding the platform, including the motivations behind it including pressure from big banks and payment processors, OnlyFans cleansing its “porn” reputation, its new verification process, and so much more. *Please note that I recorded this episode earlier this afternoon on Friday, August 20th and once I finished recorded, checked my email and saw that OnlyFans has, indeed, confirmed the changes in a statement. My in-real-time reaction can be listened to at the 46:00-minute mark which further confirmed my suspicious which were raised earlier in the episode. A list of some other SW-friendly (as of 2021) platforms: AVN Stars MFC Chaturbate ManyVids Clips4Sale Fansly Just for Fans FanCentro Admire Me Iz My Girl SnapChat Premium Don't forget to LIKE, RATE, SHARE, REVIEW and SUBSCRIBE! @strippedbysia @siasteph twitter.com/strippedbysia

(Topic begins at 0:20:30 mark): Happy anniversary? Druff talks about 10-year anniversary of fallout with good friend, which led to PFA's creation.... (1:41:30): Controversial early 2010s poker pro Matt Marafioti likely just committed suicide in New Jersey.... (2:28:44): Users on 2+2 go after Sklansky and Malmuth for past transgressions, now that they are no longer admins.... (3:23:32): WSOP publishes disturbing COVID disqualification policy, semi-retracts it, full truth still unknown.... (4:24:58): PayPal updates Acceptable Use Policy -- was it because of attorney Eric Bensamochan's upcoming class action suit?.... (4:40:10): Caesars Palace now charging guests a $75 fine for storing their own drinks in minibar.... (5:07:42): Update: Reason for Rio's 2-week non-acceptance of bookings now known.... (5:20:14): Caesars CEO claims company will sell Vegas casino in 2022.... (5:29:35): Southwet Airlines sues "Skiplagged" site for making people aware of cheaper ways to fly to major airports.... (6:34:32): Are children really in big danger due to Delta?.... tradershky co-hosts during the later hours.

(Topic begins at 0:20:30 mark): Happy anniversary? Druff talks about 10-year anniversary of fallout with good friend, which led to PFA's creation.... (1:41:30): Controversial early 2010s poker pro Matt Marafioti likely just committed suicide in New Jersey.... (2:28:44): Users on 2+2 go after Sklansky and Malmuth for past transgressions, now that they are no longer admins.... (3:23:32): WSOP publishes disturbing COVID disqualification policy, semi-retracts it, full truth still unknown.... (4:24:58): PayPal updates Acceptable Use Policy -- was it because of attorney Eric Bensamochan's upcoming class action suit?.... (4:40:10): Caesars Palace now charging guests a $75 fine for storing their own drinks in minibar.... (5:07:42): Update: Reason for Rio's 2-week non-acceptance of bookings now known.... (5:20:14): Caesars CEO claims company will sell Vegas casino in 2022.... (5:29:35): Southwet Airlines sues "Skiplagged" site for making people aware of cheaper ways to fly to major airports.... (6:34:32): Are children really in big danger due to Delta?.... tradershky co-hosts during the later hours.

In today’s DailyCyber Podcast I discuss the 25% increase in Ransomware in the first quarter in 2020. What to know and what should you do.Here are some facts for you from the Beazley Breach Insight Report: -Manufacturing Sector 156 % increase off incidents quarter to quarter-Financial Sector and Healthcare continue to be the most affected which together account to almost 50% of all ransomware attacks reported in Q1 of 2020  Q1 2020 Ransomware incidents:26% Financial Institution 24% Healthcare 9% Manufacturing 7% Professional services 6% Retail6% Education  For more information https://www.cisomag.com/ransomware-attacks-rise-q1-2020/ How to protect you and your company:1. Security systems are up to date2. Work from home systems   1. Are up to date and patched   2. Have up to date endpoint and/or anti-virus protection   3. Home network is secure   4. VPN connect to work   5. Family members on the home network are secure as well3. Cyber Security Awareness training   1. For employees and their families who are using the home network4. Corporate polices are up to date   1. Acceptable Use Policy   2. Disaster Recovery   3. Business Continuity   4. Incident Response   5. Breach Response   To learn more watch the video or listen to the podcast at www.DailyCyber.ca and comment below 

