As people here will be aware, I'm always interested in what ISNT said, and what questions ARENT answered.
It strikes me that BT have delayed the trials because of unanswered questions that either they hadn't thought of, or that they didn't think the public would care about. And they have been retrofitting that trial like mad to try and make it "fit" the new climate. And they aren't ready yet.
We are now in the interesting phase of growing "perception" particularly amongst the legislative/enforcement community, and amongst BT customers and shareholders. So the longer the trials can be delayed the better because I think the legislative/enforcement process may create further difficulties for Phorm/Webwise.
So what else might BT not have thought about, or be hoping that no one actually asks them?
If you wanted to challenge BT (and hence the other watching and waiting ISP's) about the UNanswered questions prior to their trialling of Webwise, what do think would be on the list?
At he moment my list includes the following fairly obvious ones - but I'd like a few more with worrying legal implications.
When are the trials going to start?
Will the Webwise trial invitation pop up during ordinary browsing of anyone using a BT Broadband Residential IP address, or only when a BT Broadband Residential customer visits www.bt.com or BTYahoo! customer pages as a logged in and verified BTBroadband residential primary account holder?
What steps will be taken to check that the person responding to the Webwise invitation is the BT Broadband primary account holder? At the moment extra password control is used to check the identity of anyone trying to alter personal info or account details on a BT Broadband account. Yet with Webwise it looks as if ANYONE will be able to opt in to Webwise and thus effect a change in the T&C's of the BT Broadband primary account.
How will the BT Broadband primary account holder be notified of the change to their T&C's, in the event that a third party consents to Webwise while using the BT Account holder's IP address?
Is BT confident that a material change to the T&C's of a BT Broadband residential primary account holder can be enforced in law, when for example a child of 10 (or anyoone else) using their laptop at home, on the BT Broadband IP address, during a browsing session which the parent thought was controlled, innocently clicks on a Webwise invitation?
If a third party using the BT Broadband account holder's IP address (say an adult daughter with her own laptop visting home from uni) gets the pop up Webwise invitation and chooses to opt-IN to the Webwise trial without the BT Broadband primary account holders knowledge, and the primary BT Broadband residential account holder independently and later, not knowing the action taken by their adult child, who is no longer in the house) chooses to block a variety of domains using a hosts file, including key domains connected with Webwise, what will happen to their browsing?
How often should a BT Broadband primary account holder (for BT Webwise cookies) check all the computers belonging to all the people who might be sharing (or have shared) his IP address?
What information are helpdesks going to be given about the Webwise system and possible technical difficulties? In previous covert trials they have been given NO information and have therefore misled customers, resulting in those customers suffering material harm.
What is the FULL list of domains associated with Webwise operation?
Now - anyone got any fairly simple legal or other technical questions of the sort that could be asked of BT (or VM or TalkTalk when it is their turn), and which they might not yet have answers to?
The sort of question I'm after is the sort that might make the BT "lawyer" or exec say "oh ***** we didn't think of that!" - or "oh ****** - we hoped no one would notice that!" - and cause a further delay.
Any thoughts anyone, and I'll compile a list.