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

[Wild Oscar]

I got a reply from the office of one of my MEP's .. Caroline Lucas of the Green party.

Dear Kevin

Thank you for your recent email, which Caroline has asked me to respond to on her behalf.

Greens are fundamentally opposed to the idea that ISPs should be monitoring activity by users to prevent fraud, copyright breaches, illegal file sharing and so forth. We uphold the right of all users to privacy and security whilst using the internet. We also strongly oppose the monitoring of internet activity so as to target advertising.

The European Parliament has been debating proposals to better support cultural industries across the EU, and some Christian/Liberal Democrat MEPs have used this as an opportunity to promote the idea of 'spying' on users of the internet.

In January, the European Parliament's Culture and Education Committee voted on a report into Cultural Industries in the context of the Lisbon Treaty. Green MEPs on the Committee, and the majority of their colleagues, opposed those amendments to the report that sought to force ISPs to cooperate in the fight against online piracy via eg filtering technologies or blocking of content. A priority for Green MEPs is to ensure that consumers are not criminalised and to urge the European Commission to play a role in defending an open society via the internet, with reference to eg Burma and China.


The text of the draft report can be seen at
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdo...6/684266en.pdf

The report was adopted but the amendments calling for ISPs to monitor users were rejected. It will now come before the full Parliament, where Caroline and her fellow Greens will again vote against any attempts to oblige ISPs to work with governments, law enforcement agencies, corporations and so forth to tackle online piracy. They will also resist any efforts to facilitate the gathering of data for advertising purposes, although this is not currently under discussion in the Parliament.

Please be assured that Caroline is doing her utmost to protect the internet from corporate control and Greens in the Parliament also led the European campaign to oppose software patents in 2006.
http://www.greens-efa.org/cms/topics...oftware@en.pdf

Thank you for taking the time to write to Caroline and please do not hesitate to get back in touch if you require any further information.

Kind regards,

Cath Miller
Constituency Coordinator and Researcher

Office of Dr Caroline Lucas
Green Party MEP for SE England
Suite 58, The Hop Exchange
24 Southwark Street
London SE1 1TY
Tel: 020 7407 6281

[Chroma]

Originally Posted by Anonymouse

Interesting that the service apparently doesn't exist in Vista...not that anyone'll miss it, of course.

It probably does exist in Vista, however it will however be turned off by default (XP is also disabled by default post SP2? i think)

Its actualy a usefull feature over large intranets (IE used validly) ut it got too open to abuse.

We used to use it in uni via command line (net send [network address] "Message") untill the admins clocked on and disabled the service.

[popper]

Originally Posted by Chroma

It probably does exist in Vista, however it will however be turned off by default (XP is also disabled by default post SP2? i think)

Its actualy a usefull feature over large intranets (IE used validly) ut it got too open to abuse.

We used to use it in uni via command line (net send [network address] "Message") untill the admins clocked on and disabled the service.

from the getting the word out department, it might have been a good way to let the non tech users know about being illegally DPI intercepted by your ISP if it were possible

and direct them to an informative InPhormed webpage such as the many we have in this thread to get more facts.

[SelfProtection]

Originally Posted by Anonymouse

Interesting that the service apparently doesn't exist in Vista...not that anyone'll miss it, of course.

More information about these Services can be found here:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messenger_Service
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MailSlot

Originally Posted by Mick

Post in question copied and stuck for all to find easily and see.

Thread is called:-

Links to protest at the possible deployment of Phorm.

NIce one. Thanks Mick

[icsys]

So, have Virgin Media changed their terms and conditions under the radar?

certainly looks like it over at ispreview

If this is correct, shouldn't customers be inphormed that T&C's have changed?

Originally Posted by mark777

This link below on the moneysaving expert site :-

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/....html?t=901747

If we can keep it near the top, it will be near a thread almost as big as this one and lots of people will see it.

I think it's best to keep it money orientated at first though, and just drip feed the message. Any help would be (and is ) appreciated.

I see it's had quite a few hits. Might have to register

Difficult for us lot to keep money saving as part of our posts there as we see the bigger picture issues, but must try

Hanco

---------- Post added at 18:20 ---------- Previous post was at 18:09 ----------

Someone should make the point (on the Money Saving Expert site) that Martin Lewis works really hard to get his messages out and marketing via the media. His Money Saving Expert email is completely opt in. It's wrong that Kent should be so intrusive and sneaky in the way he wants to operate his marketing method...

