Cable Forum - Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]

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- - Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797] (https://www.cableforum.uk/board/showthread.php?t=33628733)

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]

Quote:

Originally Posted by OF1975 (Post 34523181)

New Petition please sign it:

http://www.petitiononline.com/BTRipa/petition.html

Done.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]

Quote:

Originally Posted by OF1975 (Post 34523209)

I decided that spending hours resubmitting petitions on the downing street website was a waste of time. May as well start the new petition on another site as was suggested in a comment on The Register so I decided what the hell and did it :D

i'm using M at the moment ;), and i started passing the petition round http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2008/...comment-163493

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]

Quote:

Originally Posted by OF1975 (Post 34523181)

New Petition please sign it:

http://www.petitiononline.com/BTRipa/petition.html

Done.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]

done also thought this would be worth a look http://www.ispreview.co.uk/talk/show...86&postcount=3

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]

Thanks all. Keep up the good work getting the word out. Time for me to go to bed. I am back at work tomorrow so have to be up early in the morning.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]

This may not be at all relevant but according to the ICO website the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations seem to be fairly strict about direct marketing. Surely this would fall under that, as I understand the way Phorms system works its using targetted adverts based on your own browsing history. I admit I havent read the detailed guidance (IANAL and legalese doesnt half seem to be complex for the sake of being complex). To quote a part of their guidance:

Marketers cannot send, or instigate the sending of, unsolicited marketing material by electronic mail to an individual subscriber unless the subscriber has previously notified them that they consent, for the time being, to receiving such communications. There is an exception to this rule which has been widely referred to as the Ã¢â‚¬Ëœsoft opt-inÃ¢â‚¬Ëœ (Regulation 22(2) refers).

&

Oops - missed the last sentence:
It all seems to refer to opt-in - in that you have to give your consent.

I know it all refers to email but is it at all similar?

WinstonS

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]

Submit your questions to the London Mayoral candidates for tomorrow nights Newsnight.

I suggest the Liberal candidate as being more likely to clobber HMG. Boris will probably just say "Gosh". It will probably help to put a London spin on it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme...ht/7331578.stm

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]

yes winston its been pointed out here before, but its good to keep pointing it out for new readers and we are getting a lot here lately ;), you have it right they cant but they do.....

---------- Post added at 23:32 ---------- Previous post was at 23:30 ----------

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/0...rasite-cookie/
"
April 7, 2008, 4:04 pm Phorm’s All-Seeing Parasite Cookie

By Saul Hansell

Cookies have gotten a bad rap.

They are a little bit of Internet technology that has been associated in some strands of popular discussion with the darkest strains of Big Brother online.

In fact, cookies do help some Internet companies track some information about users, but there have been significant limitations on what they could see.

One interesting aspect of the plans by Phorm, a company building an advertising targeting system, is that it has found a way to make cookies do what so many feared they could: track every page you visit on the Internet.....
....
If you follow all this, it raises troubling and heretofore unexplored questions about who has rights to do what with cookies. Is it acceptable for Phorm to ride, almost like a parasite, on a cookie set by another company without its permission?

Kent Ertugrul, Phorm’s chief executive, says it is acceptable, because the users are notified about Phorm’s system and given the opportunity to opt out, and it is their computer on which these cookies reside."

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]

Just read that by Saul Hansell and came here to post it but you beat me to it popper :) Should keep an eye on what else they have to say, doesn't look like they were taken in by Kent.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]

Just a thought

Alexander, as you attempted to make a complaint about BT to the police, and they refused to accept the complaint.

Have you thought about raising the matter with the independant police complaints authority

http://www.ipcc.gov.uk/index/complai..._complaint.htm

What can I complain about?

The Police code of conduct sets out the standards police officers must follow. These include requirements to:

* Act with honesty and integrity
* Treat members of the public and their colleagues with respect
* Not abuse the extraordinary powers and authority police officers are granted
* Act in a manner that does not discredit or undermine public confidence in the police
service.

I would have though that you would have justification in making a complaint at least under point 4, and possibly 1 as well

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]

We all know that this Phorm thing is all about money - they care about nothing else - and they're aiming to get it from the advertising industry which, according to this BBC article is growing fast on the web.

But I barely see an advert when I'm browsing and neither do most people I know (as I sort their browser for them ;)) but there must be a huge amount of web users who view these ads, mustn't there? But are they influenced by them to buy or is there success just measured by click throughs? And would bombarding someone with ads about things they have already looked at be the best thing anyway?

My view is that Internet advertising is overestimated and targeted ads may well prove to be worse than opportunistic ones. The only ads I see are the emails I get from on-line retailers that I've opted in to and the products I've been interested in from them have been ones I hadn't thought about.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]

the "Stealing Phorm's business model" newsgroup thread is interesting
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pi...il/084109.html
"Paul Barnfather ukcrypto at chiark.greenend.org.uk
Mon, 7 Apr 2008 14:36:47 +0100

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> On 07 April 2008 12:59, Richard Clayton wrote:
> > This cookie can then be used in an access to the webwise.net domain in
> > order to fetch an advertisement, and analysing the nature of that
> > advertisement will permit the website to serve their own targeted-by-
> > behaviour advert.

On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 1:17 PM, James Firth <james2@jfirth.net> wrote:
> Say I'm a website owner, and I have registered users' details, and I want to
> find out a bit more about these users. Next time they visit, I steal their
> Phorm UUID.

If the GUID is easily available then any website operator has access
to a very valuable data set: GUID + registration info (which may
include name, address, email, credit card, etc). This data can (and
presumably will) be sold on by unscrupulous operators.

