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back to article UK.gov declares digital success as PR, food shops redefined as 'tech' businesses

Are you in PR? Do you sell holidays or food? Congratulations, you're now an internet business! Global financial index provider the FTSE Group has just announced a "widen[ing of] the definition of what constitutes an internet service business" – which gov.uk has been quick to trumpet as a success growing out of its "Tech City …

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  1. Pete 2 Silver badge

    Master of all I survey

    'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'

    'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

    'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master — that's all.'

    And on the same basis, that allows the FTSE Group (an organisation I had previously credited with more common sense) to redefine words willy-nilly, I henceforth declare that day is night, good is bad, tv is quality entertainment and that our politicians are caring, dutiful, honest individuals.

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    1. tony2heads
      Reply Icon
      Big Brother

      re: master of all I survey

      I think that current politicians prefer "Ignorance is strength"

      Icon: obvious

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  2. HollyHopDrive

    And I'm sure......

    ...they will also publish the "decline of traditional retailers and the high street" which shows a purely coincidental but pretty much idetical decline rate.

    Lies, damn lies and statistics .....

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I think the policy is a (middling) success. When I think of the govt., the first thing that comes to mind is a digit.

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  4. frank ly

    Do we lead the world at massaging statistics?

    There can't be a happy ending with this.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Do we lead the world at massaging statistics?

      Not necessarily. The bar is set very high indeed, nowadays.

      But certainly an honourable mention...

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  5. Sir Barry

    Just more spin...

    My company has a website, does this mean we are now a digital business?

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    1. Tom 35
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      Re: Just more spin...

      If adding your company will make the government look better, then yes your digital.

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  6. Natalie Gritpants
    Stop

    Desperation

    All companies use email so they're all internet businesses now. Except that they all have workers that commute by car so they're in the transport sector. Oh. and they have coffee machines so they're in the agricultural sector.

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  7. Refugee from Windows

    Internet businesses?

    I suppose as a lot of takeaway food outlets now let you order through a website or mobile phone app then maybe these will be added in. Just as betting shops and Chondrichthic* loan companies are identified as "financial services"

    *Great White, Hammerhead etc, large predatory fish etc.

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Reminds me of 2004

    When the US government reclassified burger flipping jobs as manufacturing/assembly which turned manufacturing into a job-making sector of our economy.

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  9. Anonymous Blowhard

    So you're a "technology" business if any of your employees uses a computer? Maybe they can do this with other sectors, then any business that provides company cars will be a transport business?

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  10. Lottie

    Tech city UK?

    Oh do fuck off!

    Of all the lame "hey, whatever it is, that's what we're down with" branding bollocks, this has to be the worst..... Even UK-PLC was less annoying and desperate sounding.

    My hairstylist has a website and uses a computer for inventory and wages. Does that make mop chopping a tech industry too?

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    1. 's water music
      Reply Icon

      Re: Tech city UK?

      By Jove! I think she's got it...

      ...Because the rebranding sounds as convincing as anything 'enry 'iggins managed

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    1. Sir Sham Cad
      Reply Icon

      That's brilliant. The owners of Zapata in the 90's were the Glazer family. Oh and, yes, during that time they did produce fish protein mulch and dumped the oil bit.

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  12. Steve the Cynic

    No matter what the deal is with the statistics themselves...

    ... the problem is actually the merging of "tech" and "digital" businesses into one category.

    The various company types whose inclusion in this unified category is ridiculed by commentators and by the article itself are not inherently the problem. That we consider them "digital" is in some cases semi-reasonable.

    That they link "tech" (presumably (but not necessarily) what we'd think of as tech companies - software houses, hardware design, etc.) and "digital" (evidently all this internet-using stuff that doesn't design, build, etc. technology) as if they are a single sort of thing is just ridiculous.

    And all the commentators who posted before me have overlooked this point...

    Oh, and Zapata Corp, now Harbinger, was originally an oil company.

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  13. John Styles

    ... and any company where any of the employees ever have sex (not necessarily at work or on company premises) will be redefined as a brothel.

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  14. Irongut
    Facepalm

    The Bongster must have been busy at FTSE lately.

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  15. btrower

    That's the way you do it...

    Your money for nothing and your chicks for free.

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  16. Crisp

    I've redefined dog poop as steak.

    But for some reason, it still tastes like shit.

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    1. Beau
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      Unhappy

      Re: I've redefined dog poop as steak.

      Yes, so you are the culprit!

      Lately I've been getting a few stakes that taste like dog poop.

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  17. Squander Two

    Er, what?

    > And too, weirdly, the Bank of England.

    Only weird thing about that is that it wasn't already defined as a tech company. All financial institutions are technology companies, and always have been, from the moment someone invented little metal circles as proxies for human labour. Most major banks now accept that they are primarily in the technology business, and that finance is something enabled by that.

    As for the BoE's other big business, printing, they are the world leader in figuring out what digital scanners and copiers can't do. If that ain't tech, what is?

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