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

[Wildie]

I think they be a few inside the meeting a fair few not only the ones who said they be, but how many lurkers is another number one cannot guess at.

[Florence]

Originally Posted by warescouse

I wondered if there are any BT shareholders going to the Anti-phorm protest at the BT AGM? I ask this because I was wondering what peoples views are regarding the BT shareholders themselves.

I personally take the view that the majority of BT shareholders, not to be confused with shareholding, are most probably unaware of Phorm/Webwise and the risks involved for the share price if BT are allowed to go down this illegal road.

That being the case I was wondering if a few "BT protect our share price" or similar banners would not go amiss in the same anti-phorm crowd. It could certainly grab the attention of a portion of the BT visitors to the centre and may provoke extra interest as to why this would be the case.

I asked Emma if the shareholders had been inphormed on the technology phorm uses and what phorm does, the reply I got was not what i expected since the shareholders stand a chance to lose money from any fool hardy ideas BT management have. She said that BT carries out too many trials to tell shareholders of each one. I felt this one was so more the type ecery shareholder should have been given the chance to request more information.

As a shareholder myself I feel you cannot hold them to blame since thye have been told nothing about it until it hits the news, any that are not technical might stil not know anything about it.

Personally BT have failed the shareholders the retail CEO has brought the company into an area of disrepute MPO if there is a vote of no confidance in the people who alowed this I would have to vote I have none in them.

They have brought distrust from customers placing the company in a very awkward position share prices have been droping and BT are buying in as fast as they can wouls seem like a companny trying to stop the free fall something that dumping the excess bagage ( phorm) would stop. Looking at the graph for Phorm and BT they go up and down almost together.

Ok rant over as a BT shareholder who has seen both sides of CEO at BT Ben and Ian.w Ben is worth 40 Ian's as he was much more approachable than Ian. He was a man respected who never deleted emails without reading and always replied sad to say Ian seems to have a lot to learn on how to earn respect.

[bluecar1]

anyone seen this http://www.kablenet.com/kd.nsf/Front...2?OpenDocument

Scotland's business minister has raised the prospect of extending the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act beyond public sector bodies

interesting,

peter

Coverage of this issue has been rather sparse in the general media - in my opinion that's because the publishers have a vested interest in the advertising revenue - but BT shareholders are exactly as likely to have seen the reports as anyone else in the UK including all of us on these forums.

As a cross section of the community it goes without saying that there are going to be BT shareholders with insight into the issues and opinions to match. It's equally likely that there are BT staff at all levels who have opinions that are not dictated by their employment.

Considering that only a few dozen people are active on these forums you would expect that to equate to maybe less than one whole person taking the number of BT shareholders relative to the general population so don't be too surprised or disappointed if there is no obvious show of support from amongst the shareholders.

It's important to keep in mind that there are three separate strands to this situation.

BT - imminet trials and roll-out expect this year.
VM & CW - positive interest shown but hanging back to see if BT get screwed
All of the other ISPs - certain to want a slice of the pie once they know that they won't get shot down in flames.

Phorm may be in our sights but it is the ISPs that are the problem. We could see Phorm and Webwise go under only to see NebuAd or some other company move in with an identical product and a better line in spin.

We need get to the core issues and force this governement to impliment legislation that sets the limits on what ISPs can do in the short to medium term regardless of whether or not that invoves Phorm.

Without legislation directly created to address the issue of internet privacy and content copyright we will be stuck in limbo and all we will have is the ISPs "le le legal" statements and the extremely expensive and risky opportunity to bring a civil case against some huge multi-national like BT.

I would suggest that it doesn't matter one jot what the BT shareholders themselves think. At the absolute extreme of the scale, the most that they could do is get rid of the current Board of Directors at BT. That will not be enough to prevent BT and the other ISPs from chasing the money monster now or in the near future.

Aim high - the House of Commons, the House of Lords and the High Court. Everything else is just pants.

[bluecar1]

more bad news from stateside

from http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07...s_with_nebuad/

it look like WoW is now the only US carrier still sticking to using nebuad

don't share any current or ex BT execs does it?

also states not it seems US congress are saying this technology need to be "OPT-IN" over there as well, oh dear, phorm always thought they could go opt-out stateside

peter

***************
We've also learned that Bresnan Communications - an ISP serving Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and Montana - ran its own NebuAd tests last month. Spokesman Shawn Beqaj tells us that the company has no immediate plans to officially deploy the system - or similar systems - but it may do so in the future.

"We intended to do a trial and that's what we did," he said. "We're looking with great interest at discussions on this matter both in the regulatory sphere and in the public domain."

Meanwhile, a spokeswoman Embarq - another outfit that has tested NebuAd - tossed us this: "We do not have a contract with NebuAd, and we are not using online behavioral targeting tools."

Like Charter, Louisiana-based ISP CenturyTel froze its NebuAd plans in direct response to words from Congressman Ed Markey.