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/...tml?p=10755765

Hank

[mark777]

Oooh, there's a poll now.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/....html?t=901747

Proper market research questions too.

[SelfProtection]

Originally Posted by davews

Steve to date has not said anything about Phorm or its US equivalents, which I find quite surprising - I follow his newsgroups and Security Now podcast (as pdf transcript) and not a word.

To try and stir some interest I added a comment to a posting on his grc.news.feedback newsgroup where I know he posts. Steve is currently doing a lot of work in cookies, so surely this is up his street. You can see my post in the thread at http://12078.net/grcnews/article.php...feedback#71899 (as Dave Sergeant) and it has currently generated one interesting reply, but nothing from Steve yet. If you want to reply you need to subscribe to grc.news.feedback at news.grc.com

I think Steve has just replied to your Post.

[number6]

Quote:

2 - BT say they are working on an cookie-free way for customers to opt-IN to the Webwise trial. (management email to me) - ie: they are having to retrofit the model to fit the legal position - this is not the model that was originally designed by Phorm and offered to ISP's.


http://www.iii.co.uk/investment/deta...ail&id=4021991

[Rchivist]

Originally Posted by number6

Quote:

2 - BT say they are working on an cookie-free way for customers to opt-IN to the Webwise trial. (management email to me) - ie: they are having to retrofit the model to fit the legal position - this is not the model that was originally designed by Phorm and offered to ISP's.


http://www.iii.co.uk/investment/deta...ail&id=4021991

Just one of my alter egos - first post on a share price forum.

[number6]

Originally Posted by R Jones

Just one of my alter egos - first post on a share price forum.

Thought it might be a Forum member but did not wish to say so outright.

[AlexanderHanff]

Am I reading this right? Phorm shares took a serious beating today and closed at 12.5? Or are the iii charts being crap again (they have a habit of being very slow to catch up I have noticed).

Phorm are in the danger zone now, I was talking to a financial expert in the media last week who felt if Phorm shares dropped below 12.00 they have lost and people will just dump everything they have (in his opinion). Phorm share price is being watched very closely by the traders and analysts at the moment and is classed as a very high risk stock. As many of you know I had a 1 hour long chat with a journalist from the Financial Times last week who is writing an article on exactly that issue (high risk technology stocks) which is due to be published in the Investors Chronicle in the near future.

Keep the pressure up folks.

Sorry I have been quiet the last couple of days I am up to my neck in uni work and have two pieces due in on Friday (one of which is my dissertation). I have to confess I find it very difficult to motivate myself to do mundane coursework (such as decision support systems) when I am working on such a huge issue as Phorm.

I want to see that share price drop into the 1100 zone tomorrow.

Alexander Hanff

[flashpaul]

Alexander,

You are reading the share price wrong

It lost 12.5p today

The shares are trading at 1375p at the moment

More bad news can some change that though , I am surprised that the delay to the BT trials has not had some effect yet

Originally Posted by AlexanderHanff

Am I reading this right? Phorm shares took a serious beating today and closed at 12.5? Or are the iii charts being crap again (they have a habit of being very slow to catch up I have noticed).

Phorm are in the danger zone now, I was talking to a financial expert in the media last week who felt if Phorm shares dropped below 12.00 they have lost and people will just dump everything they have (in his opinion). Phorm share price is being watched very closely by the traders and analysts at the moment and is classed as a very high risk stock. As many of you know I had a 1 hour long chat with a journalist from the Financial Times last week who is writing an article on exactly that issue (high risk technology stocks) which is due to be published in the Investors Chronicle in the near future.

Keep the pressure up folks.

Sorry I have been quiet the last couple of days I am up to my neck in uni work and have two pieces due in on Friday (one of which is my dissertation). I have to confess I find it very difficult to motivate myself to do mundane coursework (such as decision support systems) when I am working on such a huge issue as Phorm.

I want to see that share price drop into the 1100 zone tomorrow.

Alexander Hanff

MS Money showing them at 1250p, down 137.5p

http://moneycentral.msn.com/detail/s...ol=GB:PHRM&v=1