How do you protect yourself and what are the alternatives? Here's how to use Stripe with Wordpress. Before anything else, make a phone call to PayPal. Prevention is better than cure, so ask them to look through your marketing material. Notify them if you have an upcoming launch and email aup@paypal to talk to their Acceptable Use Policy team to make sure you're not in violation. Secondly set up an alternative called Stripe. It has a lower transaction fees, and a lower chargeback. Here's how to set it up on your Wordpress site. I'll give you two options and both are easy. #paypalalternative #stripewordpress #business #entrepreneurship #paypal #stripe #wordpress __ Join Profit Copilot: ➡️ https://profitcopilot.com/join __ RELATED: ▶ Make PASSIVE INCOME Online Workshop (Free Course) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb6qJdxwGyM ▶ Tutorial: Create a Wordpress Website in 2019 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUubAQrzbP0 ▶ The Ultimate Guide To Making Money From Your Website https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJq_mBuXr2A&t=152s __ FREE DOWNLOADS: ➡️ 3 traffic methods: https://profitcopilot.com/traffic Learn my passive income model: ➡️ https://profitcopilot.com/passiveincome: __ COURSES: ➡️ Traffic Secrets: (FULL COURSE) https://profitcopilot.com/trafficsecrets ➡️ Make digital products (FULL COURSE) https://profitcopilot.com/infoprod __ SOCIAL: ▶ Community: https://facebook.com/groups/profitcopilot ▶ Blog: https://profitcopilot.com ▶ Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Profit-Copilot-1054684811288971/ ▶ Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/profitcopilot ▶ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/profitcopilot __ Profit Copilot Podcast: ▶ iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/profit-copilot-get-more-web-traffic-sales/id1239386207 ▶ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7s1uE9dH39pa4UhOiwjI7h?si=5fUXyQMNQlWiGcE6rmE4VQ ▶ Google Play: https://play.google.com/music/listen#/ps/I7selaczbk2gn3rnuqflacussca ▶ Stitcher: http://stitcher.com/s?fid=176801&refid=stpr

A long-awaited video. ********Ways to Support: ▸ http:/ [...]

"There are other ways to view the world and experience [...]

PayPal permanently suspended my JTOL account in August [...]

