Status update

Hi all,

The Social Gnome has been awfully un-social over the last few weeks, mostly due to the fact that I have a new job that has taken up a lot of my time.

As of the start of May 2014 I am now the Chief Communications Officer for Sundaya, a solar energy company based out of Jakarta Indonesia.

The job opened up a lot of opportunities for me; not only am I in charged of setting up a whole new communications strategy for a emerging company, I also get to combine that with a passion for clean energy.

I get to do what I love, and I get to help the planet (which I also love) - one small step at a time :).

Part of the reason for why I accepted the new job was that I believe the technology to be good enough now to actually support a new for of communication when it comes to clean energy and solar. Up until recently the talk has been mostly that fossil fuels are killing the planet, and if you dont get of the fossil train, you (by association) are also killing the planet. I never responded well to that type of "threat communication" and never really understood why that seemed to be the bulk of everything pro clean energy.

Now we have gotten to the point where solar cells, and battery packs, are actually good enough to cover most of our everyday energy needs. It is no longer a stretch to use solar - you no longer have to give up any standard comforts - but you can rather easily make the switch, at least for some of the minor products (charging phones and computers for example).

For these reasons I am very excited to work for Sundaya, and I invite you all to follow our Facebook pages and our blog (both run by yours truly).

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sundayainternational
Blog: http://sundaya.com/blogroll/

Today we have published an interesting article on the blog about Light up Somalia, a project bringing light and jobs to the rural parts of Somalia using Sundaya products. Check it out!

Time to forget, Google

Google is releasing a new web service for EU citizens who no longer want to appear in Google search results. The service , which basically consists of an online form, is a response to the European Court's recent ruling in which a Spanish man were given the right to remove sensitive personal information from the search results. 

The European Court decision is a so called “prejudice” which means the all member courts have to follow the ruling. For the individual it means that all EU citizens now have the right to be "forgotten" by Google - if certain conditions are met.

The EU citizens who want to be forgotten by Google can now submit a request to Google via the new website. Attached to the request shall be a copy of the individual’s identity card, which country's laws are cited, and which particular search string that should be removed. 

Google will review each case individually and then weigh privacy against the public interest. A politician who made ​​a fool of himself for instance cannot expect to disappear from search results since it would probably fall under public interest.

Google has also put together a special task force to try to develop a long term strategy for dealing with the anticipated floods of requirements for clearances to come. The task force consist of both Google big wigs such as Chairman Eric Schmidt and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond, and externals as Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and UN reporter Frank La Rue.

Want to get removed from search terms? Here is the web form.