Ramkumar K R

This is one of the mails I got today, it was another spammy mail from IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation). If you are registered with IRCTC and using their online ticket booking facility, probably you too would have received this mail.

If you look in detail, the link (promo) points to another site – IndiaTodayBookClub.com which obviously look like a third party site.

NOW My Question is, who the hell is IRCTC to share my email ID to third party email advertisers, without my consent and knowledge?

Checked out IRCTC again, there is NO privacy policy document and nothing which explains me what they do with my private data such as name, email id, contact address etc !!!

Should IRCTC do such things with the user data? DISGUSTING !!
Is there anyone from IRCTC to explain what the sHiT is this??

I remember the days when me and Rajesh (My colleague at Natural Search), used to track the price of GOOG (Google share at NAZDAQ). It was in the end of Aug, there was a major algorithm update at google and the stock price went from around 280 USD to over 400 USD in a week’s time. It was at the end of Aug 2005 and in the beginning of Sept 2005.

We were just wondering how much we would have earned if we had bough google shares at that time

Thats history, but I was watching google prices by adding a stock portfolio gadget onto my iGoogle and today’s price really brought back those days when we were closely watching this stock. It was really shocking to see a price around 259 USD !! I couldn’t really digest the fact that the price has gone down even below that Aug 2005 figure !!
Whats going around? I know as a company, Google is still doing really well, but Google too relies on the money which is spent by advertisers through Google’s sponsored search results. There must be really a major drop in the advertising spend in recent times due to the economic slowdown.

Any views in this regard, do not forget to click and add a comment below .

It was 25th of October (A day to remember for me for another reason), I got a chance to travel in an AC Volvo ran by BMTC (Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation). In Bangalore I rarely travel in a bus majorly because I am addicted to bike riding and never get a chance to get into a bus, unless my bike is at service center. It was one such occasion. My Hero Honda Super Slendor was being serviced at Max Motors Rajaji Nagar when I got into this AC Volvo.

Since it was my first experience on a BMTC AC Volvo, I would like to explain what I found here.. First thing a big applause to BMTC, for running these services at an affordable rate (adding to the services they added recently to the Bangalore International Airport).

First good one is for business people and IT workaholics.. There are electricity plug points where you can charge your laptop / mobile phone. !! Check the following image.

Well equiped with an emergency exit at rear.

Another important thing is the ample amount of free space inside the bus. You will never need to anxiously wait for you to get out of the heavily crowded bus. See the foldable seats in the middle part of the bus.

Last thing, BMTC is making some money through the ads on these buses. From outside I used to wonder how people can see through the ads on the side glasses. But when I got in, I realized that its a one sided ad through which you can have a look outside as if an ad is not present. You can make out a shadow of ads on the glasses. Thats Orange Electronics ad on the glasses !!