‘Data mining’ firm monitors online activity of top groups Recession for three years if we leave EU without a deal
As talks begin in Brussels, insurer’s bleak warning...
AN ONLINE intelligence firm is monitoring the internet activity of top companies in an effort to gain an inside track on their strategic planning.
Oxfordshire-based Cyance uses its systems to monitor how staff at companies are using social media, the internet searches they make and changes to their organisation’s own website.
The findings are analysed to alert companies to marketing opportunities, but could also be used to assess whether firms are planning takeovers or facing financial difficulty.
The firm is already using its system to monitor companies like RBS, Ernst & Young, Balfour Beatty, IBM and Oracle on behalf of clients.
It tracks internet searches by staff, websites viewed and social media posts, and uses the information to reveal the behaviour of staff.
The software stops short of identifying the online activity of specific individuals, but can determine if users are key decision makers.
While the use of such data mining is legal, its latest evolution is likely to be controversial and spark a fresh debate on privacy.
Chief executive Jon Clarke said: ‘This does not breach data protection laws because we cannot identify individuals.’
He described the service as ‘picking up on the breadcrumbs executives leave behind when they visit websites’.
When the system identifies a trend in behaviour that could be a sales opportunity Cyance passes this on to clients, which can then target the firm with a sales pitch, send information in the post, or buy online adverts that pop up on computers inside the firm.
Clarke says the system could also be used to ‘look at competitors, spot M&A activity or whether a business could be going bust.’ BRITAIN faces three years of recession, thousands of company failures and a £ 66 billion- a- year slump in exports if it suffers a cliffedge exit from the European Union, according to a leading insurer.
The forecast predicts that without a transitional deal in 2019 to keep Britain temporarily in the EU, 3,300 more firms will go bust, the pound will be worth less than the euro, and the economy will shrink 1.2 per cent, staying in recession until 2021.
The doom-laden view comes from the world’s biggest trade insurer Euler Hermes, part of global insurance giant Allianz.
Ana Boata, an economist at Euler Hermes, said the idea of Britain completing a trade deal by the due date of March 2019 was ‘not realistic’. She added: ‘The new Government must endeavour to settle on a transitional deal, as it will be near impossible to finalise and ratify a free trade agreement at the same time as finalising the EU exit.’
The warning came after Brexit talks opened last week. Discussions on a new trade relationship will not even start until significant progress is made on the terms of Britain’s exit, notably on the status of EU nationals in Britain and a final bill to settle liabilities to the EU.
While the report said a transitional deal was the most likely outcome, it said there remained a one in five chance of no deal. Boata said that such a cliff edge exit would see sterling slump a further 20 per cent. Trade barriers would mean an annual loss to the UK of £30 billion in exports of goods and £36 billion in exports of services.
But the report says extending the deadline for a deal to 2021 would see the economy grow 0.9 per cent in 2019 and exports rise, albeit slowly, with the pound falling less sharply. There would be 1,000 more company failures.