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

Portly_Giraffe · 04-04-2008, 01:05

Well, here's my contribution to Suggest a Story for April 5th pm. And I do mention Sir Richard Branson.

Phorm - some questions for the Government, BT and others

As a consumer who uses the Internet a lot I am very concerned about the current proposals for BT, Virgin Media and Carphone Warehouse (Talk Talk) to partner with Phorm to use deep packet inspection to monitor subscribers' web activity, in order to present targeted advertising to them on sites which are also signed up to the Phorm service.

... ... ...

It's time the BBC was asking the government a difficult question. Why has BT not yet been prosecuted for their Phorm trials which were in clear and unequivocal breach of the law?

You might also want to try to get a straight answer from BT on why they think the interceptions they carried out in the trials were not illegal.

You might want to ask BT whether they propose to make Phorm "opt-in" or "opt-out". You might want to ask whether those who opt-out will have to take action – e.g. maintain a cookie on their PC. You might want to ask BT whether those opted-out will still have their web traffic inspected anyway, just not acted upon.

You might want to ask how Phorm can be legal even if the user is misled into giving consent – for a wiretap to be legal, both parties have to give their consent, and it is unlikely that all websites would agree to traffic to their websites being intercepted.

You might want to ask BT why they are partnering with a company who as 121media was notorious as a source of rootkit malware. See:
http://www.f-secure.com/sw-desc/peopleonpage.shtml
http://www.f-secure.com/sw-desc/apropos.shtml
This was some of the most intractable malware on the Internet. Phorm may say it was easy to remove, but the process was: work in safe mode - run a 3rd party fix tool - delete several registry keys - delete 4 hidden and protected files from 4 directories all with scrambled names - uninstall 2 programs from add/remove. Easy to remove? I don't think so.

You might want to ask Sir Richard Branson what damage he thinks Virgin Media's proposal to use Phorm is doing to the Virgin brand.

The ISPs, led by BT, appear to be hell-bent on proceeding with the Phorm rollout. Their excuses range from the ridiculous ("it will increase privacy" (how?)) to the disingenuous ("Phorm includes anti-phishing features" - well maybe it will, but these are equally available for free in the latest Web Browsers, and since when did bundling a useful utility with malware stop the malware from being malware?). They have to be stopped, and stopped now, or one area of consumer rights will be lost for ever.

And by consumers, I include MPs, Judges, Journalists, indeed anyone who uses their computers from home and whose every interaction with the Internet, whether searching, home shopping, viewing documents and sending or receiving webmail-based communications will be read and processed by Phorm.

04-04-2008, 01:05	#2169
Portly_Giraffe Inactive Join Date: Apr 2008 Posts: 114	Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797] Well, here's my contribution to Suggest a Story for April 5th pm. And I do mention Sir Richard Branson. Phorm - some questions for the Government, BT and others As a consumer who uses the Internet a lot I am very concerned about the current proposals for BT, Virgin Media and Carphone Warehouse (Talk Talk) to partner with Phorm to use deep packet inspection to monitor subscribers' web activity, in order to present targeted advertising to them on sites which are also signed up to the Phorm service. ... ... ... It's time the BBC was asking the government a difficult question. Why has BT not yet been prosecuted for their Phorm trials which were in clear and unequivocal breach of the law? You might also want to try to get a straight answer from BT on why they think the interceptions they carried out in the trials were not illegal. You might want to ask BT whether they propose to make Phorm "opt-in" or "opt-out". You might want to ask whether those who opt-out will have to take action – e.g. maintain a cookie on their PC. You might want to ask BT whether those opted-out will still have their web traffic inspected anyway, just not acted upon. You might want to ask how Phorm can be legal even if the user is misled into giving consent – for a wiretap to be legal, both parties have to give their consent, and it is unlikely that all websites would agree to traffic to their websites being intercepted. You might want to ask BT why they are partnering with a company who as 121media was notorious as a source of rootkit malware. See: http://www.f-secure.com/sw-desc/peopleonpage.shtml http://www.f-secure.com/sw-desc/apropos.shtml This was some of the most intractable malware on the Internet. Phorm may say it was easy to remove, but the process was: work in safe mode - run a 3rd party fix tool - delete several registry keys - delete 4 hidden and protected files from 4 directories all with scrambled names - uninstall 2 programs from add/remove. Easy to remove? I don't think so. You might want to ask Sir Richard Branson what damage he thinks Virgin Media's proposal to use Phorm is doing to the Virgin brand. The ISPs, led by BT, appear to be hell-bent on proceeding with the Phorm rollout. Their excuses range from the ridiculous ("it will increase privacy" (how?)) to the disingenuous ("Phorm includes anti-phishing features" - well maybe it will, but these are equally available for free in the latest Web Browsers, and since when did bundling a useful utility with malware stop the malware from being malware?). They have to be stopped, and stopped now, or one area of consumer rights will be lost for ever. And by consumers, I include MPs, Judges, Journalists, indeed anyone who uses their computers from home and whose every interaction with the Internet, whether searching, home shopping, viewing documents and sending or receiving webmail-based communications will be read and processed by Phorm.