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

This diagram STILL does not address the issue of someone gaining a Webwise cookie and then accessing the website via a non-phormed ISP (e.g. browsing from a laptop at home via a phormed ISP, then from work via a non-phormed ISP) who strips off the Webwise cookie then?

[Florence]

Originally Posted by JohnHorb

This diagram STILL does not address the issue of someone gaining a Webwise cookie and then accessing the website via a non-phormed ISP (e.g. browsing from a laptop at home via a phormed ISP, then from work via a non-phormed ISP) who strips off the Webwise cookie then?

Perhaps it doesn't but i was using it to show the copyright phorm will be breaking everytime it pretends to be another website.

[Cobbydaler]

Originally Posted by 80/20Thinking

<snip>

In terms of stakeholders, we accept the definition adopted by the ICO, which is "a collective word for the various groups and individuals who have a significant interest in the project and its outcomes, because they are participating in it, or may be affected by it." That, of course, is clearly the public.

Simon

Surely, for good or bad, that includes the content providers not just the public?

[80/20Thinking]

Originally Posted by Cobbydaler

Surely, for good or bad, that includes the content providers not just the public?

The "stakeholders" include individual content providers, users and anyone affected by a system. However we would naturally focus more on the public interest with regard to individual rights.

[Florence]

Originally Posted by 80/20Thinking

The "stakeholders" include individual content providers, users and anyone affected by a system. However we would naturally focus more on the public interest with regard to individual rights.

There are many members of the public that spend money to have website we copyright our sites. We should also be protected from another orginisation pretending to be us. Our reputation couuld be tarnished if phorm do revert to some of their past tricks..


I have members of the public visit my sites i might help them to find things they are interested in. This is between me and the person visiting and shouldn't have the big brother over the shoulder spying..

sorry but I do hold this as personal to me and as such not for others to use, copy, or whatever with.

[James_Firth]

Originally Posted by 80/20Thinking

You'll understand, I'm sure, why I'm resisting saying anything that could fuel speculation, but you've hit the nail on the head. If we're in the business (at least in part) of finding possible solutions, the browser manufacturers are massively relevant. But talk about a hornet nest....
Simon

Yes, I understand. I face such problems every day of implementing clients' requirements, which often include fist-slamming assertions that a feature must operate in a stated way, despite the limitations of the browser and corporate-mandated security zone settings etc.

At the risk of making a sweeping statement and being proved wholly wrong, the crux of the problem is and always will be consumer buy-in. Choosing and installing a new browser is relatively simple. With great open source browsers being available, if the big 3/4 implement something that the community doesn't like, a new branch and branding will emerge without this feature. FireKitten?!

One could assume intra-ISP profiling provided the answer but again both the consumer and the online community can play a part in forcing corporate hands because of (a) the power of viral messaging (switch from VM/BT/TT because of Phorm) and (b) the amount of user and hobbyist generated content, which, given a working Phorm detector could be used to deliver a direct message to anyone visiting from a participating ISP.

One avenue that hasn't been explored on this forum is the role that single-sign on (global identity/identity management/online passport/...) systems could play in behavioural targeting. No doubt the bods at Yahoo, Google and Microsoft are more than on top of this. Of course the challenge will still be getting ordinary websites to participate in data profiling, a problem intra-ISP solutions don't have.

But I think the only fair way to get this data is to pay the websites themselves for it, that way the income rightly goes to the content producers and not the service providers.

[SelfProtection]

Originally Posted by 80/20Thinking

I'd appreciate the opportunity to make a few comments about the broader perspective here, while also conducting a little expectation management regarding the PIA.

I mentioned at the start of the public meeting that tectonic shifts are occurring in the online environment. Many of you will know these shifts well. Microsoft makes a play for Yahoo, while Google acquires Doubleick, capturing more than half the ad potential of the Web. Yahoo responds by cutting a deal with Google. Meanwhile, Time Warner through advertising.com via AOL launches a rival global ad platform.

Meanwhile, back in the EU, the national privacy commissioners, tired of missing the boat on online issues, raise the privacy bar via the Article 29 Group to drive a wedge through the ad space market and lay down an unprecedented set of demands that could, who knows, spark a mini trade war between the EU and the US.

