Virgin Media Phorm Webwise Adverts [Updated: See Post No. 1, 77, 102 & 797]

[warescouse]

Originally Posted by Peter N

Even with a 10% take up amongst the big three ISPs, you're still looking at 1,700,000 people. If Phorm pay the ISP's £1 per opted-in customer per week you are still looking at £88,400,000 per year.

That's a lot of money for basically allowing Phorm to do all of the work - they don't even have to pay for the equipment.

In order to reduce the ISP's income by the same amount of money you'd need to persuade over 5,000,000 customers to move to a none Phorm using ISP - assuming that there are any left.

Assuming you were correct (we could argue hypothetically all day percentages ) all you will need is one national Phorm-Free ISP and think they could clean up and reduce that figure considerably. (Virgin Media I hope your listening).

All ISP's who commit to Phorm could lose considerable custom to a Phorm free ISP. I also think its not impossible that 5,000,000 inPhormed customers could move once public opinion and knowledge is widespread (Lets face it it's not very difficult to do). And you are not taking not taking into account any money paid out by ISP's due to copyright issues, or court cases, maybe because hackers have messed around with the WebWise cookies to their advantage and seriously affected a large organisation in some way. (The system is then deemed then not as secure as was stated).

There are many issues that could affect the financial viability. As I have said before, once trust is gone, it's usually gone forever. Members of an ISP who move I don't think will come back. I take on-board you points but I think there are many other unforeseen costs to the Phorm infected ISP that are only beginning to be imagined even now.

[Rchivist]

Originally Posted by Julian Smart

Well; like DPI, it's another intrusion, and there are other points of similarity with Phorm: unwanted advertising, the lack of an opt-in choice (unless you count shutting your eyes and sticking your fingers in your ears, which has H&S implications), and no doubt there will be CCTV cameras attached to (or near) the screens to record any attempts to smash the wretched things. I was intrigued (and heartened) by Simon Davies/Privacy International's condemnation of them, Simon being an expert on public CCTV.

Apart from anything else, the sheer lack of taste is staggering, as is the arrogance in thinking we're all interested in sport.

Julian, I think big screens in city centres are definitely off topic for this thread, and would be best dealt with in a separate thread if you and others want to pursue it. I just can't see how discussing that, is going to help us move forward on the topic of Phorm/Webwise/targetted behavioural advertising/deep packet inspection/interception of internet traffic.
That's just my personal opinion. No personal criticism intended.

I think you've taken my posts the wrong way.

I was only trying to advise non-BT/VM/CPW customers that they need to get involved now before it's too late and all ISPs start using DPI to boost their income.

I'm not sure that saying that the ISPs will lose money is realistic - if it is then why are we bothering fighting them when they will either srop DPI or go bust? What I do know is that we have to fight Phorm and any other similar system based on what we know - it's intrusive, unregulated and just around the corner.

We don't want to send the wrong message to forum vistors - this system will be online this year unless we actively fight it right now. Even if Phorm's business model is flawed it still leaves the door wide open for other companies with equally despicable pieces of spyware to come along until one has the PR or presentation to make it financially viable.

We can't leave this open - we need to push and push until we get legislation that will prevent any such system from ever being used by ISPs. Combatting Phorm and the three big ISPs is only a battle - there's a whole war needs fighting if we don't want to see these systems or have this same struggle every six months from now on.

[warescouse]

Originally Posted by Peter N

I think you've taken my posts the wrong way.

cut ...

I'm not sure that saying that the ISPs will lose money is realistic - if it is then why are we bothering fighting them when they will either srop DPI or go bust? What I do know is that we have to fight Phorm and any other similar system based on what we know - it's intrusive, unregulated and just around the corner.
...cut

Sorry Peter, I was not trying to say they would all lose money directly, but with the inPhormed publicity that Phorm would love people to avoid, any gains may not outweigh the bad press and risks involved.

Businesses like to have good costings. Because of the nature of WebWise, copyright issues and the inherent risk to privacy outlined in many references to academic papers and similar within this thread and others, there may well be a lot of unknown negative costings to consider for an ISP thinking of adopting WebWise (or similar). Some of these issues are still being discovered. This apart from any current legality issues.

<edit>
There are two fights as I see it. Public awareness and political awareness. Both are important IMHO.

[Wildie]

Well for one when Ebay changed their t&c to allow them profile and not just on their system but outside and asking users to opt out in stead of in, I left and told them why and took 6 emails back and forth for them to get the message to del my A/C, complaining i was not using my email addy i used to open a A/C lot of fun i say, but i wont have it, they make enough money already just pigging GREED, same will happen to my a/c with my isp..

Another possible contact to approach regarding Phorm and ISP level interception - the Freedom Association

A spokesman for the FA is quoted in this article but the organiation itself doesn't seem to be involved as yet judging by a search of their website.

You may want to look at this Wiki entry for the FA to see who is involved with the organisation as it includes a number of ploiticians and members of the House of Lords.

[SelfProtection]

Originally Posted by phormwatch

Morning, all. If anyone is interested, I've exported and sanitized a version of all my Google email alerts from April to July 2008 on the word 'Phorm'. I compiled all the emails into one big text file, which I have just uploaded to BadPhorm.

It is currently awaiting approval.

I thought this might come in handy for anyone looking for a news article on Phorm which appeared on the web in the past few months or is doing some other kind of research. If I had the time, I would measure (subjectively) the ratio of positive vs. negative articles, and how this changed over time.

Anyway, I'll post the URL shortly.

---------- Post added at 12:45 ---------- Previous post was at 12:35 ----------

A *very interesting* technological solution to ISP snooping:

http://code.google.com/p/obstcp/

Another technological method solution may be to use a rc4 randomizing synchronized driver, clocked between endpoints.

