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

Originally Posted by vicz

In defense of Alex Brown if you look back thru the VM and BY newsgroups he has consistently been evenhanded and professional in his posts, especially given the difficult position he finds himself in, and the often 'colourful' way some VM customers choose to express themselves. He has also spoken of his own acquaintance with Phorm in the VM labs and personal conviction that no trials have been done on live accounts. Of course he may well be getting the mushroom treatment from VM senior management but it would not be up to him to decide whether to deploy phorm nor should he have to justify its deployment should that be what VM management choose to do.

You'd have such a different view of alex if you had met him or seen how he has acted on the newsgroups in the past.

Back in the good old days, when he was a nice guy and actually helped customers it was great.

But now, all you get out of him is "not true" "no" "yes" replies.

He lies alot on the newsgroups..denies trials being run (till he is forced to admit it when too many people know) originally denied they was even in talks with phorm (again, till forced)

Not a person you can trust.

[3x2]

"In the UK, attitudes towards service providers are at something of a crossroads," he said. "If we can simultaneously demonstrate we're engaging with these complex issues and capture the excitement and opportunity of our services, we could emerge as the enablers of choice in an industry that is sometimes regarded as a bit sterile and remote.

"Or we could go the way of the utility companies or the financial services industry and become resented by consumers and seen as little more than a necessary evil."
....

VM (and other ISP's) are getting two aspects of their business a little mixed up. One is their role as a provider of basic network connectivity - IP packet delivery A to B. The other is the 'enhancement' products they can offer due to their unique position - music downloads for example.

Basic network connectivity is a 'utility company' activity and I'm afraid it isn't very exiting. There is more competition you can engage in as an ISP than as a water company but basic connectivity is a utility. My electricity company supplies me with electricity and bills me for it.

By all means VM "capture the excitement and opportunity of your other services" but the two must be kept separate. Phorm is an attempt to pollute one with the other.

My electricity supplier may well have done a great deal on new fridges with it's super new partner and they are entitled to tell me about it. The moment they make my electricity supply dependant on that deal they have crossed the line. Phorm crosses that line.

_____________________________

VM already running Phorm - doubt it very much, Kent will be holding a ticker tape parade when that happens.

VM have run 'live' tests - doubt it again. Word would have gotten out by now. I'm positive there is at least one disgruntled VM employee who is more than willing to fess up if there were evidence. I'm sure VM were up to something at the back end of last year but the only end result I noticed, beside the intermittent problems, was that my machine was eventually talking to a 10. net.

[gethin]

Anyone got a link to the no.10 signature list. Want to go add my squiggle

And been looking at the ADSL 2 and thinking hmmm for a while

[OF1975]

Its in my signature gethin. You want the second one.

[OF1975]

Apologies if this has been posted already but good to see more coverage of this in the US:

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/0...ref=technology

[Dephormation]

Has the Virgin Media Webwise statement & FAQ been updated lately?

http://www.virginmedia.com/customers/webwise-faqs.php

In particular it now says;

Has Virgin Media ever deployed the Webwise system?

No. As part of an early evaluation of the system to understand how the technology works we have run a small technical lab test on a private internal network, not connected to the internet. We have never deployed the system, either as a trial or otherwise, and would never do so without informing our customers first.

When was that test then? Hope it wasn't prior to Feb 2008, because that's when VM's Director of Customer Relations told me they first considered working with Phorm.

Personally, I'm not convinced by anything VM say now. Why has it taken them so long to produce this new FAQ, and why haven't they answered any of the questions VM customers put to them?

[Florence]

You already know it has to be before Feb 2008 or they would still be running trials on their internal private network.

Not sure how a small test on an internal network will show much since the pressure would come from thousends asking for URL's at once and if the phorm cheap equipment can handle the request complete the hijack and pass on the phormed cookie before the customer can blink. Or crash under the pressure putting thousends offline generating loads of calls aboiut not being able to use the internet.. After all remember the proxies and the problems they caused when they failed.

[Dephormation]

And still no word on the 80/20Phinking site about the video from two weeks ago.

They could have uploaded an MP3 of the full audio stream, if not the final video edit, within 15 minutes of the event completing.

[OF1975]

Originally Posted by Dephormation

And still no word on the 80/20Phinking site about the video from two weeks ago.