****************

---------- Post added at 22:25 ---------- Previous post was at 22:14 ----------

also look at http://www.mediapost.com/publication...&art_aid=85952

*********
Art Brodsky, Public Knowledge spokesman, says: "We have seen video of the NebuAd CEO saying, 'Google knows what they do on your site, but we know everywhere you go, the sites you stop at and ads you see.' The problem is there's no opt-in or opt-out to these types of services."

********

sound familiar????

peter

[popper]

aiming high is good,but dont underestimate the effect of 1000's of small claims as weapon too.

more comment on 3 strikes on the one hand ,and phorm on the other.
http://spicycauldron.com/2008/07/03/...-file-sharing/

[warescouse]

Originally Posted by Peter N

cut...
I would suggest that it doesn't matter one jot what the BT shareholders themselves think. At the absolute extreme of the scale, the most that they could do is get rid of the current Board of Directors at BT. That will not be enough to prevent BT and the other ISPs from chasing the money monster now or in the near future.

Aim high - the House of Commons, the House of Lords and the High Court. Everything else is just pants.

I think the gist of what I am trying to convey is, as I see it, the anti-phorm rally is an opportunity to raise public awareness. The public also includes shareholders so I thought if you could get a few chosen shareholder comments it could be an opportunity seized on the day.

As regarding aiming high, there is no argument against that but it is well known that politicians and the like, do respond sometimes at sudden speed at the realisation there is a large groundswell of public opinion and strong media criticism. Bearing that in mind there is nothing wrong IMHO in fighting the battle on one, two, three or many fronts simultaneously.

Regarding the legal issues, although the laws of the land could be perhaps tightened, from what I have read, there maybe are sufficient laws in place right now. If these laws were correctly applied by the people who are paid to do so we could be be doing something else right now at this moment in time instead of discussing Phorm. (Perhaps some other anti privacy issue. There are plenty of them )

The small claims will only be necessary if the system is used.

If we can't stop it being introduced and used then we would obviously move towards concentrating on claims and court appearences but until then I would think that it would be better to fight the immediate battle.

At this stage there's no real point in worrying about what may happen if Webwise is introduced because until and unless it is there have been no copyright breaches, no targetted children etc.

At present there's no offence being committed so all we have is the gun and bullets without a target. What we do have is a huge question mark over the legality of DPI and the princples of privacy in the 21st century. It is this that will resonate with ordinary people and authority figures alike.

Reference more bad news from stateside, seems like the whole world is trying to make an early stake on this technology throwing caution to the wind legally.
If this does get a foothold anywhere I think I will be buying envelopes and stamps again.
Shiny prospects for the Post office.

[Wildie]

Originally Posted by popper

aiming high is good,but dont underestimate the effect of 1000's of small claims as weapon too.

more comment on 3 strikes on the one hand ,and phorm on the other.
http://spicycauldron.com/2008/07/03/...-file-sharing/

only 800, it be a lot more and when its a few thousands they may say hrm somat not right here what we done wrong.

warescouse.

I agree that existing laws should cover many aspects of the problem but they are open to interpretation and that requires case-law decisions which can only happen after the system is in use.

If you look at the laws regarding interferring with the mail, for example, you'll see that those laws apply to the mail carriers as much as they do to anyone else but there are also separate conditions in the acts that specifically apply to the postal service and their employees.

It is this level of legislation that is required - unambiguous and designed specifically to avoid the ISPs simply designing something that isn't quite DPI and getting around the law.

[bluecar1]

Originally Posted by alt3rn1ty

Reference more bad news from stateside, seems like the whole world is trying to make an early stake on this technology throwing caution to the wind legally.
If this does get a foothold anywhere I think I will be buying envelopes and stamps again.
Shiny prospects for the Post office.

the post was to show more isp's canning nebuad after trials and pressure from congress

[warescouse]

Originally Posted by Peter N

It is this level of legislation that is required - unambiguous and designed specifically to avoid the ISPs simply designing something that isn't quite DPI and getting around the law.

I take on-board your point completely but we need to shout loud "we are not happy" so that we can push it to the front of the legal systems agenda.

Originally Posted by bluecar1

the post was to show more isp's canning nebuad after trials and pressure from congress

I know fella, I may not be able to contribute any legal/copyright expertise to these discussions, but I can make a Joe public comment which may make a risk taker with vested interests think twice if his potential customers are simply going to use other readily available methods to safeguard their privacy wasting the effort/money spent on implementing this horrible technology. I wish Alex all the best with his meeting, and that we do achieve a permanent wall to future attempts of this kind.

[Kursk]

HW's targeted posting has disrupted this thread for long enough. Let's not opt-in to Phorm-style interventions anymore eh?

Talking of disruption: have to watch the demo isn't infiltrated by those who might wish to denigrate and marginalise its purpose. Anyone acting belligerently, especially for the press, should be regarded as suspect imho.