This would make mirroring & keyword searches much harder without the overhead of full encryption.
(Another Envelope).

[pseudonym]

Originally Posted by Peter N

I think you've taken my posts the wrong way.

I was only trying to advise non-BT/VM/CPW customers that they need to get involved now before it's too late and all ISPs start using DPI to boost their income.

I think a few ISPs will remain opposed to exploiting their customers in this way. There is clearly a market for a Phorm free ISP, and they may well be able to charge a premium for providing it above and beyond any income they could hope to derive from phorming.

The trouble is, if Phorm is deemed a success and the Phorm Three all go ahead, then there will be much less competition for the custom of those of us who object to phorming and probably no large non-phorming ISPs, so we can expect to pay a fair bit more.

Worse still the ISP market in the UK is consolidating, an ISP that is vehermently anti-phorm today, could be bought out by a phorming ISP tomorrow, so no-one is really safe from phorming until the practice is outlawed.

[Ravenheart]

Not sure if this is of use but this site was mentioned over on Lifehacker, http://url-info.appspot.com/

You can use it to get a bit more info about various sites, there's a mention of a PIA on the Phorm site. The more techy amongst us may know this info already, but I thought i'd post in case it could be useful.

If BT et al use any income from Phorm to drop their montly fees then the other ISPs will either sign-up or go bust.

BT could even drop their prices for a few months as a special offer to lure more people into 18 month contracts just to get the maximum number of punters using Phorm. I call this the Tesco effect because that company is notorious for dropping prices on any item or range that is sold locally by any other shop - you open a small record shop and they put you out of business by selling chart CDs at below cost. They make the money back in the long term by creating a monopoly.

All of the normal rules of supply and demand go out of the window when you deal with a company as big as BT and they are not going to worry too much about fighting a couple of small ISPs for business when they know that they have such vast resources behind them.

Webwise will be advertised in such a way that the average person has no idea of the privacy inmplications and they'll be lead to believe that all internet use is risky and that this is no big deal. That's the track that Phorm have gone down and BT are Phorm's faithful dog.

You pay less than £1 a day for internet usage and after you take the overheads from that I doubt if the ISPs make more than a few pounds per year per houshold. Compared with the overhead free income offered by Phorm then losing even a few million customers to the smaller ISPs - most of whom pay BT for the lines and bandwidth anyway - is not going to worry them too much. It would be a different matter if those people were to migrate to Virgin or Carphone Warehouse but that's not going to happen and BT will remain way up at the top of the ISP tree.

Bear in mind that BT is also the first choice ISP for so many non-technically minded people who still think of BT as being a public organisation and you'll have to go a long way before you can make even a tiny dent in their profits and unless ISP level DPI interception is completely outlawed or tightly controlled then we are going to be spid on by all ISPs because market forces will be such that an "ethical" ISP will not exist to migrate to.

[Tarquin L-Smythe]

Hang on I thought we were going to get this stopped not talk damage limitation, or am I the only one wanting this stopped before it rolls out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Graham M]

Do you really see that happening?

[Tarquin L-Smythe]

Thats the only reason I'm here I have fought many campaigns at govt level and would not have bothered if I didn't believe in winning

Ut prosim vince mallum bono

To overcome evil with good ,my old school Badge.

[SelfProtection]

Originally Posted by Tarquin L-Smythe

Hang on I thought we were going to get this stopped not talk damage limitation, or am I the only one wanting this stopped before it rolls out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You're not the only one!!
It must be stopped!!

But in case DPI mirroring is contemplated in the future, it is a wise precaution to attempt to provide technological means to make such a system unworkable!!

[warescouse]

Originally Posted by Peter N

If BT et al use any income from Phorm to drop their montly fees then the other ISPs will either sign-up or go bust.

BT could even drop their prices for a few months as a special offer to lure more people into 18 month contracts just to get the maximum number of punters using Phorm. I call this the Tesco effect because that company is notorious for dropping prices on any item or range that is sold locally by any other shop - you open a small record shop and they put you out of business by selling chart CDs at below cost. They make the money back in the long term by creating a monopoly.

All of the normal rules of supply and demand go out of the window when you deal with a company as big as BT and they are not going to worry too much about fighting a couple of small ISPs for business when they know that they have such vast resources behind them.

Webwise will be advertised in such a way that the average person has no idea of the privacy inmplications and they'll be lead to believe that all internet use is risky and that this is no big deal. That's the track that Phorm have gone down and BT are Phorm's faithful dog.

You pay less than £1 a day for internet usage and after you take the overheads from that I doubt if the ISPs make more than a few pounds per year per houshold. Compared with the overhead free income offered by Phorm then losing even a few million customers to the smaller ISPs - most of whom pay BT for the lines and bandwidth anyway - is not going to worry them too much. It would be a different matter if those people were to migrate to Virgin or Carphone Warehouse but that's not going to happen and BT will remain way up at the top of the ISP tree.

Bear in mind that BT is also the first choice ISP for so many non-technically minded people who still think of BT as being a public organisation and you'll have to go a long way before you can make even a tiny dent in their profits and unless ISP level DPI interception is completely outlawed or tightly controlled then we are going to be spid on by all ISPs because market forces will be such that an "ethical" ISP will not exist to migrate to.

Although I doubt that BT would pass on any 'profits' made via the Phorm WebWise system it is this reason why everybody should take on-board the possibility that if we bury our heads in the sand and do nothing this could be our worst nightmare. Destruction of the web as we know it!

We must all complain and complain loudly. Don't leave it to somebody else. As shown earlier this week on this board, apart from all the privacy and interception issues do we want WebWise or None WebWise
Alternatively.
As illustrated in post #12346
Network Neutrality or Network Parasite Neutrality

Which horrifyingly leads to The end result