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

[OF1975]

Just an idea here but what would happen say if a person was invited to take part in the upcoming BT trial, opted-in but then changed their mind further down the line and blocked webwise domains in the host file by resolving them to 127.0.0.1. They would then be unable to browse.

In that situation does anyone think they would have a decent case for a small claims case against BT for breech of contract? Just thinking that just as spybot s & d uses that very way to help protect against spyware and its a well established pc security practice, would they have a good case?

[roadrunner69]

Originally Posted by BadPhormula

... And what about Hague why hasn't he signed it, perhaps the original poster that brought Phormscum to Hagues attention should ask him.

Someone else on here poined out that EDM's are restricted to backbenchers and WH is the shadow foreign sec (i think)

[rryles]

Originally Posted by R Jones

Yes - the metatag is the obvious one, but I don't recall anything from Webwise/Phorm/BT that says they are looking at the metatags. They have been SO vague about robots.txt and unless I've missed it, there has been nothing about metatags. Please - if anyone has anything concrete explaining how they deal with noindex,nofollow metatags, please do post it.

I suspect they don't know about the meta tags. All I've seen is a vague claim that they will only profile where Google would index. That should mean that they look at robots.txt and meta tags. However they've only ever mentioned robots.txt to my knowledge (and then not very clearly).

Originally Posted by R Jones

I know that for some this is "not the issue" - but it seems that even if the way Phorm/Webwise/BT are looking at it has practical holes in it then it tends to cause more embarrassment for them and more pressure.

Yes. I touched on some of this with some of my previous posts but they got a bit lost in the flames. This seems to me to be a fundamental problem. If you assume webmasters have a choice about being profiled then you have a catch 22. Determining which http requests are for which websites requires an intercept. An opt-in or opt-out could be done at various levels (IP address, domain(via robots.txt) or per page(via meta tags)) but all of these require an intercept of some of the communication. As you go through my list of levels you get more fine grained control, but you also need to look deeper into the packets which starts to very quickly look like an illegal intercept.

Originally Posted by R Jones

I agree that the real issue is the legality of the interception in the first place, and the need for explicit, informed, rather than implied consent, but I am trying to challenging the way even their "implied" consent model works.

Indeed. A strong legal argument doesn't have a single point of failure. If they managed to argue that an implied opt-in for webmasters is OK, then this is a fall back argument.

Either they inspect all outgoing packets or they don't touch any of them. Unless they've invented a clairvoyant packet filter.

They might be able to argue that filtering on IP address is not an intercept - it's just routing. I actually think there is some merit in that argument. However that falls far short of the level of control that Google offers. A single IP address can relate to thousands of websites with different webmasters and completely different types of content.

[Rchivist]

Originally Posted by mark777

I like the idea and although I don't know enough about the legal side to comment, the thought of BT up before the beak for breach of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 puts a big grin on my face.

---

Just one thought. A week or so ago, I think it was R Jones who mentioned that BT had offered to exclude domains from the system (by opt out).

Confirmed.

I've sent this one off to BT and also posted a reference to it on iii investment site and the BT Beta Forums which are incredibly sluggish today.

[Dephormation]

Originally Posted by mark777

I
Presumably an ISP deploying phorm would imply consent to being included in your system.

You should float this on AIM. It's a much more robust business model than Kent's idea.

Oh no. I'm not that evil.

I would ensure the ISP gave me explicit consent... ISPs will indicate their explicit consent to be charged for commercial exploitation by Phorging a UID cookie in my domain.

As for AIM, joy to say the mechanism for generating this revenue is so simple anyone could do it. In a nutshell; force leaked UID cookie, log commercial exploitation event, invoice ISP for page impression royalties and then... either draw income from factor (and allow them to chase bad debt on your behalf) or sue ISP in small claims court for royalties once a month.

Anyone with a relatively basic web site hosting package would be able to do it (and never have to show an advert). Or you could use the expected income to upgrade your hosting package if necessary.

No legal fees, you can represent yourself in small claims.



Pete.

[AlexanderHanff]

I have been thinking more about Judicial Reviews and Complaints to the Parliamentary Ombudsman with regards the Home Office and Information Commissioner's Office.

