[madslug]

After following this forum silently for some time I thought it best to add my voice and make a little more noise.

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I have just been reading Phorm's answer to PECR and 'valid informed consent'.
"Since Phorm technology does not use IP addresses to target advertising there is a strong argument that Section 7 of PECR does not apply to our service."

Everything else on that page only mentions the means of delivering the ads. This is all Phorm is, the deliverer of advertising. Nothing more. Dealing with anonymous information.

It is the ISPs who need to get the consent of their users, not Phorm. The inference is that all the ISPs are doing is obtaining their customers consent to having the adverts delivered to them, which includes being given a UID (they get that when they opt-in) and allowing the UID to be read by a javascript which is hosted on the web page delivering the ads.

What fools we have been to think that there could be anything else involved.
All that work done by Richard Clayton, none of his comments apply to the display of adverting, so nothing to do with this discussion.

I am reminded of what a member of the badphorm forum mentioned to me way back at the beginning - not a tech bod:
The whole Phorm / Webwise / OIX system is about stealing data - a burglary is taking place of personal data (profile) and web copyright (content). The content is used to help build the profile which is then 'sold' to a 3rd party without any payment to either of the parties who helped to create the resulting data - OIX uses both the profile and the content.
The defence comes along and says: the defendant is innocent of arson. Every question asked is answered with reference to the arson and everything looks above board because no one can see any evidence of anything that could result in a fire.

Even the Home Office has been brought in to provide answers that cover the fire.
Each question the ICO has asked has been answered with reference to the fire.

The more answers are given, the more everyone is told that the defendant is innocent of arson and everyone begins to agree that there is no fire.

Now, will someone please start giving answers about the theft. This is about burglary and not arson. There is no arson.

Does anyone know how to approach the Home Office and ask them to look into the case of burglary.

I have already asked the ICO to look into PECR with reference to the website - no request/method received from ISPs for the site to give informed consent to opt-in (only opt-out offered) to having its content copied and trial is now imminent. Perhaps a few more web site owners can ask the same question.

I have also complained to the HO that the opinion relating to implied consent for interception to enable the delivery of targeted adverts has been interpreted as there being implied consent from ALL websites, even those not involved in the delivery of adverts and that the intercepted data of all websites is being put to commercial use (contrary to copyright) by the ISPs who are using the data to create the user's profile.

Let us stop wasting time on the non-existent fire and get back to the very real theft: theft of privacy, theft of personal security, theft of intellectual property, theft of commercially sensitive data, theft of the freedoms offered by the internet, theft of internet neutrality.

Since the beginning, every question about the theft that has been put to BT and Phorm has had a response that there is no fire.