Google critic’s links to PR giant and Microsoft

Google launches Street View, and Simon Davies of Privacy International, the group that campaigns against intrusion by businesses and governments, gets on his high horse and is quoted everywhere opposing the new service. But who is Davies? He is an LSE academic, who as well as being involved with Privacy International also runs a for-profit consultancy called 80/20 Thinking.

Davies isn't shy of advising organisations that have been accused of invading people's privacy, such as Phorm, the "spyware" software developer - his line is that he would rather work with them and influence them.

He also enjoys a close relationship with Microsoft, having advised the software giant in the past. Microsoft, of course, happens to be Google's arch-rival. The 80/20 Thinking website says its "UK strategic partner is the global public relations firm Burson-Marsteller. B-M and 80/20 work closely together to create projects and events that address key industry issues".

Previously, Burson-Marsteller has been revealed as working undercover for Microsoft against the software giant's arch-rival, Google. The PR firm was revealed as being behind a 2007 campaign pointing up the risks associated with Google's acquisition of online advertising broker DoubleClick, and a Microsoft spokeswoman said the firm had an "ongoing relationship with Burson-Marsteller".

* Heard wafting through the 29th-floor dealing room at Goldman Sachs in New York last week when news broke that the 90% bonus tax had been passed through the House of Representatives: the Soviet national anthem.

Private eyes can thank Madoff

A silver lining to the clouds left in the wake of Madoff: private investigators are seeing a big rise in the number of enquiries from fund managers and other investors wanting check-ups done on hedge funds and their managers.

City Spy's man in the deerstalker says the likes of Kroll, Control Risks and Armor Group, now owned by G4S, are doing a brisk trade in digging up dirt on dodgy hedgie accounting practices, flaky audit firms and personal misdemeanours of bosses. Repeated driving offences, costly divorces, or even lies on a CV can all throw up red flags to potential investors...

* In New York, B Madoff's phone is ringing off the hook with abusive callers. But not because the fraudster has a phone in his prison cell. Instead, the calls are being answered by a certain B Jeffrey Madoff — whose "B" stands for Ben, and who despite the surname has no link to the alleged fraudster. But B Jeffrey Madoff is listed in the Manhattan phone book, leading to scores of telephone calls "at all hours of the day and night" from "people who were either upset or unhinged or both" to berate Madoff. The calls have apparently diminished since Bernard Madoff has been in jail, Ben Madoff told the New York Times. But some still phone up. "I'd hope that if you're angry enough at him to want to place a call," said Ben Madoff, "you might follow the news closely enough to realise that he's at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, not on the Upper West Side." But Ben Madoff insists that he won't be changing his name. He said: "[Bernard Madoff is] not going to take my name away. That would just add to the things he's stolen. I would not let him get away with that."

It's the green Shooti of a joke

If Shriti the Shriek wasn't bad enough, business minister and Gordon Brown confidante Lady Vadera has a new nickname. Following her ability to divine green shoots of recovery in January, Vadera's civil servants — according to The Spectator — now call her Shooti. Behind her back, of course.

* Urgent efforts to save the Dunfermline Building Society, Scotland's biggest building society, after a series of bad bets on commercial property lending clearly have nothing to do with the fact it has close links with Gordon Brown's Parliamentary constituency, which include parts of Dunfermline...

* Sir Fred Goodwin watch out. In the US, a campaign group called Connecticut Working Families has organised coach-trip tours of AIG executives' offices and homes. The instructions don't tell participants to bring along eggs to throw, but perhaps they'll be handed out by the tour guide. Surely only a matter of time before the trend takes off here...

Not much joy for Blumenthal with Little Chef

Poor Heston Blumenthal. Not only is his Fat Duck restaurant recovering from a health scare, but his plans to upgrade the menus and decor at the Little Chef seem to have gone awry. Little Chef, now owned by turnaround group RCapital, milked a blaze of publicity when the celebrity chef designed new menus with a novel addition for the ailing chain — food that was actually nice to eat. It was trialled at Popham Services in Hampshire and got fabulous reviews. Celebrities including Eric Clapton and Suzi Quatro turned up. David Tennant tried to but couldn't get a table as there was a two-hour wait. That was almost six months ago, so with all those plaudits, how many other Little Chefs have taken on the Blumenthal revamp? Er... none. Chief executive Ian Pegler told Bloomberg: "I've only got so much money and so many restaurants that need refurbishing."

* Spanish practices: Former Tory Treasury minister Michael Portillo was talking recently with the deputy governor of the Central Bank of Spain about how his country managed to avoid its banks going bust. The answer was the Spanish regulators had about 25 supervisory staff in each of the major banks, keeping a close eye on what was going on. Something we could learn from as Britain conducts our own Grand Inquisition into the state of UK banking?

* ICAP is ruffling feathers in the City, this time at the expense of UBS and Morgan Stanley. The interdealer broker set up by Michael Spencer has poached three executive directors from UBS — Mike Duff, Andy Gill and Photis Kassianides — as well as Chris Yard from Morgan Stanley to join its rapidly expanding equities team in June. They will report to Phil Hodey, who joined Icap last month after leaving UBS, where he was head of portfolio trading until December. Other big-hitters to be poached by Icap in recent months include Glenn Poulter from Citigroup and Daemon Bear from JPMorgan Asset Management.