Virgin Media Hijack customers browser search options

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by Mick Fisher

I beg to differ. It is a way for VM to increase their profits.

Unsurprisingly the two are linked.

VM will want to make a certain amout of profit - they do this either through increasing subscription fees or through other means

Yeah? So why don't they ask me first before auto opting me in. If that is not stealth then I would like to know what is.

Yet when VM do offer an opt-in for Value Added servce - like the BB M uplift - everyone complains because they aren't doing it automatically!

If VM had wished to do the right thing they would have followed the recommendations of ICO and made it an opt in service.

That was a requirement of PHORM not this redirect. The two are not the same. There is no storing of user information

[Dephormation]

Originally Posted by webcrawler2050

Personally, don't care as long as my broad is stable and consitent..

What's she got to do with it?

[jamiefrost]

Originally Posted by Sir John Luke

Exactly. Given VM's attitude to net neutrality, further down the road, the DNS servers could be programmed to intercept queries for (say) google.com and return the address of whatever search engine provides VM with the most revenue. Wedge, thin end of.

Your right guess I'd better brush up on my prgramming skills and write my own browser application. You never know when microsoft / mozilla / opera / apple will programme there own browsers to intercept web requests as well.

JJ

[tdadyslexia]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

At least with this you can opt out if you want

I have opted out, but this should be opt in not opt out

[rogerdraig]

Originally Posted by Tech_Boy

Over react much?
Ok, so VM have introduced this change, you can opt out via the link that you posted.
Reading through the info, it says that it only kicks in when you misstype a url, not on any sort of search (or browser settings) as it works via DNS.
So calm down & opt out.
Thanks for the link tho.

the point is they should ask first then you opt in, the slow but steady "opt out" if you don't like it is just to push the idea that that's the way it should be


it isn't you should always be asked first ! it may be a trifling thing this time but next time it may not

[Milambar]

The fact that they opted me in without pre-warning us is what concerns me.

Originally Posted by Sirius

Then there is a simple answer for you if its thats much of problem.

Come on, feel bloody free to enlighten me, its not for vm to opt in people without carrying out any kind of fact finding mission to establish if anyone wants it.
Surely they cannot be that desperate for money.

[Mick Fisher]

Originally Posted by arcamalpha2004

Come on, feel bloody free to enlighten me, its not for vm to opt in people without carrying out any kind of fact finding mission to establish if anyone wants it.
Surely they cannot be that desperate for money.

One day there will be an alternative, then they will be very desparate and no doubt will rue the days when they thought nothing about abusing their loyal customer base for a few extra pennies to swell the dividends and executive bonuses.

[Ignitionnet]

Ah love threads like these. BenMcr does his moonlighting as VM PR man on the forum, a couple of people say they don't see the issue, others bring out the usual 'tin foil hat' related stuff.

It's a pain in the arse in that it breaks VPNs, and it can be very inconvenient when one is actually looking to see if something resolves, some applications rely on NXDomain being returned. With your 8 years of experience and various bits of paper webcrawler I would have thought you'd appreciate the importance of adhering to standards, especially when applications, quite rightly, make assumptions that these will be adhered to and function in certain ways.

It's a money grab by VM, nothing else. If frustrated a swift opt-out is the way to go. Several ISPs have done it throughout the world, to the huge annoyance of some customers. That said they've every right to be annoyed, in a perfect world we really should be asked before VM set about breaking some applications deploying non-standard configurations.

I seriously doubt there are privacy implications here though, but it is a pain in the backside in that one could waste a not inconsiderable amount of time troubleshooting to eventually find the cause is Virgin's fiddling with DNS.

Mercifully doesn't affect me as I use OpenDNS, opted out from the automagic search naturally but it really could have been handled so much better - some notice would have been nice.

---------- Post added at 02:44 ---------- Previous post was at 02:36 ----------

*Cracks knuckles*

Originally Posted by BenMcr

Unsurprisingly the two are linked.