They could have uploaded an MP3 of the full audio stream, if not the final video edit, within 15 minutes of the event completing.

I vaguely remember alexander saying he had a phonecall from Simon Davies when Simon returned from Italy saying they hoped to release it soon.

---------- Post added at 15:05 ---------- Previous post was at 15:02 ----------

I found it. Its post #4868 on page 325 of this thread.

---------- Post added at 15:10 ---------- Previous post was at 15:05 ----------

Simon seems busy dealing with other issues right now such as local councils and their use of RIPA etc:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstor...9520-20397582/

[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by CaptJamieHunter

If I went to the board of the company I work for and said "You know the deployment we announced and have been counting down to... well we've hit a rather large problem. It's almost certainly illegal..." this Captain would get his backside fired so hard you'd see him shooting towards the sky.

Some nice whistle blowing legistlation to protect you when that happens though...

[Anonymouse]

I've had a reply from my MEP, Gary Titley. He sent me a copy of the reply Glenis Willmott (another Labour MEP) got from Viviane Reding, of the European Commission. The gist of it is that the Commission is aware of the matter - so they should be, given the number of people here who've told 'em about it! - and noting the general principles for the protection of personal data (Directives 95/46/EC and 2002/58/EC). The interesting part is:

The responsibility for the enforcement of national legislation transposing EU Directives is with the competent national authorities.

(Given that she's talking about the ICO we might argue that last, but...)

The ICO, the UK Data Protection Authority, has issued several statements concerning Phorm. According to these statements, the ICO has been told that the users will be duly informed about the technology and presented with the possibility to become involved, i.e. to provide their consent by positively opting-in, and that they will also have the possibility to change their mind at any moment later.

Hmmm. That's news to us, isn't it?

The ICO states that it will be in close contact with Phorm and BT during a trial of the technology involving around 10,000 BT broadband customers who will opt in to the trial.

They will? Has anyone told them that? Again, hmmm.

The ICO finds that, according to the explanation provided by Phorm, there does not appear to be any detriment to users in the operation of the Phorm system (yeah, tell that to Stephen Wainwright!) but it will keep the Phorm products under review as they are rolled out to verify whether the assurances Phorm has provided so far are confirmed in practice.

HMMM.

As a brief OT aside, have a look at this...I couldn't stop laughing.

[kagemusha]

Hello everyone. Have been reading this post for quite a few days.

Has anyone thought of hoisting-phorm-on-their-own-petard?

That is taking adverts out in the local paper warning of the relationship between the spyware company, Phorm and the three ISP's.

I've had a look through the CAP codes at the ASA website, and can't find any reason why it can't be done, apart from perhaps the expense.

http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/codes/

The benefit is that it would reach a much bigger crowd of casual surfer/non techie than say this site or badphorm.

What do you think?

EDIT: Ah right it has already been thought of in the VM newsgroups, apparently it is very expensive for papers such as the Metro.

[roadrunner69]

Originally Posted by kagemusha

Has anyone thought of hoisting-phorm-on-their-own-petard?

That is taking adverts out in the local paper warning of the relationship between the spyware company, Phorm and the three ISP's.

I've had a look through the CAP codes at the ASA website, and can't find any reason why it can't be done, apart from perhaps the expense.

What do you think?

I think someone over at badphorm had the same idea but it came down to the expence....I vaguely remember a figure of 15K just for the locals on a full page.
bugger

[labougie]

Wasn't BT (when it was a monopoly) forced to allow other ISPs to have access to its network? Now that Virgin is a cable monopoly, do the same rules apply i.e. could VM be forced to rent bandwith to a putative competitor? Hmm! I think I know what the answer is, but what a nice thought! Raise a bit of dosh from somewhere and set up a guaranteed conduit only ISP? OK - let me dream.........

[mark777]

Originally Posted by labougie

Wasn't BT (when it was a monopoly) forced to allow other ISPs to have access to its network? Now that Virgin is a cable monopoly, do the same rules apply i.e. could VM be forced to rent bandwith to a putative competitor? Hmm! I think I know what the answer is, but what a nice thought! Raise a bit of dosh from somewhere and set up a guaranteed conduit only ISP? OK - let me dream.........

An "organic" ISP.

No GM foods. No PM ISP's.