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

[SelfProtection]

Originally Posted by lucevans

The greedy advertising industry want their cake and to eat it. The two realistic revenue models for the internet are subscription and advertising. We already pay the subscription (VM XL broadband: £37.00 per month) so why the hell should we accept the other model on top of that? If VM cannot break even on my 20Mb line by charging me £37 a month, then write to me explaining this, together with a realistic quote of what it would actually cost to provide that connection, and I'll consider whether I'm willing to pay it or not. What I am absolutely NOT willing to do is submit to being Phormed.
No doubt the prat who wrote the original article also believes that the BBC's content is "free", therefore we should all pay the licence fee AND be forced to watch adverts on BBC channels. What an idiot.

In Six Months I have not heard any proper explanation as to why I should share my private & personal data with this system & in doing so "aid & abet" the collection of data from another Source which I regard as also Private & Confidential.

"Phorm get over it, It's my Data & I have Legal Protections & Copyright so I choose who to Share it with!"

[phormwatch]

Entity-Relationship diagram update:

http://img503.imageshack.us/my.php?i...hormumlny8.jpg

<sigh>

How depressing.

[Rchivist]

Originally Posted by SelfProtection

Relevant to how Phorm may be lobbyng Parliament, but this should not become Political!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05...lobby_openess/

Now that is timely. The article focusses on the DBERR, formerly the Department of Twiddling and Inaction/Trade and Industry. Our friends that are coming under fire from their noble Lords, the Baroness Miller and Lord Northesk. Let's hit them from the citizenry end too with FOI requests.

Good to see a ruling from the Tribunal forcing them to come clean about who lobbies them and how, and who they talk to and when etc. That is very good news for us. If Phorm is just about commercial advantage, then the DBERR can't really refuse to divulge any lobbying or conversations about the system. So the only grounds for refusal to divulge contacts between DBERR and Phorm will have to be more substantial. Which will tell us a lot.

The FOI focus needs now to focus on DBERR and what they did and didn't know about Phorm, and who they did and didn't talk to about Phorm and when.

With this ruling in the bag, the FOI requests should be fairly straightforward to get answers to.

Remember that these systems like ICO and FOI are effectively risk free for the citizen, and enforced without us worrying about legal fees/court cases. So we USE it.

And for once - the Tribunal appears to have put it's teeth in after getting out of bed.

So - what questions should we be asking of the DBERR? I imagine that we could take the Lord's questions as a guide.

I'm certainly willing to put in the FOI requests if people can advise on content and if anyone who has done FOI before can advise me on how to do it and about the fee etc..

[pseudonym]

Originally Posted by phormwatch

Entity-Relationship diagram update:

http://img503.imageshack.us/my.php?i...hormumlny8.jpg

<sigh>

How depressing.

I think Pat Hewitt is on the Board of BT Group, rather than BT Retail.

BT also own Brightview (Madasafish ISP)

[Philthee]

Would anyone consider hosting a landing page for webmasters to give information regarding Phorm / Webwise? What I'm thinking of is a standard page that gives some balanced information about the system, for and against that a webmaster can direct a user to if they detect the user is from a BT address range (or whoever is appropriate). For any of you who use asp.net, the code is simple:

 
Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load
Dim IPAddress As String = Context.Request.UserHostAddress
If IPAddress.Substring(0, 6) = "217.42" Or IPAddress.Substring(0, 6) = "217.43" Or IPAddress.Substring(0, 6) = "217.44" Then
'in the BT IP range
Response.Write("<script>window.open('phorm.aspx','_blank','width = 400');</script>")
End If
End Sub

[wecpc]

Originally Posted by Digbert

Does anyone here subscribe to PC Pro.

I'm seething at this month's edition (October 2008), in particular an article by Davey Winder "BT 2008 Information Security Journalist of the Year"

The article is 'Is Phorm good or bad' Davey Winder investigates.
It contains nothing but quotes from Phorm, various media agencies and 'experienced' marketing hands.
He also does the usual comparisons with clubcards and Google. Protestors are summed up as "The media feeding frenzy, both in print and online has been encouraged by privacy advocates and opinionated bloggers alike.

The article concludes with "If you want free content, you need advertising - get over it".

Well I've got over it, I've cancelled my subscription and I've emailed them to tell them why.

I subscribe to PC Pro also and although I have yet to receive the October edition, I have just done likewise and emailed them as well as writing to them for a full refund for unsent copies, which you have to do for a refund. I have also done likewise with a sister magazine Custom PC. You have to whatever is necessary to STOP PHORM and you can only do this by voting with your feet as I did with BT also.

Colin

You might want to withold judgement of PC Pro until you have read the article for yourselves.

Read this by the same Davey Winder dated 6th August 2008.

[bluecar1]

Originally Posted by Dephormation

This Kristos group... Jesus believes in the miracles of Collagen weight loss, Xango Juice, amongst many others.

So why is a domain registered to Kent Ertugrul (www.LucasDylan.com = 207.44.142.4 = yeshua.kristos.org) hosted on a Kristos server?

And what is Kent's link to David Crawford, and the Kristos business?

I'm off to bed. If someone wouldn't mind dropping a line to Emma Sanderson and friends, I'd be grateful. I'm sure its completely innocent, and BT's due diligence will assure me its all perfectly legal.



---------------------------------------------
COLLAGENWEIGHTLOSS.COM

Registrant:
The Kristos Group, LLC
P.O. Box 56189
Phoenix, Arizona 85079
United States

Domain Name: COLLAGENWEIGHTLOSS.COM
Created on: 08-Oct-02
Expires on: 08-Oct-08
Last Updated on: 08-Oct-07

Administrative Contact:
Crawford, David
The Kristos Group, LLC
P.O. Box 56189
Phoenix, Arizona 85079
United States
2063397286 Fax -- 2063397286

---------------------------------------------
XANGO-JUICE.US

Domain Name: XANGO-JUICE.US
Domain ID: D4530911-US
Sponsoring Registrar: GODADDY.COM, INC.
Sponsoring Registrar IANA ID: 146
Registrar URL (registration services): whois.godaddy.com

Registrant Name: David Crawford
Registrant Organization: The Kristos Group, LLC
Registrant Address1: P.O. Box 56189
Registrant City: Phoenix
Registrant State/Province: Arizona
Registrant Postal Code: 85079
Registrant Country: United States
Registrant Country Code: US

---------------------------------------------

also DREAMHARVEST.ORG
I-PrintForYou.com
KayLens.com
MannaFoRu.com
and lots more

look at http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache...lnk&cd=2&gl=uk

not all track back to kristos group

very strange for a religous outfit, mp3 downloads etc ???
peter

[Dephormation]

Originally Posted by Peter N

You might want to withold judgement of PC Pro until you have read the article for yourselves.

Read this by the same Davey Winder dated 6th August 2008.

I was literally about to quote the same thing!

This article, published only a few days ago, is much closer to the truth as I understand it.

Actually, its a very succinct summary of the current status quo. I particularly liked these paragraphs...

The BBC reports that "no action would be taken against the telco due to the difficult nature of explaining to consumers what it was doing."

Great, the cover it with bullcrap and it comes up smelling of roses argument wins again. Well, not quite, it seems. Now the European Union Commissioner for Information Society and Media, Viviane Reding has got involved.

So I would guess the Pc Pro article has been heavily edited, or is very out of date copy.

Davey Winder's thinking does seem to be in the right place.

Pete.

[phormwatch]

Just to clarify, in my post #13602, where I say:

>Phorm PR at work, no doubt.

I was referring to the PC pro magazine article, not the poster whose post precedes mine.

[wecpc]

Originally Posted by Peter N

You might want to withold judgement of PC Pro until you have read the article for yourselves.

Read this by the same Davey Winder dated 6th August 2008.

Too late already cancelled. I was unhappy with PC PRO anyway especially the cover DVD which I have NEVER EVER found anything useful on it and usually binned them, so it will not be missed. But I think it still gets the message out, that if a business supports PHORM then they will lose customers.

[bluecar1]

have a look at http://beastorbuddha.com/dsn/tech/ about half way down you will find some details of phorm

seems to point to the adserver and antiphishing db in china!!

peter

Originally Posted by Digbert

Does anyone here subscribe to PC Pro.

I'm seething at this month's edition (October 2008), in particular an article by Davey Winder "BT 2008 Information Security Journalist of the Year"

The article is 'Is Phorm good or bad' Davey Winder investigates.
It contains nothing but quotes from Phorm, various media agencies and 'experienced' marketing hands.
He also does the usual comparisons with clubcards and Google. Protestors are summed up...

I am quite bemused. How odd that a magazine with that title should clerky miss the mark by such a huge margin. And if they think they can suggest my beliefs are totally about privacy advocacy they're miles off track. Yes there are some who see ship as part of a bigger issue and fair play to them but my concerns are very focussed on this. How stupid can ao IT mag be to print such tosh?.

[philj]

Anyone sent a copy of the diagram to PrivateEye?

PHil

[Dephormation]

David Crawford (Kristos.org), with or without moustache;

- Profile on Plaxo.com
- Profile on Seomoz.org