VM will want to make a certain amout of profit - they do this either through increasing subscription fees or through other means

Such as reducing subscription fees for 50Mbit? They make as much profit as the market and their costs permit, not what they 'want to'. They set targets of course, but these are required to be realistic in the context of the operating market. If companies could just decide on their profit and then make it by one means or another they would have total market power. It's an attempt to increase indirect revenues same as everyone else who has deployed this gack because the market won't tolerate price increases and indeed in the case of 50Mbit evidently requires a price reduction.

Yet when VM do offer an opt-in for Value Added servce - like the BB M uplift - everyone complains because they aren't doing it automatically!

Don't be so obtuse. This isn't a value add, it's a money grab. If Phorm were fully deployed on an opt-out basis you'd presumably be criticising people for complaining about that not being opt-in as well. The 2-10 upgrade was purely value add and had no negative implications for customers receiving it, this can. As I said before people working from home on a large number of VPN clients absolutely require that their 'public' DNS gives an NXDomain response so that Windows will fail over to their company-specific internal DNS to resolve internal names.

That was a requirement of PHORM not this redirect. The two are not the same. There is no storing of user information

How exactly do you know what the third party are doing with the information?

Seriously Ben leave the PR to Alex B and Asam A.

[jamiefrost]

For your average user this is a none issue and might actually be of some help.

for those that is does effect they will recongnise whats going and have one (1) request 'hijacked'. Now is that such a big deal.

An opt in option won't work for most users as they won't have a clue what it's about. So it would deprive them of a potentially usefull addition (very minor). If Virgin did manage to explain it to them I expect that most of them wouldn't careless.

As for making money out of this, well suprise suprise fancy wanting to make money.

Then we have people who are extrapolating this into the removal of net neutrality and selling of customer data to the highest bidder.

Compared to the practiaces of companies such as Microsoft or Apple, Virgin are lagging way behind

JJ

[Sirius]

There will be an advert or something along soon and the make a mountain out of a mole hill regulars will get there teeth into that then. One week from now this will have been forgotten

In the mean time the world continues to turn and my Internet continues to work the way it did yesterday. Ok i have had to spend 10 seconds opting out of this but i have to op out of many things each day this is no different and certainly will not make me dump VM and run like a headless chicken to a slow crappy adsl connection.

[jamiefrost]

point is case,

My wife was asking what I was posting, started to exaplain DNS request saw the board look slide across her face, until I got to the point where I told her you got search resukts back if you miss-spelled some thing.

Her response was 'Oh you mean like google'

JJ

[dev]

Originally Posted by Broadbandings

It's a pain in the arse in that it breaks VPNs, and it can be very inconvenient when one is actually looking to see if something resolves, some applications rely on NXDomain being returned.

How does it exactly break VPNs? From what i can tell, it should make no difference as you should be using the VPN target's DNS servers as there could be differences between internal and external resolution on any domains the company uses.

Originally Posted by Broadbandings

It's a money grab by VM, nothing else. If frustrated a swift opt-out is the way to go. Several ISPs have done it throughout the world, to the huge annoyance of some customers. That said they've every right to be annoyed, in a perfect world we really should be asked before VM set about breaking some applications deploying non-standard configurations.

You have no evidence what VM will use the money for, do you really think the exec types will go for something like this rather than a simple price increase (something that they would actually understand)?

Originally Posted by Broadbandings

Mercifully doesn't affect me as I use OpenDNS, opted out from the automagic search naturally but it really could have been handled so much better - some notice would have been nice.

I assume by this you're perfectly happy with OpenDNS doing it as opt-in but not happy that VM are doing it?

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by dev

I assume by this you're perfectly happy with OpenDNS doing it as opt-in but not happy that VM are doing it?

The simple answer is that this is VM and therefor a **** storm should be raised for that very reason . It all boils down to who has the biggest chip on there shoulder about VM, I have not seen Arthur in this yet but i am waiting

Its happened now so you a choice.

Opt out and get on with your life.

Go running to a adsl provider with all the hassle that will create and will be more than simply opting out.

Sit there and continue to complain and complain and complain until it jolly well hurts

Personally i have better things to do with my life than complaining about VM because i have a chip on my shoulder about them.

[Kymmy]

Is this active for everyone? Just that I don't get the redirection at all for failed DNS requests.. Might be the business BB I have even though it's still going though the usual VM DNS servers