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

Originally Posted by Matt D

Privacy enhancing, ROFL.

How on earth does having your browsing monitored so that your ISP & Phorm can make money off your usage "enhance your privacy".

One of my favourite Phorm claims.

If it was a replacement for the services that do store data against IP addresses then it may have some value but what we actually get is all the things that Kent tells us are bad PLUS Webwise.

That's like having smallpox and being told that you should be happy because you've also got the flu.

[phormwatch]

Originally Posted by Peter N

Fabulous, enlightening and yet somehow not unexpected.

Great link - thanks

You can thank VforVendetta on Badphorm for that.

---------- Post added at 22:24 ---------- Previous post was at 22:20 ----------

Originally Posted by pseudonym

Ah, but he didn't say enhance your privacy... Perhaps Kent plans on spending some of his hoped for ill gotten gains from monitoring our usage on a nice secluded mansion somewhere

I'm surprised BT aren't more careful about the claims they make about phorm as they might fall foul of the new Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008

Wow. Here is said document:

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2008/dra..._en_2#pt2-l1g5

Looks like we have lots of room to complain, not least of all the recently mentioned violation of Phorm's own privacy policy.

Does anyone know if we need to personally suffer damages in order to file a complaint?

[lucevans]

Originally Posted by Peter N

That's like having smallpox and being told that you should be happy because you've also got the flu.

Priceless! Of course, you got it the wrong way around...should be "having the flu (all the small-scale tracking that goes on on the internet already) and being told you also have smallpox (Phorm - MUCH more harmful)"

[Rchivist]

Originally Posted by phormwatch

You can thank VforVendetta on Badphorm for that.

---------- Post added at 22:24 ---------- Previous post was at 22:20 ----------



Wow. Here is said document:

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2008/dra..._en_2#pt2-l1g5

Looks like we have lots of room to complain, not least of all the recently mentioned violation of Phorm's own privacy policy.

Does anyone know if we need to personally suffer damages in order to file a complaint?

BT Retail legal guys say they are aware of that, and of course the Webwise invitation (when it comes....) will be compliant. Maybe they're still working on it.

[Dephormation]

Originally Posted by SimonHickling

BT claim that because my content is available on the web, and not http authenticated, and because I haven't expressly asked for my site to be blacklisted, and it is referenced by Google, it's OK to make a copy.

Copyright theft isn't the most valuable thing that Phorm are trying to take.

What they really value is not the copy of the content (they discard that after they've extracted the keywords)... its the marketing intelligence they glean by linking a user to the sites and ecommerce businesses they are interacting with.

That's why the Home Office advice (that you could imply consent of web site operators for interception) is so completely wrong.

Its one thing to make content publicly accessible.

Its quite another to make the transmission of that content to a customer open to interception.

And that's what the Home Office's ridiculous advice document suggests is somehow legal. Sorry to the staff of the Office of Security, Counter Terrorism and Internet Advertising but it is plain stupidity on your part.

In effect it licences mass industrial espionage. The fact that our Government, particularly Shriti Vadera in BERR, are seemingly content to stand by and watch this happen is just staggering (to me).

It means that, perhaps within as little as 2 years or so, a large proportion of your interactions with UK web sites will likely be encrypted. IT consultants like me will be recommending SSL to our clients, because you can't trust UK ISPs not to steal your content and sell marketing intelligence to your competition.

Can you imagine the Post Office doing that? Opening all your letters. Making a note of the content, and selling all that data to the highest bidder? Its obscene.

And when that happens? When its all encrypted? Phorms 'targeted' adverts will be more or less useless, because they can't target on the basis of something they can't decrypt. And the Office of Security, Counter Terrorism and Internet Advertising will face the task of decoding masses of 128bit encoded SSL data in real time.

Genius

Pete.

[bluecar1]

Originally Posted by R Jones

BT Retail legal guys say they are aware of that, and of course the Webwise invitation (when it comes....) will be compliant. Maybe they're still working on it.

have BT legal not heard the expression when considering the invitation page

"you can't make a silk purse out of a pigs ear"

it is used to suggest that some improvement projects of different kinds are doomed to failure.

peter

[madslug]

Originally Posted by R Jones

BT Retail legal guys say they are aware of that, and of course the Webwise invitation (when it comes....) will be compliant. Maybe they're still working on it.

