failure

If you are issuing a notice about technology, the least you can do is make sure your own tech works when recipients click on a link in the notice.

The style has long been that of an outdated tabloid that can't decide if it's a scandal rag or a teenage magazine. It wasn't either: Utasan Malaysia was an integral part of the publication of news in Malay and has been for more than half a century. But, as with so many publications, it has simply run out of money and cannot continue.

AirAsia is a superb airline. Its aircraft are well maintained and clean, its crew are great. Yes, its ability to be anywhere near its scheduled departure and arrival times are the stuff of legend - for their persistent failures. It has an ultra-slick website that whizzes through the pages. but it's the website that is the real reason that one has to think twice about booking a flight. That's because so much of it, outside the core part of finding flights, doesn't work. Cheap fares are one thing - but not when buying them is so frustrating. But a failure today takes the biscuit. UPDATED AT END

The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) conducted inspections at Australia's six largest audit firms and found that they performed a little better than the industry average but even so, a fifth of them lacked material information.

Just as AirAsia announced the "suspension" of its Tokyo Narita (NRT) to Jakarta (CGK) flights, Japan Airlines and Garuda Indonesia have said that they are to increase co-operation to improve connections between the two Asian countries.

In the wider world of financial services, there's a tendency to forget that there are regulators for other areas of commerce, too. In the UK, in accounting, the last stop for action relating to accounting and audit misconduct is the Financial Reporting Council. It's one of those bodies that replaces gravitas with slogans on its website (which is "flashy" but doesn't work properly) but when it gets its teeth into a case, it acts as a proper regulator. It levies only small fines but it's paying more and more attention to the big boys.

It hasn't taken long. The General Data Protection Regulation came into force across the EU only on Friday. By Sunday evening, "Dejan Marinkovic" of "The Resort Group Global" had, apparently, decided that the way around it is simple: just put the name of the company in the body of the e-mail and, thereby, establishing that, as business correspondence, the mail fell outside the GDPR. His premise? That, if the addressee (who, incidentally, is personally identifiable from the e-mail address) clicks on a link, there will be benefits. But then it becomes even more strange.

Like so many developers of so-called artificial intelligence, Google is proud of its efforts and, yet, once again AI has proved that it is often a failure waiting to happen. But this example is ever funnier - and more worrying. Someone has manipulated it and the target, amazingly, is people working in e.g. banks. Should banks, etc. now ban Google Alerts?

The wording says "If you'd like to cancel just part of your order... please contact us and quote your order number." So, like the obedient chap I am, I did.

This is my exchange with Marks and Spencer's Chatbot.

And you think AI will protect your bank?