[Traduk]

There is an incredible irony in the stance UK ISP's take which looks like double standards in the extreme. The government has charged ISP's with the task of stamping out file theft (music and video) by early 2009 and the ISP's respond with their age old argument by drawing an analogy with the post office and claiming that they cannot look inside those packets to determine contents. It is a good analogy inasmuch as it takes a judge to sign off on mail interception but I suspect the motivation is not privacy related but cost related with no reward.

However when there is a carrot of a good little earner for spying on customers and intercepting surfing patterns it would appear that the Post Office analogy falls down. If our letters were opened and some advertising spam stuffed inside commensurate with the contents I dare say that the outcry would give the perpetrators a business lifespan of hours.

I see that from the reports linked within this thread that BT is expected to make £85 million by 2009. On the basis of BT's turnover (billions) that is a pathetic little sum and hardly worth the effort if there is a risk of seriously upsetting customers. Therein lies a point of interest which I will never forget and that was the comment from a senior director or CEO of NTL when it was stated that customers are confusing bits with bytes, kilos with megas etc which all basically added up to an insult aimed at the customer base which implied that they are all unsophisticated Joe six-packs.

The ADSL ISP I also use has a mainly business orientated client base and they would know for sure that a stunt like this would turn them into an ex-ISP in very short order. This prospective invasion of privacy is IMO an act of contempt against the customers and displays pretty well how we are valued.

I sincerely hope that this forum has more clout than the numbers of members because a few hundred votes in a group of 10K will be treated with derision against a customer base of millions by upper management.