The Ultimate Pinterest Marketing Guide: How to Improve Your Reach and Promote Your Brand If you still think Facebook and Twitter are the be-all and end-all of social media marketing tools, think again. Say “Hi” to your business’s new best friend – Pinterest. Pinterest pins are 100 times more spreadable than a tweet, with the retweet average hitting only 1.4%. And, as for Facebook, the half-life of a pin is 1,600 x longer than a Facebook post  Since the recent Instagram purchase by Facebook, Pinterest has become the hot ticket item for business marketing. And that’s for good reason. If an increase of 27% in Pinterest accounts of Fortune 500 companies over the last year (including Exxon Mobile, Wal-Mart, and Apple) isn’t an indication that your business should be joining the 70 million total users, I don’t know what would be. Aside from feeding obsessions with exotic destiny vacations and gourmet food, the real strength of Pinterest is the integrated features of their business accounts. Join the 500,000 businesses with Pinterest for Business accounts, and you’ll get added marketing features to promote your brand on one of the fastest growing and insanely popular social media platforms. Pinterest for Business is Different from Your Personal Account: The Added Benefits: If you don’t have an account already, or if your account is personal, you’re going to need to sign up for an official Pinterest for Business account in order to tap into the full potential of Pinterest’s marketing potency. With your business account, you get: Different Terms of Service The terms of service are a little bit different for a business, so be sure to read through them. The difference comes from the fact that you are using the account commercially. You’ve still got the same Acceptable Use Policy and Pin Etiquette Policy, but there are a few guidelines for commercial use: Don’t promote spam, “such as asking participants to comment repeatedly.” Don’t “run a sweepstakes where each pin, repin, or like represents an entry. [or] ask pinners to vote with a repin or like.” Don’t run contests, sweepstakes or promotions “too often.” Don’t “suggest that Pinterest sponsors or endorses” your business. Pinterest Analytics Pinterest Analytics is one of the  most awesome features of a Pinterest for Business account. When you verify your account, you get access to important tracking information. You’ll be able to see which strategies and content work so you can constantly improve your marketing. How to Create Popular Pins Your pins can get the kind of engagement  for your business if you execute them right. Pinterest has been described by Social Media Examiner as a visual search engine. So, just like when you are writing your blog articles or posting on your business Instagram account, you want your content to be searchable. If it’s not searchable, then it won’t be found or seen. Therefore, before you grab that mouse to start pinning, you have to understand the Pinterest culture, a.k.a. what your followers search for, and learn how to create popular pins. Most Popular Categories If you know what the most popular Pinterest categories are, then you’ll have a better idea of which boards will work for your business.  while 80% of users are female, men are starting to catch the Pinterest bug. In the past year, the number of male users has DOUBLED, making them Pinterest’s fastest growing demographic. Images that Work One quick perusal of Pinterest, and it’s clear how visual a site it is. With such an emphasis on the visual impact, your images are the cornerstone of any pin you share. What makes the top Pinterest pins so popular? Optimal Pin Size All pins have the same width, with an unlimited length. A good size to shoot for is 736×1102 pixels for a typical pin. It’s not too big, and not too small. Canva’s Pinterest template is this size and makes sizing your images a lot easier. Instructographics Sometimes it’s good to take advantage of the longer length allotment. The term instructographic was coined by Pinterest, and is another name for infographic. These are popular because of their DIY, how-to nature, which we know is the second most popular category! How to Get Your Pins Seen and Shared: Optimising Your Pins It’s one thing to create a fantastic pin, but it’s a whole other game to get it seen and shared. No one is going to find your pin if you don’t optimize it for engagement. Make It Easy to Pin Content from Your Sites Add a hovering Pin It button to any image on any of your sites or your phone app through Pinterest directly. Or, if you use WordPress, there’s a Pinterest Pin It Hover button plugin. These simple-to-integrate buttons direct your site visitors to either check out your Pinterest account or actually pin your site’s content on their own accounts. If you don’t have these buttons, there is little chance your site will bring ANY interaction with your Pinterest account. Connect with Your Other Social Media Platforms You don’t want to have to start over with followers when you create a new social media account. It’s super easy to connect your Twitter and Facebook accounts to your Pinterest for Business account. This will help you get more followers by tapping into the ones you already have on other platforms. It also will help spread your content across platforms so more eyeballs see it. And, it will add Twitter and Facebook buttons to your Pinterest account. To connect your social media accounts: Go to your account settings Go to the social networks section Connect your Facebook and Twitter accounts Share Pins in Your Newsletter Take the difficulty out of getting people to find your pins by sending the pins straight to them! Your newsletter is the perfect place to throw in a couple of your latest pins and direct subscribers to your Pinterest account. Try this: “Our most popular pins from this week. Head on over to our Pinterest for even more!”  SEO for Pinterest You have to use some SEO strategy to get your pins discovered by the eyes of your target audience. But, don’t worry, it doesn’t take much to optimize your pins in regard to Pinterest searches. Just follow these steps: Step 1: Research keywords. Try a tool like Google AdWords Keyword Planner to find popular keywords related to your business and your pins. Step 2: Add your keyword/keywords to your pin titles. Step 3: Add your keyword/keywords to your pin descriptions. Step 4: Add your keyword/keywords to your pin image file names. As with any SEO you use, make sure not to sound too “keywordy.” Don’t go too crazy and add three keywords to your title and descriptions like a robot would. Optimize and still sound human by simply adding a strong keyword within the right context. Use a Call-to-Pin In the same way you use a call-to-action in your ad copy, a call-to-pin will significantly increase the engagement of your pins. In fact, you’ll get 80% more engagement with a CTP. In your pin’s description, add a little something like: “Repin to your own inspiration board.” Engage to Build Relationships and Gain New Followers Now that you know what kinds of pins are popular and how to get your pins seen, the next step in Pinterest marketing is to use your pins to build relationships with followers and influencers that will grow your reach. As we all know, more reach = more success. Knowing what users look for when following other accounts will allow you to give them what they want and, in turn, grow your following. A little mind-reading never hurt anyone. A recent study found that the three main factors that Pinterest users take into consideration in the should-I-follow-or-not