There's about $20 billion up for grabs in ad space margins, which accounts for much of this activity. That accounts for the existence of Phorm, as it accounts for its rival platforms along with the consolidation spree you read about every day.


Simon

I don't need many words to describe the Lunacy of the afore said Logic!

Who is Bamboozling Who & what has happened to the Media & Advertising Executives Braincells?

There is a World of difference between Click-Streaming Users Fixed Media Preferences & Proposing or trying to Click-Stream "Live Personal, Private, Copyright, Trade Secret Communications between Two consenting Personal,Business, Military entities", especially without proper consent from Both Parties.

Since the Internet (even of http Port 80)is a hybrid of Secure, Personal, Private data, it is basically Madness to Profile any of this streaming data WITHOUT GOOD REASON, especially at the ISP Level which takes Basic Rights away from both Business & the General Public!
http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/im...s/banghead.gif

[James_Firth]

One final thought for Simon and then I hit the pub for last orders...

(A question that's been posed before) Does the internet need a revolution in advertising? Online newspapers are starting to see real returns from their online business. New sites and ideas get created on a low-cost basis from many hours of hard graft. If they take off, their running costs are relatively low and they can more than break even from existing ad sources. It could be said that problems at the ISPs are all their own and Ofcom's fault.

Who's pushing this revolution in advertising and how will we suffer if the revolution is quoshed? Goodnight all.

[Florence]

Originally Posted by James_Firth

One final thought for Simon and then I hit the pub for last orders...

(A question that's been posed before) Does the internet need a revolution in advertising? Online newspapers are starting to see real returns from their online business. New sites and ideas get created on a low-cost basis from many hours of hard graft. If they take off, their running costs are relatively low and they can more than break even from existing ad sources. It could be said that problems at the ISPs are all their own and Ofcom's fault.

Who's pushing this revolution in advertising and how will we suffer if the revolution is quoshed? Goodnight all.

MPO Phorm is pushing this revolution to line his pockets and a cut for the ISPs.

Customers will see nothing but webpages loading slower and god forbid if a phorm server falls over no internet...

The words I heard mentioned form someone who has seen the rig it is like a load of servers if one failed he said it would be a nightmare to sort it out.

If this fails we will lose nothing the ISPs just a little greed.

[declanh]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHanff

No he means presumably that most web sites keep logs of their traffic which include IP address and also things like tracking cookies and search engines retaining your search terms.

The point he doesn't seem to get is whereas this is true this is extremely distributed. This data is held by millions of individual web sites and not linked together, nor is it under the control of a single entity, nor can it be seen usually by anyone but the web site owner.

So whereas we do have a digital footprint, it is broken into millions of pieces and scattered everywhere, Phorm on the other hand glues all those pieces back together to "Phorm" the full picture and give them a very clear facsimile of your entire browsing behaviour. This much data is a gift to marketing and advertising companies. The individual shards scattered across the web are -almost- useless on their own (I say almost because they do provide useful statistics for the web site owner), but Phorm conveniently ignore the point that they see everything, individual web sites only see what you do on their site and if referrer checking is used the site you came from. Tracking cookies don't fall under the same argument because they are bad and many are blocked by anti spyware/adware/virus or browser/OS based tools.

Alexander Hanff

OK - i get that, i see everyones IP address that visits my website via statcounter - but statcounter only sees who visits which sites they track - it does not build a profile for invidivual peoples entire internet usage, nor does google (apart from search queries). So his analogy seems irredeemably flawed IMHO if his comparison is that what phorm plan to do is somehow similar to website owners profiling their visitors (this is back to the tesco clubcard analogy where tesco only see what you buy from them).

[AlexanderHanff]

Yup as I pointed out in my last paragraph they conveniently ignore that point.

Alexander Hanff

[pseudonym]

Originally Posted by JohnHorb

This diagram STILL does not address the issue of someone gaining a Webwise cookie and then accessing the website via a non-phormed ISP (e.g. browsing from a laptop at home via a phormed ISP, then from work via a non-phormed ISP) who strips off the Webwise cookie then?