Any site operator purchasing this data will be able to instantly
obtain personally identifiable data on every visitor by simply
recording the GUID.

Surely this would enable a privacy invasion of spectacular proportions?

---------- Post added at 04:42 ---------- Previous post was at 04:20 ----------

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pi...il/084087.html
"Peter Fairbrother wrote:
>>
>>
Come to think of it, it may be worse than that - the webwise ad server
will know the UUID, keywords and the user's IP - so there is zero
anonymity anyway.

Rereading Richard's summary, it seems that security-wise Phorm are
pretty complete clowns. They don't have a clue. there is no "impressive
new technology to protect privacy" - it's just another snake-oil sham.

I'd bet that a complete analysis of their method would reveal many more
security breaches - in fact I don't think it is even possible to do
targeted advertising based on web browsing with guaranteed anonymity.

I certainly couldn't do it, and I'm reasonably good in the field.

-- Peter Fairbrother
"

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]

I'm astounded at this persons attitude:

Quote:

really can't see the issue here. A few bored IT geeks start to whine and a load of NIMBY's jump up nd down!! I use gmail, and Google scan my goddamned emails to deliver advertising. BUT hey, that's the price of free stuff on thre internet- it's paid for by advertising. And i'd guess that these ISP's will offer better connection speeds for less money subsidised by advertising. Bring it on. Take me to the brave new world..

http://www.shinyshiny.tv/2008/04/phorm_whats_it.html

Unbelievable . . . :mad:

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]

I'm new here. I've signed up specifically to vent my frustrations on this topic.

First of all, I'd like to point out a pretty big flaw in what was quoted above:

Quote:

BUT hey, that's the price of free stuff on thre internet- it's paid for by advertising.

This is the sort of thing I expect from Google and Microsoft free web based email, yes, but when I pay for a service on a monthly basis I do not want to have what could be sensitive information sold to a 3rd party. In my opinion, and from what I see from other individuals opinions here, they have no right to do so.

I'm also surprised that nobody is questioning why this service will be monitored on a client side level and why it relies so heavily on cookies. Granted, we might have the "fuxk you" cookie present in our session, but who is to say that these people are listening to what we're telling them to do? This service and any other like it needs to be monitored on a network level, not some weak client side mechanism. Those that want in on the Webwise service and those that don't should be served their internet access from two completely different networks.

I've emailed Virgin Media's CEO, Nick Berkett, but I've yet to receive a reply.

Here's what I had to say:

Quote:

Dear, Mr. Berkett.

Seeing as the Virgin Media support team are pretty much clueless of their names, never mind anything else I thought I'd get in touch with somebody that I assume knows what's going on. I'll be forever thankful if you could help me out with the following questions:

I'm writing to get more information about the Webwise service going on involving Phorm. I've read an article on your site (http://www.virginmedia.com/customers/webwise.php) detailing some of the features which I can't really see how any paying customer can benefit from. It says that Webwise will help deal with problems such as "phishing," but this is a problem easily overcome with a bit of common sense, a decent email client and a set of updated spam filters.

Another thing that bothers me is the fact that we, the customers, pay for your service then you offer us adverts relevant to what we're doing and looking at on the internet (If I wanted to find something so specific I'd use this new site called Google. You should check it out)... Not only that, but then you try to justify it by offering us said "phishing" solution like there isn't 101 other free alternatives out there. If I use this Webwise service will I get a reduction in my monthly bill due to the fact that Virgin Media will be making even more profit from advertisements they're throwing my way? That's after capturing what could be sensitive packets of information (it doesn't take the sharpest tool in the shed to realize that any technology offering anonymity still comes with huge privacy issues).

If you really want to win the customers over, how about offering us a service that BLOCKS adverts and scam sites that are so rudely offered by the internet? Deny us the option to see and view such things.

Now, if I opt-out of this Webwise service offered by Virgin Media and Phorm, will the sites and services I use as well as the information I submit to the internet still be mirrored to the Webwise system but without it serving advertisements to me? If not, how can I be sure of this?

If/when this service rolls out and I decide to block all traffic to and from the addresses of the Webwise systems, will I still have a fully functional internet service? If not, why?

Will the opt-in process be managed at a network level and not reliant on cookies or any other client side mechanism? If not, why?

Will the service be a case of us all being in and have to opt-out if we don't want it kind of deal? And again, at what level with the customers in on the service and those out be managed?

And finally, I know I'm blowing this out of proportion, but I think I have every right to as a paying customer. I don't see why we should pay for a service and help Virgin Media make even more money by using it. If the internet service was provided free of charge or at most a very small fee, then maybe I'd think about using Virgin Media and Webwise services in the future.

Any more information pointing to how the service will work would be greatly appreciated.
Who knows? Maybe I would find it useful. Perhaps I could find a cheaper ISP that doesn't offer useless services that only benefits the company offering it through an advert that YOU serve me.

Regards,
[removed]

As soon as I get anything back, including his encoded UTF-marketing-bullshiat, I'll post it here.

Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]

:welcome:31
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pi...il/084100.html
BTW Alexander, it seems the news threads above are finally leaning to the Injunction possibility if RIPA falls on death ears in govt....

i wonder if its werth joining the newsgroup to see if any lawyers will give real UK Tort clues and advice!.

they are hopeing on the likes of rich google to come save them though Doh!

btw , i skimed the EU papers again looking for that new updated
DATA PROTECTION directive but it doesnt seem to be out.

you might find the http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/fsj...s/index_en.htm
18.02.2008 childrens personal data of use in your usual interests if not for this phorm thing....