[Portly_Giraffe]

Here's a letter I'm drafting to Ian Livingston. Any suggestions for improvement would be welcome.

BT, Webwise and Phorm: commercial risks and costs

Dear Mr Livingston,

I’m sure you are fully aware of what is happening regarding BT’s trials of Phorm. And I am sure you are equally aware that many believe BT’s use of Phorm is both illegal and immoral. However, I would like to bring to your attention the commercial risks and costs of your planned future deployment of Webwise across all BT home broadband users.

Low take-up if opt-in is fully informed. The Information Commissioner has said that schemes such as Webwise should be opt-in. Many critics will be monitoring how you implement this. So it is likely that you will have to expressly disclose that if they opt in, users will then have most of their web browsing intercepted and read. On this basis, few users are likely to opt in.

Technical community recommending “anyone but BT Home Broadband”. I am sure you have already quantified the potential loss through critics of BT’s relationship with Phorm terminating their broadband agreements with you. But these are also the people others go to for advice about computers and the Internet. Have you also calculated the much greater loss of new business as a result of these people advising that BT Home Broadband should be avoided?

Costs and cost of time in fighting copyright claims. Everything on the Internet is not free to use. For example you cannot download a picture and then make money from publishing it in a book. Small website owners, whose copyright is infringed by Webwise’s profiling, may sue BT in large numbers via the small claims courts, costing you time and money. Large website owners, such as Amazon, may take you to court for large sums of money.

Major Internet companies making Phorm’s operation worthless. The major Internet companies are unlikely to let Phorm take any significant share of their advertising revenue. Microsoft may adapt the Internet Explorer browser so that it does not process third party cookies (in the same way as a the Safari browser does not process them currently). Google may implement SSL so that its searches and results are encrypted. Phorm may be left with nothing to profile.

It would be a shame if one of BT’s major products ended up reviled and unwanted, particularly if this was a result of a commercial proposition which ultimately may be worth very little financially.

Yours sincerely,
Portly_Giraffe

So ... Comments?