I think a bigger problem is websites will be able to read your webwise tracking cookie by embedding some https content on their page. Phorm can't strip the cookie from encrypted streams, so the website will get to see your unique user id. If the website doesn't want to pay for a certificate to read your UID, it should also work if they use a port other than 80.

Taking it one step further, the anti-phishing protection phorm claims to provide, is supposed to protect the sort of person who would be likely to click on a dodgy link in an email and provide their details, but just by tricking them into clicking on a link in an email you send them, you can capture their email address along with their webwise UID.

[Florence]

Originally Posted by pseudonym

I think a bigger problem is websites will be able to read your webwise tracking cookie by embedding some https content on their page. Phorm can't strip the cookie from encrypted streams, so the website will get to see your unique user id. If the website doesn't want to pay for a certificate to read your UID, it should also work if they use a port other than 80.

Taking it one step further, the anti-phishing protection phorm claims to provide, is supposed to protect the sort of person who would be likely to click on a dodgy link in an email and provide their details, but just by tricking them into clicking on a link in an email you send them, you can capture their email address along with their webwise UID.

that would be a worrying thing since they said it wouldnt be reading emails.. How can you be sure for technology like this to be introduced you really need someone with a totally clean not tainted..

[Chroma]

Another user posted regarding different individuals using the same connection and login account and the possibility of visiting a friend and being essentialy kept in the dark with regards to how his data was being handled and it got me thinking.

Is there intercompatibility between ISP's?

Lets say for a minuite that i opt in (purely for the sake of the argument) and i do this using my laptop's wifi whilst sitting at a cafe connected through BT.

Suddenly i hear that theyre out of blueberry muffins but that the cafe down the road has some, so i pack my gear and leg it down the street to secure some blueberry filled goodness.
I unpack my laptop and hook into the wifi which this time is provided by Carphone Warehouse (whos flown surprisingly low under the radar up till now)

Several questions arise at this point.
Will i still be opted in?
Will i be presented another opt in/out/shake-it-all-about screen?
Will my laptop melt under the strain of desperately trying to divide by zero?
Will the cookie provided by BT's cookiemongler (for want of a better term) be valid on carphone warehouses equipment?

on the last point regarding cookies i cant see this as being possable in a purely technical sense, i mean without going too far into moonspeak math/code jargon; numbers generated by a computer are not even close to random.

Take a playlist for instance, if you select randomise then it will go through every track in a seemingly random pattern till it plays all the tracks then it will stop.
In a truly random system however its more than likely that certain songs will be played more than once some may even be played several times.

The same kind of principle applies to the term UNIQUE ID, in that much like a playlist no string will be produced twice on the same system in order to maintain that each string is indeed UNIQUE.
However two systems are in play here and therefore the chances of me winding up with the same UID as Jonh Doe although extremely slim appear to be very real.
I mean the BT/PHORM equipment generates a random UID that it assigns to me.
The Carphone/PHORM equipment would do the same, and unless there was direct communication between the two ISP's equipment then neither cookiemongler would know which UID's where already in the system.

Doesnt this pose a significant problem for the actual database?
I mean a database frankly goes into meltdown when two unique keys are the same for two different tables (unless theres a secondary key to differentiate)

So am i completely missing something here or are the cookies assigned further down the equipment line where presumably multiple ISP's funnel the data through?

If so then this raises a further interesting question:
how can BT even begin to concieve of a setup thats a cookie free opt in/out/shake-it-all-about setup without having consultations with other ISP's that would most definately be effected by such modifications?

[pseudonym]

Originally Posted by Florence

that would be a worrying thing since they said it wouldnt be reading emails.. How can you be sure for technology like this to be introduced you really need someone with a totally clean not tainted..

It does not matter that phorm will not be reading emails, if you can persuade someone to click on a link in an email, and you include a unique identifier in that link such as the email address you sent the email to, and embed some https content such as an image in the page you link to. Your browser will fetch the page and the website will get sent both the email address and the tracking cookie containing the UID of the person that received the email.

And the people you can't persuade to click on your link aren't likely to fall for a phishing email either, so wouldn't really benefit from phishing protection.