Judicial Review
My understanding of the guidance notes is that due to the ICO and HO both issuing public statements we may be able to question the procedures they followed in developing and delivering the statements.

Home Office
As we know the Home Office released a statement regarding Phorm and RIPA but in it they stated the statement was neither a legal or technical analysis and that no such analysis had been done. it is reasonable to assume that the general public would see a Home Office statement as one of authority, which is (I presume) why Nicholas Bohm/FIPR sent the letter to the Home Secretary asking for the statement to be withdrawn. It is my belief that the Home Office as a result of this statement have not followed adequate procedures in order to develop the statement (as in they have no investigated the matter in either a technical or legal respect), so I believe a Judicial Review may be possible.

ICO
ICO, in their statement have claimed that Phorm does not breach the Data Protection Act but have also stated that they have not carried out any investigation and have based their judgement purely on information provided to the by Phorm. It is my view that ICO have not complied with Due Dilligence (which is procedural by definition) by not carrying out an investigation. Therefore, again I believe they might be open to a Judicial Review.

Parliamentary Ombudsman
Parliamentary Ombudsman is a road I am currently heading down. I intend to fire off a letter to my MP next week once my schedule has quietened down a little and should my grievances not be satisfied I am planning to go forward with a full complaint to the Parliamentary Ombudsman with regards the lack of action by ICO, Home Office and the Police on the issue of the covert 2006/2007 trials.

I will look into the procedures some more this evening if I get a chance, but I suspect this option is one we should all consider as the more complaint the Parliamentary Ombudsman get, the more likely they are to deal with the matter in a serious fashion.

I have emailed Nicholas Bohm for some more information on the Judicial Review process and whether or not he feels it is a suitable course of action, so I will update once I hear back from him.

Alexander Hanff

[mark777]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHanff

Just look at the size of the trades, it is blatantly obvious that there is a very serious effort to ramp the stock, very small trades selling at high prices.

I would suggest someone has a lot of shares they want to dump but they don't want to make a huge loss on them (bought them at 20+) so they are trying to get the price up in order to dump them again.

There certainly isn't any news I can find anywhere (not even on Phorm's site) which can otherwise account for today's market activity.

Alexander Hanff

OK, I agree it's unlikely to be small speculators.

It could be, as you say, someone trying to drive the price up before dumping a big holding. I've noticed that large holdings tend to be dumped after 4pm, so it will be worth looking out for.

It could also be phorm shoreing which leads to speculation of why now?

Push price up, publish phorm friendly PIA this evening after close of business and leave the weekend for people to digest the PIA in preparation for Monday's opening?

---------- Post added at 15:36 ---------- Previous post was at 15:23 ----------

Originally Posted by Dephormation

Oh no. I'm not that evil.

I would ensure the ISP gave me explicit consent... ISPs will indicate their explicit consent to be charged for commercial exploitation by Phorging a UID cookie in my domain.

As for AIM, joy to say the mechanism for generating this revenue is so simple anyone could do it. In a nutshell; force leaked UID cookie, log commercial exploitation event, invoice ISP for page impression royalties and then... either draw income from factor (and allow them to chase bad debt on your behalf) or sue ISP in small claims court for royalties once a month.

Anyone with a relatively basic web site hosting package would be able to do it (and never have to show an advert). Or you could use the expected income to upgrade your hosting package if necessary.

No legal fees, you can represent yourself in small claims.



Pete.

Another thought.

Apart from commercial exploitation of you copyright material your fee could also cover permission to forge the cookie in your domain.

Failure to pay could then also be pursued via Fraud/Computer Misuse Acts.

i.e. try to cover as many laws as possible in your T&C's, leaving you with many options to pursue in cases of non-payment.

[BadPhormula]

Originally Posted by roadrunner69

Someone else on here poined out that EDM's are restricted to backbenchers and WH is the shadow foreign sec (i think)

Okay that is fair enough. But what excuse do the other Tories (and a major section of Labour) have?

[Rchivist]

Originally Posted by R Jones

Interesting discovery relating to my BTOpenworld free ISP space.

snip

Then I discovered the problem - I can't actually set up a "valid" robots.txt for the ISP hosted pages - because as far as google is concerned the only robots.txt it sees is the one at the top level domain - the ISP domain of btinternet.com .

