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

[mark777]

Originally Posted by serial

Just wondering why the long delay with the videos from the meeting. I was chatting with a video editor friend at the weekend and asked how long it would take to turn around a couple of cameras and a seperate audio source. He told me he would be expected to do it in 2 days.

After the hack on the unofficial release it looks very odd.

It's clearly being delayed for non-technical reasons. There are presumably no editorial decisions to be made either. So it's being held back for other reasons.

It may be that it will be published with the PIA tomorrow?



---------- Post added at 01:06 ---------- Previous post was at 00:54 ----------

Originally Posted by R Jones

Okay - happy landings, and hope there are no wizard prangs! (son of wartime Spitfire pilot)

Blimey - there was me thinking the good Captain commuted to work in a Frigate!



---------- Post added at 01:49 ---------- Previous post was at 01:06 ----------

Originally Posted by popper

Any graphics bods able to put popper's find lovingly in the hand of the bearded laughing boy?

And a bottle of snake oil in the other.

That tin of polish is a crackingly good graphic LOL

Remember though folks, we need to keep "Webwise" synonymous with "Phorm"

"Phorm" is the name we know it by, being close to what it is. But "Webwise" is what the ISPs are branding this as, and it is the general customers who need to know what "Webwise" is.

If the general public gets a marketingly well spun opt in story from their ISP they need to find that it quickly follows this path in anything they see or read...

Webwise = Phorm = Bad

Hank

---------- Post added at 07:01 ---------- Previous post was at 07:00 ----------

Oh, does the PIA come out today? Can't wait!!

---------- Post added at 07:02 ---------- Previous post was at 07:01 ----------

Wonder if K*nt will pay the good fellow who wrote it? And wonder if the video will be published in full today too...?

[Dai]

Originally Posted by vicz

Lords defy Government by proposing criminalisation of data rogues...
I doubt this is going anywhere, the Govt believes it is just an excuse to beat them up over the infamous 'missing CDs'. Which of course it is.

I can't help thinking that asking the Government to protect citizens from surveillance is a bit like asking the fox to guard the henhouse.
Our officials have always spied on us and recorded data as much as current technology would allow. I suspect much of the development of surveillance technology has been driven by government spending.

We may achieve better results from the media, who love a good scandal. Even then, people have such short memories that I suppose that would be quickly forgotten.

I'd like to add my thanks to the people dedicating so much time and effort to this.

[Anonymouse]

Given that Phorm/Webwise is ostensibly about advertising, I was interested to find this on Everything2 - it's interesting because it's posted by a former ad agency employee and claims that the entire advertising industry is dying on its feet. We can but hope.

I'm still trying to work out what the hell Everything2 is...or why I keep going back to it and clicking on various nodes that sound even vaguely interesting. I can't even remember what I was Googling for, but the search hit this site and I went there. Two weeks later, I'm still going there. Weird.

[NTLVictim]

Originally Posted by R Jones

Okay - happy landings, and hope there are no wizard prangs! (son of wartime Spitfire pilot)

Jolly good show! (nephew of wartime Lancaster wireless operator)

[Deko]

Great Grandson of a WW1 Farrrier.

[Florence]

Hello PhormUKPRteam had a nice holiday we haven't seen you for a while.. Hope all is well with you?

You can tell we are still busy fighting webwise since we don't want it, feel our ISP is selling us out to spyware/adware company. After reading that PC's in the UK are worth £100 to websites that can infect them with Trojans this makes me wonder (MPO) if this is the underline idea for webwise to get the ISPs customers onto their pimping machine then reap the money for the ability to get our PC's to do what these hackers want.

[3x2]

Originally Posted by manxminx

Well, the trials have been on hold while BT investigates alternative opt-out methods that do not require cookies to be placed on users' computers.

The simplest option would be to point opted in clients at a separate proxy server (phorm kit). This would be opt in because the client would have to actively change their browser settings in order to receive the 'benefits'.

Of course any active opt-in scheme is a non starter because the whole scam is based on an everyone being in.

