Thank God people read the terms and conditions. I never do On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 5:00 PM, aki <aki275@googlemail.com> wrote:
Hey Stefan and Welcome to Skunks KE.
Thanks for the response to my queries. My queries are not official so feel free to jump in anytime and correct as necessary. The more that is known about such companies, the better confidence that can be put forward to kenyans on the m-commerce platforms. 60k+ is a good achievement and I can only wish you and the project much bigger success. :-)
On another thread I had put more focused questions as per the discussion with @Joshua earlier today on this mailing list. I'm pasting that information below so that it can bring the questions to focus and easier to follow on one thread. Some of queries you have already posted therefore ignore those that you may feel are duplications.
Once again, thanks for the open approach and right of reply.
Cheers.
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On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 1:50 PM, Joshua Mwaniki -MiH IA <Joshua@mocality.com> wrote:
Hi Aki
I seem to have seen only parts of your previous thread on Mocality...but must have missed a chunk, seeing some of the issues raised.
I'd thought of shooting a quick off the cuff reply to tackle some of the basic questions raised, but I could also tackle everything once and for all in my capacity here as country manager...or even better...get my Ultra Geek CEO, who was on tech crunch the other day to drop in a line on the entire issue...(he's been part of a similar Skunkworks like tech grouping in the UK for years...and loves to engage with techies...)
So...just to make sure that we don't miss out anything...how about you just jot down the specific issues..bullet format...and we'll go about responding to every issue?
Sounds fair?
Then I'll respond.
But here's some basic information that could help:
Product: Mocality.com (short code: 2202) KE Company: MIH Internet East Africa Ltd. Parent Company: MIH Internet Africa Holding Company: Naspers Ltd. (www.naspers.com)
Operating in Kenya since: Early 2009 Mocality Launch: May 2009. Current Biz model: Business Search Directory Listed Business in Nairobi: 60k+
Hope that cuts some of the basic questions down... :-)
@Joshua, firstly thanks for the response. I've always been a believer of right of response so its great to hear from you. :-)
Secondly my basic concerns are as follows :
1) Is Mocality Kenya a licensed mobile content provider and within those license provisions are the words data mining included?
2) Has the J2ME software been assessed and passed as a secure product for kenyan cellular business users?
3) Without going into too many specifics on your side, is the database held in a secure facility within kenya or outside and what measures are in place to the effect?
4) What measures has Mocality put in place to counter fraud or misuse against its system? Are there are security certificates that are installed on the client side that would prevent such or is there some sort of system in place that checks the validity of the installed application?
5) From Mocality Kenya's website, it is not clear what is wants to do as a business. In FAQ section, it says this : 23. How does Mocality make a profit? Right now we’re not making a profit at all. The most important thing to us is to create the largest, most relevant business directory in Kenya. We’ll figure out how to make a profit later.
6) Then further to 5 above, on the Terms & Conditions page Section 10 is a pretty hard buy i.e Permission to Use your Content.
10.1. You grant Mocality the irrevocable right to use Your Content for any purpose, including but not limited to the right to reformat it, edit it, publish it, associate it with your User Account name, incorporate it into other works, create derivative works from it, distribute it, promote it, and license these same rights to third parties for use in connection with other media platforms ("Other Media"). 10.2. You grant the Site's Users and the users of any Other Media the irrevocable right to access Your Content in connection with their use of the Site or Service and any Other Media. 10.3. You irrevocably waive, and cause to be waived, any claims and assertions of moral rights or attribution with respect to Your Content.
Tie points 5 & 6 together and here are the questions : Why does a service calling itself a " Africa's largest business directory in the making" automatically want exclusive rights to content of the registered user when it has not even defined what the data will be used for? Will the data collected be used by others and to what extent will this affect registered users? Does the registered user have a right to block content that it feels is outside their rights and does the J2ME software provider such filtering?
Hope to hear from you and your tech CEO. :-)
Rgds.
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