My site robots.txt is www.btinternet.com slash tilde~ username slash robots.txt

The one google sees is www.btinternet.com/robots.txt which merely says

User-agent: *
Disallow: /Templates
Disallow: /virtualworlds

which seems to be the one that btinternet.com uses for all their hosted space.

Exactly the same applies to all the Yahoo geocities sites as well - just checked. Google simply returns a 404 when asked to look for robots.txt on a google verified BTYahoo! geocities site that I just created, and for which I uploaded a robots.txt file.

Geocities is the current ISP free webspace available to BTYahoo! customers. BTOpenworld is the legacy space which older customers like me still have but is not available to new customers.
I imagine the same applies to the wider Yahoo/Geocities sites too which must number millions and are by and large, personal pages run by families.

Both sorts DON'T allow a website owner to modify robots.txt. So that is the entire BT customer base of free webspace that doesn't actually work with one of the legal workarounds they are trying to convince us about, in the Webwise/Phorm model they are promoting.

[popper]

i like the phinking

http://www.badphorm.co.uk/e107_plugi...pic.php?5533.0

" felixcatuk
Lets suppose,

- Home Office and Police fail to enforce RIPA (as they have done)
- Information Commissioner fails to enforce DPA/PECR (as they have done)
- European bodies act 12 months after its too late to stop Phorm
- BT are going to steal my copright material from my web sites, whatever my T&Cs

I guess I'd be entitled to impose penal charges for unauthorised commercial use of my web site.

In my T&Cs I make it clear; BT indicate their consent to pay penal charges by setting a phorged Phorm UID.

Now what I'm thinking is this. If Phorm is detectable using client side/server side methods, I can write a script to create 'CDR' (call detail record) billing information. BT will know what CDRs are.

From that billing information I can create an invoice which totals the number of 'calls' and the price (less friends and family discounts etc). This invoice can be sent to the ISP with a demand for unpaid royalties.

I think I feel another Dephormation script coming together.

[ Edited Fri May 09 2008, 01:38PM ]

BT/Virgin/TalkTalk customers - you don't need Webwise and Phorm, pure and simple.
Don't be a passive recipient of Phorm cookies. Find a Phorm Free ISP.
Protect your privacy. Protect your web content. Phorm must be stopped.
www.Dephormation.org.uk: Free Anti-Phorm Countermeasures for Firefox Users and Web Sites
PhormUKPRTeam/PhormUKTechTeam is a PR consultant from Citigate Dewe Rogerson.
RIPA: ISPs HAVE NO CONSENT FOR INTERCEPTION OF THIS TRANSMISSION "

[rryles]

Originally Posted by R Jones

<snip>as far as google is concerned the only robots.txt it sees is the one at the top level domain

Yup. Google is just following the RFC for robots.txt here. It should only look in the root of each domain. However Google also checks for meta tags on each page. This is one reason why checking robots.txt isn't good enough.


http://www.robotstxt.org/faq/shared.html

[mark777]

OK. Stock at 1800 now.

http://finance.google.com/finance?q=LON:PHRM

Something has happened or is about to happen. If phorm are driving it up, it's for a reason.

[Wildie]

Originally Posted by mark777

OK. Stock at 1800 now.

http://finance.google.com/finance?q=LON:PHRM

Something has happened or is about to happen. If phorm are driving it up, it's for a reason.

insider trading ? do you think.

[AlexanderHanff]

I just contacted one of my many press contacts (I seem to be collecting quite a list) who works for the Financial Times to see if she has any insight on the strange market behaviour with Phorm's stock today. Will update once I get a reply.

Alexander Hanff

[Dephormation]

Originally Posted by mark777

Apart from commercial exploitation of you copyright material your fee could also cover permission to forge the cookie in your domain.

Failure to pay could then also be pursued via Fraud/Computer Misuse Acts.

I like it.

They can pay a daily fee of £100 for permission to forge my identity (through redirects and cookie settings), then pay me £10 for each and every instance of commercial exploitation of my copyright web pages.

£10 is excellent value imho, as my web pages often describe enterprise grade software products like WebLogic and Oracle which sell for tens of thousands of pounds.

Pete.