Whatever BT decide they will still have no way of obtaining content provider consent.

The delays are more likely BT figuring out how to make the whole scheme less easy to detect for both client and server. If it does turn out to be difficult to detect then I, as a content provider, will simply ban BT address ranges.

[Cogster]

The delays are more likely BT figuring out how to make the whole scheme less easy to detect for both client and server. If it does turn out to be difficult to detect then I, as a content provider, will simply ban BT address ranges.

or they are trying to figure a way to opt in consent for 185,000,000 webmasters?

[Florence]

There are many that are already gathering IP blocks for ISPs that are planning to go the webwise/phorm route and as last resort do intend to block those IP numbers from accessing the servers. The WWW is about to shrink with thanks to Webwise/phorm and ISPs greed.

[3x2]

Yes - blocking wouldn't be my first option but if Phorm/ISP's leave us no other option ...

The fact is that while much of the backlash has focused on the customer there is another side to the scheme - ISP's abusing their unique position to steal content and use it to enhance their product. I don't think so.

It is clear from the Stanley document that they (advertisers investors etc) view the 70% 'long tail' as a free and untapped (pardon the pun) resource, prime for exploitation in the new grand scheme. I think content providers may, rightly, have a different view.

[Rchivist]

Originally Posted by 3x2

Whatever BT decide they will still have no way of obtaining content provider consent.

The delays are more likely BT figuring out how to make the whole scheme less easy to detect for both client and server. If it does turn out to be difficult to detect then I, as a content provider, will simply ban BT address ranges.

This is what worries me too. The one thing I have heard nothing from BT about, is the question of giving webmasters information about how to selectively block Webwise access with a robots.txt user-agent string. They have absolutely ignored that question, and insisted that the only thing they will respect is a total robots.txt ban on robots.It's not good enough, both legally and morally. Even looking at it on a purely PR basis,their stance can be made to look really grubby if we focus on how poorly they compare with search engines.

If they can read robots.txt to see a general ban on robots then they can read it to find a Webwise user-agent ban. But they won't declare a user-agent description. It makes Kent Ertugrul's rants about the evils of Google, sound really pathetic.

I think this is worth focussing on intensively - we've got some movement on the issue of opt-in.
We've got them thinking about cookies.
We are getting nowhere on the issue of webmaster informed consent. So I'd like to see some focussed attention on comparing the lack of choice offered to webmasters with the Webwise model, as compared with the ability webmasters have to selectively restrict the search engines Google/Yahoo et. al.

Kent's words about the evils of Google at the Town Hall have given us our starting point. Let's accept that as a battle ground and start applying the pressure.

[vicz]

The Strowger Automatic Telephone Switch Invented 1891. The story has it that Strowger was motivated to invent an automatic telephone exchange after having difficulties with the local telephone operators. He was said to be convinced that the local manual telephone exchange operators were sending calls to his competitor rather than his business. He also suspected that the telephone operators were influencing the choice of undertaker when his business was requested. Other stories claim that the wife or, possibly, the cousin of a rival was a telephone operator and was telling callers that his line was busy or connecting his callers to the competition.

Sound Familiar?

[Florence]

Yes it is be in our business model or we will stitch up all the ISPs customers and kill the competition.. MPO

This should perhaps also be looked at as a phorm of stepping back into the days of where if you paid protection to the gang you had a chance to servive in the business world.

We do have a body to deal with this maybe we should now bring in the monopolies commission since if all ISPs are forced to take this webwise coz our labour government want to become the new russia and know where what and who we speak to 24/7. Then Phorm/webwise will hold the monopoly which is bad for trading in the free world.

---------- Post added at 13:19 ---------- Previous post was at 13:13 ----------

Welcome back phormukteam

[CaptJamieHunter]

Originally Posted by Florence

Welcome back phormukteam

Just passing through and I echo Florence - it had been about a week since PhormUKPRteam had logged in. I was wondering where you were, there had been a marked silence from you here and elsewhere.