Thread: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
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Old 30-04-2008, 17:50   #5156
AlexanderHanff
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Re: Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dephormation View Post
I think this tells you a little about the ethics of their organisation, but probably a lot more about the insanity in their methods.

They can't present a different user-agent string; its your requests and your user-agent they are meddling with. They are pretending to be you, to obtain keywords from web sites by deception (Alex H, I guess you might be thinking what I'm thinking? ).

As for the robots.txt. Lets suppose that when Phorm request your robots.txt they could look for a Phorm specific instruction. There's no reason why they couldn't. They simply don't want to. Their business model is already in peril due to user opt in. Giving web sites a way to stop Phorm isn't in their plan.

I'm sure, their whole business is on the brink of an abyss.

Either that or we're all about to get sold as spyware fodder by HMG and Regulators.
Even if they do give us a user-agent string, it doesn't mean they will obey robots.txt they could choose to completely ignore it.

Alexander Hanff
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