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

[Dephormation]

Originally Posted by BetBlowWhistler

with all the FOI's going around it's hard to keep track, but has anyone asked if the ICO/Home Office have been contacted by any ISP other than BT?

I've asked them in early May to explain who asked for the 'legal advice' that wasn't legal advice, and when.

So far, no answers, though I do know it was before August 16 2007.

Apparently I can't be told until August/September at the earliest. Which is around 6 months after an FoI request that should by law have been answered in 20 days. There's nothing to hide you understand, its all perfectly above board.

HO haven't revealed who else asked for advice, but I do know they were advising BT/Phorm throughout the period August 2007-February 2008. A period of critical/severe national security alert, when you might imagine people in the Office of Security and Counter Terrorism had more pressing things to consider than advertising for Weight Watchers and credit cards etc.

Supposedly, according to letters I've seen from BERR, advising business falls outside the Home Office remit in any case. They are supposed to handle warrants for surveillance by law enforcement bodies.

Pete

Originally Posted by Tarquin L-Smythe

Almost as useless as hypothesising about what other ISP's may or may not have done at least it was a factual based discussion not a work of fiction.

My post was not a work of fiction and it was not a "useless" post - it was a suggestion that we re-examine VM's role.

Virgin have a relationship with Phorm that has not yet been investigated and a number of other members have already posted in agreement - it's an area that is on-topic and needs to be looked at.

[Dephormation]

The mods over on the BT forums, just posted outside their Webwise thread to ask when do we get answers.

Post lasted as long as 10 minutes before being erased

[Rchivist]

Originally Posted by Dephormation

The mods over on the BT forums, just posted outside their Webwise thread to ask when do we get answers.

Post lasted as long as 10 minutes before being erased

retrain the guns on VM and TalkTalk- the BT guys are all deep in their trenches, with field telphones disconnected.

Originally Posted by Dephormation

The mods over on the BT forums, just posted outside their Webwise thread to ask when do we get answers.

Post lasted as long as 10 minutes before being erased

I was in the middle of replying to you on the mail Phorm thread and all of the last 45 minutes worth of posts have been deleted including all of yours and my replies.

Have you had your wrist slapped yet or are they going erase you completely?

[serial]

Originally Posted by R Jones

retrain the guns on VM and TalkTalk- the BT guys are all deep in their trenches, with field telphones disconnected.

Agree, we have various complaints awaiting answer with BT, now during this quiet period we should start pushing Virgin Media and Talk Talk.

Also, I reckon we should stop referring to Virgin Media as VM and Talk Talk as TT as their full names should be out there linked with this.

[Tarquin L-Smythe]

If there are any persons within the Virgin Media group who have any information on trials of Webwise within the Virgin Media Internet service and you are reading this thread now is the time to blow the whistle as was done with BT.

[serial]

Having a quick glance over the Virgin world here: http://www.virgin.com/home.aspx

Thats a lot of data they can collect and share even before they plug in Phorm/Webwise.

[Dephormation]

Originally Posted by Peter N

I was in the middle of replying to you on the mail Phorm thread and all of the last 45 minutes worth of posts have been deleted including all of yours and my replies.

Have you had your wrist slapped yet or are they going erase you completely?

No, there wasn't anything to slap my wrists for. I've just been given a firm reminder that they want to keep everything in the Webwise thread because otherwise it is too 'confusing'.

I've replied asking for a Webwise thread group to be set up in that case.

Did I get a reply? I'll let you know if I ever do.

---------- Post added at 20:57 ---------- Previous post was at 20:56 ----------

Originally Posted by R Jones

retrain the guns on VM and TalkTalk- the BT guys are all deep in their trenches, with field telphones disconnected.

Indeed.

It would be laughable if it wasn't so profoundly wrong in a completely utterly wrong kind of way of being wrong.

[OldBear]

They've got a damn cheek, that lot.

I got the call today inviting me to renew; I mentioned Phorm/Webwise and they claimed to know nothing about it. The guy even suggested I asked a question on the BT forum about it as he was sure they could help.

I hung up!

I posted on the forum about 5 minutes ago. I'm waiting on my warning now.

OB

[serial]

What's peoples thoughts that on a specific day we all call BT pretending we want broadband but ask specifically about concerns over Phorm/Webwise. If the customer rep doesn't know anything about it, we inPhorm them. Then another day we do Virgin Media and another we do Talk Talk?

This would certainly raise discussion in the call centres.

And if these forums are watched as closely as we know they are, maybe the call centres will be briefed in advance.

[Tarquin L-Smythe]

IMHO they are getting more tolerant on BT Beta (still beta ??)I did the same by starting other threads and questioning mod ethics had all my Emails ignored and got a lifetime ban Yeah dead right so much for transparency.

Originally Posted by serial

What's peoples thoughts that on a specific day we all call BT pretending we want broadband but ask specifically about concerns over Phorm/Webwise. If the customer rep doesn't know anything about it, we inPhorm them. Then another day we do Virgin Media and another we do Talk Talk?

This would certainly raise discussion in the call centres.

And if these forums are watched as closely as we know they are, maybe the call centres will be briefed in advance.

You have to very careful with that sort of action. It could constitute a Denial of Service attack and apart from the possible criminal offence there is the risk of being branded as Cyber-Terrorists.

[phormwatch]

Originally Posted by serial

What's peoples thoughts that on a specific day we all call BT pretending we want broadband but ask specifically about concerns over Phorm/Webwise. If the customer rep doesn't know anything about it, we inPhorm them. Then another day we do Virgin Media and another we do Talk Talk?

This would certainly raise discussion in the call centres.

And if these forums are watched as closely as we know they are, maybe the call centres will be briefed in advance.

Smashing idea! In fact, we should organise I wider campaign and set a date for it. If we get a couple of dozen people doing this repeatedly and we take down the names of the people (just first names) of the people who have been InPhormed, then we know they're lying if they pretend to not have heard anything about it.

If they're not lying, then all the better.

Also, when I get back I would like to write up a two or three paragraph 'post' which I can use to spam the relevant newgroups and forums and talkboards about Phorm. I think we should always be thinking about raising the number of people who are aware of this scam.

We could title it something like: 'BT, Virgin Media, Talk Talk Customers beware! Your ISP wants to spy on you' or something like that.

We need something simple to understand - explaining the situation and how people can get more information. I can spend one day simply joining every forum I can find and post it in a relevant folder.

[warescouse]

As I briefly mentioned in post #12585 I suspect there is something a little fishy with Virgin Media's relationship with phorm/webwise and I think while we are waiting for BT news we could attempt to find out the bigger picture of what Virgin Media has also been up to via the FOI act.

Any idea's for good precise questions we should ask for a starter for 10?