Does that include the Webwise FAQ pages and any other 'additional information' that the invitation page will send / lead people to?

One additional question with the invitation which I have not seen answered anywhere:
what happens to cookies and interception between being offered the webwise invite and selecting the yes or no button? - or are all the BT / Webwise / OIX sites on the blacklist? (after all, no need for double tracking on these sites)

Absolutely agree.

Knowing that your local shop sells condoms is not the same as knowing who buys them.

Knowing that the person who buys them has recently been looking for a divorce lawyer is extremely sensitive information.

None of this information is excluded from pofiling by Phorm.

In fact, Phorm's list of non-advertised subjects or profiled does not include legal advice or contact with the police which is about as personal as it gets and should be protected by law.

While I think about it, looking for advice regarding spousal abuse will also be profiled and adverts will be served which could result in some extremely serious consequences.

[ImaJack]

I seem to remember in the distant past in this thread (at least I think it was here) a poster putting forward TOR- Anonymity online as one way of escaping being profiled. I think also it was debunked.

Can someone confirm whether or not TOR would work and if possible an explanation why (if true) it wouldn't.

I am trying to raise awareness on an airline based message board which obviously has many aircrew members- good people to have onside I think. Being IT useless I need some help!

[Rchivist]

Here is the reply I got today from BT Retail Chief Counsel Commercial Law (Consumer) - they gave permission to publish - they are on my BT Openworld webspace.

Page 1 of letter http://tinyurl.com/5bwerh
Page 2 of letter http://tinyurl.com/6lsjgg
Page 3 of letter http://tinyurl.com/5tta4t

[lucevans]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07...ds_https_only/

So, google are to start encrypting their webmail pages from start to finish, eh? Presumably they want to ensure that they are the only ones who are going to be able to profit from profiling the contents of their customers' e-mails.

Didn't someone here predict that the effect Phorm would have would be to drive more and more sites to switch to https? Looks like Google are setting the trend...

[phormwatch]

Originally Posted by ImaJack

I seem to remember in the distant past in this thread (at least I think it was here) a poster putting forward TOR- Anonymity online as one way of escaping being profiled. I think also it was debunked.

Can someone confirm whether or not TOR would work and if possible an explanation why (if true) it wouldn't.

I am trying to raise awareness on an airline based message board which obviously has many aircrew members- good people to have onside I think. Being IT useless I need some help!

TOR would work, in so far as your communications cannot be traced back to you. However, at some point, there needs to be what's called an 'exit node', which means that at some point, an unencrypted request to a website needs to be made. If Phorm has its spyware software on the ISP on which this request is made, then it can be intercepted.

However, I don't see how that would be profitable for Phorm or any OIX partner: lots of different requests from many different people will come from the same exit node, therefore the targeted ads will be completely useless.

[Dephormation]

Originally Posted by ImaJack

I seem to remember in the distant past in this thread (at least I think it was here) a poster putting forward TOR- Anonymity online as one way of escaping being profiled. I think also it was debunked.

Can someone confirm whether or not TOR would work and if possible an explanation why (if true) it wouldn't.

I am trying to raise awareness on an airline based message board which obviously has many aircrew members- good people to have onside I think. Being IT useless I need some help!

The easiest way to avoid Phorm is simply moving to a Phorm free ISP. Personal recommendations are Aquiss and UKFSN (having discussed Phorm with their owners, I'm certain they will not touch Phorm with a bargepole). Other quality ISPs include the Anti Phorm League.

BadPhorm has got tips for leaving BT & Virgin.

TOR would fox Phorm, but it also exposes you to risks...

If you run a TOR exit node, you would not know who was using your ISP account to surf the net (yet you would be held responsible for their traffic).

And you would not know where your own web traffic was ultimately emerging.

Pete.

[phormwatch]

If you have a Google account, and use iGoogle, you get a search form. I thought this would be a way to do Google encrypted searches (apart from using Scroogle at: https://ssl.scroogle.org/).

However, when I try to enter a search term, the term is dropped, and I'm redirected to normal, vanilla, google.co.uk.

Can someone else please confirm this behaviour?

[SimonHickling]

Originally Posted by phormwatch

However, when I try to enter a search term, the term is dropped, and I'm redirected to normal, vanilla, google.co.uk.

Can someone else please confirm this behaviour?

Yep, same here