decision-making process are: how many accounts you are following / are following you how many pins you have how many boards you have To be on top of those factors and build relationships to grow your reach, you need to: Post Frequently To get more Pinterest followers, you should post between 5-30 new pins every day. Make sure you are not just repinning the content of others, but also pinning your own unique pins with your own content. Warning! Avoid a major Pinterest faux pas: don’t pin all 30 new pins within a 5-minute span. Spread your pinning throughout the day. Tip! You can create a Secret Board and collect pins to save time. Load up your 20 or so pins in the morning, and keep them on your secret board. Throughout the day, return to the board and grab the pins you want to pin on other “live boards.” Engage with Followers, Reply to Comments Just like you respond to tweets, Facebook posts, and Instagram comments, engage with your followers directly by answering their questions and responding to their comments. Go the extra mile and address them directly, using their names to really take your customer service to the next level. Comment on Your Followers’ Pins Engagement is a two-way street. You need to reach out to your followers’ boards as well. Leave comments on their pins so they’ll feel some love. Their followers will see your brand, too! Follow and Engage with Popular Boards The best way to see successful Pinterest strategy in action is to follow and engage with popular boards. You can learn a lot from the bigger players. See what kinds of pins they pin, what kinds of boards they have, and how much engaging they do. Your goal is to get on that level! If you are commenting on these popular pins, your brand name will be seen by the huge number of people who follow those boards. Tip! It’s a good idea to follow popular boards because they are relevant to your industry and business as opposed to “just because” they are the most popular. If your business has literally nothing to do with wedding fashion, you can do yourself a favor and follow the boards that have a following closer to yours. Those are the people you want to connect with anyway. Invite Others to Pin on Your Boards Build Influencer Relationships Reach a wider audience and gain more followers by reaching out to influencers in your field. Start by following their boards, repinning their pins, and leaving engaging comments on their pins. Once you’ve dropped your name that way, you can initiate a bigger collaboration. Ask if they will post on a board of yours, or offer to contribute to one of their boards. Offer ideas for their boards and show that you are familiar with their content when initiating collaboration, and you’ll be closer to that “yes” you’re looking for. How to Promote Your Brand Successfully: Pinterest Strategies Mix Up Your Content The rule for all social media is to mix up your content. You will lose the interest of your followers and lose your chances of gaining any new ones if your content is static and not diverse enough. So, please whatever you do, don’t just post product photos. Diversity of your pins is a hugely important factor when users were deciding whether to follow an account. So, throw in some other boards that give your followers added value in order to avoid coming off as overly salesy. Include a Direct Link to Your Site Not all of your pins are going to make sense as Rich Pins. (Product photos, events, and articles benefit from the added information provided with Rich Pins, but not all of your content will.) It’s all about context. Put Your Most Popular Boards on Top Over time, you’ll be able to see which boards are more popular and get more engagement. Put your best foot forward and move these boards to the top of your page so when users come to your page, they will see your best material. Create a Board Just for Blog Posts Grab all those article Rich Pins you have, and organise them into their very own board! You’ll want to put this board at the top of your page so your followers will see it first thing. This will help draw traffic to your site and make it easier for users to find your content since it’s all in one easy-to-find-board. They will thank you. Track Your Success and Learn the Strategies that Work with Pinterest Analytics One of the newest features on Pinterest for Business is the super helpful Pinterest Analytics. This feature is only for business accounts and allows you to see: Which pins and boards from your profile people love most What people like to save from your website Who your Pinterest audience is, including their gender, location, and other interests Which devices people use when they’re pinning your stuff How adding the Pin It button to your website leads to referral traffic from Pinterest And, there is another reason verifying your account is a good idea. It will help you gain authority and build trust. When Pinterest users see that little red check mark next to your website, they know you’re legit. You can verify your website in the settings section by adding a meta tag. This will give you a verification badge, and you’ll be official. If you choose not to verify your site, you can still include a link to your site on your page, but you won’t be able to use Pinterest Analytics. Don’t miss out on the crucial information Pinterest Analytics will give you. Verify your account! How to Start Using Pinterest for Business to Improve Your Visibility and Promote Your Brand Right Now Your Pinterest for Business account comes with a ton of marketing power that’s completely different from a personal account. To tap into that power, you need to: 1. Create popular images that are: bright crisp high quality 736×1102 pixels infographics in popular categories 2. Get your pins seen by: using keywords in pin titles, descriptions, and image file names linking to your other social media platforms adding the Pin It Hover button and Pinterest widget to your sites sending your pins in newsletters adding a call-to-pin in your pin descriptions 3. Engage with followers and influencers to grow your reach by: pinning up to 30 times per day responding to follower comments commenting on follower pins following popular boards and commenting inviting followers and influencers to pin on your boards building influencer relationships using “find friends” from Twitter and Facebook 4. Promote your brand successfully with: direct site links in descriptions a variety of content – seasonal and relevant your most popular boards at the top a board dedicated just to your blog posts 5. Use the information from Pinterest Analytics to create a more successful future strategy If you follow the strategies here and learn from the engagement you get, your Pinterest for Business account will continue to develop for the better, attract more of your target audience, and direct people to your site. Happy Pinning! Remember to subscribe to this podcast and check out the [FREE] AdWords Video Training Series. Get Instant Access Here >> 7 Absolutely Killer Tips For Google AdWords & Why They Crush The Competition     How to Build an Email List FAST - 7 Simple Methods You Can Use for FREE Download The eBook Now:   Download here >>   Phil Adair Hot Clicks Pay-Per-Click Online Marketing Suite 12, 5th Floor, Dymocks Building 428 George Street, Sydney 2000, NSW, Australia   W: hotclicks.com.au I’m a huge fan of connecting on social media. If you’re on these social networks, then let’s follow each other:  Twitter  Google+  Facebook YouTube Pinterest Instagram    

This Podcast is meant to inform students about the acceptable use of the laptops.