Waikato Herald
  • Waikato Herald home
  • Latest news
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Rural
  • Lifestyle
  • Lotto results

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
  • Lifestyle
  • Lotto results

Locations

  • Hamilton
  • Coromandel & Hauraki
  • Matamata & Piako
  • Cambridge
  • Te Awamutu
  • Tokoroa & South Waikato
  • Taupō & Tūrangi

Weather

  • Thames
  • Hamilton
  • Tokoroa
  • Taumarunui
  • Taupō

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Waikato News

Social media Just10 to launch secure site in NZ

By Ged Cann
Hamilton News·
21 Feb, 2016 11:37 PM5 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Just10 founder Frederick Ghahramani.

Just10 founder Frederick Ghahramani.

Privacy online is becoming an increasing concern for many Kiwis with figures from a recent Privacy Commission report leading a Canadian company to earmark New Zealand as a testing ground for its new security-conscious alternative.

Social media continues to grow in New Zealand, with a bi-annual Individual Privacy & Personal Information report in 2014 showing more Kiwis than every were on Facebook (61 per cent) despite many users being dubious about the trustworthiness of the sites. For under-30s this number climbs to 91 per cent.

According to the report more than half of users now view social networks as 'public spaces' and are forced to act as such with 77 per cent having changed their Facebook privacy settings to private. Despite this, 63 per cent were still concerned about the security of their personal information.

Half of all respondents said they believed a business had shared their information without permission and 69 per cent thought social media sites were untrustworthy.

Concern about businesses sharing information with other businesses was high at 81 per cent, while concern about government agencies doing the equivalent with other government agencies was lower at 67 per cent.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

For Canadian company AirG and Just10 founder Frederick Ghahramani these figures made New Zealand the perfect place to launch a new secure site.

Mr Ghahramani said his interest began following the birth of his child, when he found himself annoyed when friend and family members were taking pictures of his child and posting them online.

"Around that time I had also left Facebook and social media. I just didn't want the headache and it didn't appeal to me any more. The privacy stuff was annoying and Snowden at that time had just leaked his information.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

"I just wasn't comfortable any more and I realised everything I had been building over the years, the games, the telecom software, were not the kind of products I would want to use or I would want my kids to use."

This concern is reflected in the 2014 Privacy Commission report which showed a staggering 85 per cent of respondents said they were concerned about the information children put on the internet about themselves.

It also dawned on Ghahramani that he had been "quite a naughty teenager who did a lot of stupid things".

"I realised if I had done that kind of thing nowadays it would be around forever and I would be judged by the sum of actions when I was an idiot full of testosterone."

He brought a team together and began constructing their own site with one rule: take everything that annoyed them about Facebook and get rid of it.

"Two and a half years later we have come out with a product. It's an ad-free social network that is the antithesis of Facebook."

"It's got no tracking, it's got no public profiles, it's got no companies, and the way we are going will be end-to-end encryption."

Just10 has even done away with gender and location, reasoning that your friends already know.

Another big change: you can only have 10 friends - a change which Ghahramani said felt restrictive at first but which most users actually found liberating.

"We wear different masks when we are around our boys, our partners, our parents, and one of the most stressful situations we can have is when they're all at the same party. You're managing all these masks at the same time and the complexity of that is who is the real you?

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

"The other 300 people that are your friends are limiting what you can say because they're watching, but you're not really reacting with any of them. There's only a small group of people you're actually interacting with."

Victoria University professor Miriam Lips said she thought Just10 was a step in the right direction.

"I don't think that their '100 per cent private' claim can be fully justified as you always will need to share some personal information in order to get their service in a private and secure way," she said.

"At least the information-sharing is with people's consent and therefore privacy-friendly: that is, if people can find and fully understand their privacy policy, which is not an easy read for lay people."

By constraining the Just10 network Mr Ghahramani said Just10 was able to operate at a far lower cost.

This is because all information is only stored for 10 days, making storage and search costs minimal compared to sites like Facebook or Instagram which store information indefinitely.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

"We don't need to do the advertising bit. We can find some premium revenue sources where we have the core for free and over time try and get a small percentage to pay a premium for extra features."

These services may include selling devices to improve security on the internet. Mr Ghahramani said Just10 was not competing with Facebook because it was offering a totally different service.

Just10 is available across iPhone, Android and Windows mobile, as well as online.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Waikato News

Waikato Herald

Heavy rain warning likely for BoP – MetService

10 Jul 12:40 AM
Waikato Herald

'Really talented' young jockey dies in Hamilton dirtbike crash

09 Jul 10:05 PM
Waikato Herald

The amalgamation debate: Mayor claims 'no one’s prepared to act'

09 Jul 09:20 PM

From early mornings to easy living

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Waikato News

Heavy rain warning likely for BoP – MetService
Waikato Herald

Heavy rain warning likely for BoP – MetService

10 Jul 12:40 AM

An orange warning has been issued for Coromandel and Waikato from 11am tomorrow.

'Really talented' young jockey dies in Hamilton dirtbike crash
Waikato Herald

'Really talented' young jockey dies in Hamilton dirtbike crash

09 Jul 10:05 PM
The amalgamation debate: Mayor claims 'no one’s prepared to act'
Waikato Herald

The amalgamation debate: Mayor claims 'no one’s prepared to act'

09 Jul 09:20 PM
Floyd Masson to take on John Parker for cruiserweight title
Waikato Herald

Floyd Masson to take on John Parker for cruiserweight title

09 Jul 09:00 PM
Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Waikato Herald e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Waikato Herald
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP