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

[AlexanderHanff]

Originally Posted by popper

i think ,questions about large business (not just BT, Vm, CPW) applying one rule for the paying end users as regards suspected copyright (non commercial and non profit infringment),and kicking the user, and the same copyright rules being clearly ignored by them, to make a commercial profit, based on wholesale piracy, is a good one.

I agree, but people need to send me a defined question in PM, this thread moves too quickly so I might miss something bearing in mind I am doing about 30 things at once.

when put into perspective, and worded in such as way to help the Earl? of Northesk (shouldnt that be Lord Northesk, not Earl of Northesk alexander?) make a point of it, given the MANY new interested readers/listeners that will be informed by the interview from a UK lord...

Depends on the context. When I send him emails I greet him with Lord Northesk, but when I am talking about him, I use Earl of Northesk as that is his title. I did check before I sent my first email to him though several months ago as to what the most suitable salutation would be, and either Lord Northesk or Earl of Northesk are acceptable.

dont ever forget, the lord , the Earl, and the Baroness speaking and hence being quoted afterwards, will give the campaign much credence in the higher circles of influence in this country, so we dont want to many mundane questions...

Indeed, this is a rare opportunity to engage the body politic at the highest levels and I am very respectful of that. It is important to make sure I don't waste his time.

Alexander Hanff

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[HamsterWheel]

Originally Posted by TheBruce1

Try answering a question first, for three days now i have asked you to answer these question:

1. How does phorm enhance my privacy?
2. How does phorm dispose of my data and what method is used?
3. Is your ISP BT,VM or TalkTalk?

Guess I better answer as you're sounding a bit upset. Perhaps if you phrased your questions a bit more politely then you'd catch my attention quicker ? I'm attracting a lot of responses on this thread so please forgive me if I take time to answer something.

The answers to points 1 and 2 are available at http://www.phorm.com/about/faq.php

My ISP is BT, and as I have often said, I'll happily have Phorm.

[rryles]

Originally Posted by HamsterWheel

The answers to points 1 and 2 are available at http://www.phorm.com/about/faq.php

I don't see answers to either of those two questions. The closest is "How does Phorm protect customer privacy?". That's not the same as "How does phorm enhance my privacy?"

[TheBruce1]

Originally Posted by HamsterWheel

Guess I better answer as you're sounding a bit upset

Its only taken you three day to post a link that says nothing, see below

At Phorm, we believe we've created a system that turns that thinking on its head, and some of the world's leading privacy advocates in the UK and worldwide agree with us. We've been able to challenge the status quo by designing and building a system that understands what people want -- without ever knowing who they are or where they've been.

At Phorm, we believe that as people come to understand how the internet works, they will demand that companies move on from the orthodoxy of 'store and retrieve' data to not storing data at all. It's the right thing for consumers, it's a far better thing for advertisers, and it's the best possible thing for websites -- which means it's the best option for the continuation of a rich and diverse internet.

Where is the detail, that is nothing more than PR talk.

Originally Posted by HamsterWheel

perhaps if you phrased your questions a bit more politely then you'd catch my attention quicker.

Its only taken you three days to respond, i knew it would get you to respond, which is why i worded that way first. Says a lot about you.

[HamsterWheel]

Originally Posted by rryles

I don't see answers to either of those two questions. The closest is "How does Phorm protect customer privacy?". That's not the same as "How does phorm enhance my privacy?"

I'm not aware that Phorm are claiming to enhance your privacy so can't really think what to add ?
They are of course offering the free anti-phising service Webwise, but this is not what you're getting at I suspect.

[Dangermouse]

Question to ask Lord Northesk...(already PM'ed to Alex)

"Given that when an account holder has to answer a number of security questions to access his/her account be it Virgin Media, BT or their banking services, how can BT be justified in allowing the current opt-out model using single cookies during a browsing session, which could easily be ignored/accepted by the non-account holder, without informed consent, or indeed, any knowledge at all (especially if the current user is a child)?"

[BetBlowWhistler]

Originally Posted by madslug

Free phones already exist, see blyk in EU and sugar mama in USA - both supported by ads. Probably lots more around the world, so what is new about G joining the market?
On the other hand, I use a VoIP phone which allows me free calls without having to see the ads, so why would I go for a phone with ads?

Anyway, this is a distraction. What has viewing ads for a minute a day got to do with all your internet traffic being copied?
It would be news if the free phone came with voice recognition software that serves ads based on your conversations or text messages received or send.

BTW - the voice recognition on mobile phones is next on the list and being followed just as much as phorm. Hopefully, blocking the one will have the same effect on the other. Spyware, tracking and profiling is the same, regardless of the medium.

Sorry Madslug, but I think you may be at cross-purposes here. I wasn't referring to the voice stuff per se, I just included that reference as what followed was directly related to the previous sentence.

I was attempting to draw attention to the article where HW said it supported Phorm, but when you read it, it doesn't. The only thing the article put forward was that people might be offered free broadband services in return for having their connection monitored. If this is an optional service and people really want to do it then I see no reason why they shouldn't. (Again this is deliberately ignoring the website aspect).

On a slightly different note, in reference to the US companies dropping the DPI products, this is really what I thought BT would do when news of what they were attempting was brought under public scrutiny. Internal policies are geared to prevent making a fuss from within hence the leak to El Reg.

I obviously gave BT upper management more credit than they deserved, because I was basing my opinion on the middle-management of which I had more day-day knowledge. If some of those managers had a say in the matter then I daresay we wouldn't be in this position today and BT would have wisely dropped this insidious product from their portfolio.

This simply serves to highlight that BT cannot respond to the market quickly enough to compete with US companies in the same space. The only reason they are where they are is because of their previous role as incumbent Telco. Any other business making such blunders would be out on their ear much more quickly but their massive resources and stranglehold buffer them from so much of their real world mistakes that they cannot appreciate just how much people were going to get up in arms about this.

Their recent email correspondence with the ICO made it very clear they were shocked that this storm was still going on. Arrogant management in Ivory towers. I feel sorry for the tens of thousands of BT employees who are horrified about *their* companys' actions in this matter. (I say 'their' because pretty much all full time BT staff are also shareholders).

If anyone other than the ex-BT Retail CEO had just taken over the company then there would have been heads rolling within BT (eventually) as this is perfect political assassination stuff.

[rryles]

Originally Posted by HamsterWheel

I'm not aware that Phorm are claiming to enhance your privacy so can't really think what to add ?

From:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04...ial/page2.html

We think it is unethical of the Register to seek to undermine a technology that enhances online privacy - Phorm's system ensures that ads are served with no data storage - something that will benefit readers of the Register and other websites.

In the interests of balance, we would like the Register to reflect the improved privacy environment Phorm provides over the other major online ad targeting companies detailed in the attached table.

(My emphasis)

[HamsterWheel]

Originally Posted by BetBlowWhistler

I feel sorry for the tens of thousands of BT employees who are horrified about *their* companys' actions in this matter. .

As a matter of interest, where have you got this information from ?

---------- Post added at 16:01 ---------- Previous post was at 15:59 ----------

Originally Posted by rryles

From:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04...ial/page2.html

We think it is unethical of the Register to seek to undermine a technology that enhances online privacy - Phorm's system ensures that ads are served with no data storage - something that will benefit readers of the Register and other websites.

In the interests of balance, we would like the Register to reflect the improved privacy environment Phorm provides over the other major online ad targeting companies detailed in the attached table.

(My emphasis)

Well online privacy with Phorm who do not keep any data, is surely better than anyone else who do keep data for long periods of time, such as Google. As shown in the diagram that Phorm used http://regmedia.co.uk/2008/03/31/phorm_comparison.jpg

[rryles]

Originally Posted by HamsterWheel

Well online privacy with Phorm who do not keep any data, is surely better than anyone else who do keep data for long periods of time, such as Google. As shown in the diagram that Phorm used http://regmedia.co.uk/2008/03/31/phorm_comparison.jpg

The comparison with Google doesn't work as has been discussed before. Even if it did, the point would only be valild if phorm replaced google et al.

[BetBlowWhistler]

Originally Posted by HamsterWheel

As a matter of interest, where have you got this information from ?

---------- Post added at 16:01 ---------- Previous post was at 15:59 ----------

I hope you can appreciate that having already lost a great deal personally around disclosing private information that I'm not just going to divulge this on an open forum.

Suffice to say that I believe that the vast majority of BT employees (of whom there are tens of thousands) are not in full support of BT rolling out this product or having conducted secret trials which they then lied about, repeatedly.

Would you wish to be associated with such a company? (This is rhetorical btw in case you hadn't worked that out as I think you would be happy for the Devil to be your life-coach as long as you had shares in his company).

Edit: It's just occurred to me (I can be very naive at times as self-evidenced) that out of that whole critique I layed at BT's doorstep you only chose to pick on that one element. It doesn't take a ad-executive to work why.

[Wildie]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7488009.stm that looks bad for all who visit youtube.

[AlexanderHanff]

Originally Posted by Wildie

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7488009.stm that looks bad for all who visit youtube.

Yeah I just read about it elsewhere. It isn't going to happen, Google will find a way to appeal the order. Furthermore, I doubt they keep videos which get removed (although I could be wrong) so it would be a very difficult order to comply with. I expect and private videos will probably be contested on the grounds of privacy. Privacy laws can change state to state in the US so some states will not be happy that a judge in a different state is violating their citizen's privacy rights.

Alexander Hanff

[wecpc]

Originally Posted by popper

yep, every single web server of any type weather its a full blown Apache install with all the trimmings, or a 10 kilobyte *Rebol web server script, no matter were its housed, is subject to being Phormed, as the BT lads and ladys here and betaBT have already stated , even the ISP's minimal included webspace (its not "free" as you have to pay for the ISP service first before you get even that) will be subject to Phorm interception.[/URL]

Something I forgot to mention, is that access to a Microsoft Home Server using their new software is HTTPS. If you try and enter HTTP in IE 7, it automatically changes it to HTTPS and they supply a free SSL Certificate with the software. So should that be OK. In Firefox 3.0 that I am using now it displays this:

The page must be viewed over a secure channel
The page you are trying to access is secured with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).

Please try the following:

* Type https:// at the beginning of the address you are attempting to reach and press ENTER.

HTTP Error 403.4 - Forbidden: SSL is required to view this resource.
Internet Information Services (IIS)

Technical Information (for support personnel)

* Go to Microsoft Product Support Services and perform a title search for the words HTTP and 403.
* Open IIS Help, which is accessible in IIS Manager (inetmgr), and search for topics titled About Security, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), and About Custom Error Messages.

Colin