Comments on: The phuss over Phorm

By: Heather

Heather — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 22:09:04 +0000

It seems really shadey to me. Thier own website looks shadey.

By: Dave Evans

Dave Evans — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 00:19:06 +0000

The company called doubleclick has been doing this for many years already.

By: Munzly

Munzly — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 10:07:17 +0000

My online viewing policy is to block or filter out as much advertising as possible and never access or click on any that gets through. In which case I see very little point in having my connection slowed down or analysed by any system such as Phorm. I have now moved my broadband from BT to a provider who has undertaken not to deploy any such system and many of my friends acquaintances have done the same.

By: Helen

Helen — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 09:36:36 +0000

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By: Mark Thompson

Mark Thompson — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 23:53:51 +0000

I would never use their technology. The very act of placing systems within the ISP network to monitor browsing habits for use in profiling takes things too far. This is a betrayal of trust on the part of the ISP in my opinion.It is lucky for the UK online population that there has been this ‘small fringe’ group dedicated to fighting Phorm. Although the fact that over 20,000 people signed my petition on the 10 Downing Street website and that this petition remained in the top 5 for almost the entire year it ran, well this indicates that maybe the fringe is not so small. This group of people have already forced Phorm and ISP’s to take a different approach. If you look back a year ago there was very little talk of the system being ‘Opt in’, instead it was reliant on users ‘Opting Out’. whilst this issue has still not been resolved, it is through the hard work of privacy activists that Phorm are under increasing pressure to make it ‘Opt In’. Also if you look at the early Phorm network diagrams, it was obvious that even when you ‘Opted Out’ your data was still sent to the ‘Profiler’, in effect you were only opting out from receiving the actual adverts. Now the ISP’s have faced pressure to implement network based ‘Opt out/in’ so if a user does opt out, their traffic goes nowhere near Phorms kit.So basically, the Phorm we fight today is already different from what Phorm were hoping to implement one year ago, this is a remarkable vistory in this battle for online privacy, however the war is not yet won and there are still many questions outstanding and Phorm can rest assured that people like myself will be dogging them everystep of the way and will make sure to educate as much of the online populace as is possible to get them to see the dangers of the Phorm system and how it is both morally and technically flawed in my opinion.

By: Mike Cardwell

Mike Cardwell — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 14:18:50 +0000

One of the biggest blogging engines on the Internet (livejournal.com) has opted out of Phorms Webwise scanning. I suspect larger sites will start following now. Livejournal opt out of Phorm

By: Dr Strabismus

Dr Strabismus — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 09:41:19 +0000

I pay my ISP to connect me directly to a website of my choice, not to redirect me through 3rd party servers that analyse my private data by stealth. Yet, even if “opted-out” (on BT and Phorm’s terms that is, using cookies that have to be renewed continually if one is in the good security habit of clearing cookies on exit) then the redirection still happens.Phorm and BT are not truthful and transparent despite their claims to the contrary, and can’t be trusted. They do not answer all questions. It is reprehensible that BT have muzzled all discussion on their web forums despite the ICO saying that they had to be wholly transparent on the matter of Phorm, Webwise and DPI.

By: Anne

Anne — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:53:08 +0000

To intercept the communication between the customers computer and the websites they wish to visit, is like letting the post office open your mail to place approriate adverts inside harvested from key words in your letters.All websites also have copyright on their content which isn’t allowed to be harvested for commercial gain which BT and Phorm will be using it for.

By: JB

JB — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:12:10 +0000

“Phorm says the system is completely anonymous”Ah, but it isn’t is it. If it was _completely_ then there would be NO way of identifying one person from another.The system assigns a UNIQUE random ID to each person who it snoops on. That’s how it works. It identifies each person UNIQUELY. i.e. the system KNOWS who you are and it KNOWS you are not a different person.Yes, it KNOWS YOU are intersted in cars, holidays or whatever you di on line. It’s not like Google (which you can CHOOSE not to use) becaus eit does not use cookies (which we can set up to be blocked) but Phorm uses a system in the network to snoop on ALL your data and then select which bits it wants to use.Not REALLY that anonymous then, is it?Phorm need to book that room for another Town Hall Meeting in 2010. They still won’t con us, the public, into taking part. Why would we give up our right to have private and confidential communication. As long as we are not criminals, we have a right, they do not.Come on Mr Gordon Brown, ban this.

By: mrk456

mrk456 — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 12:18:46 +0000

This is a better location for Dr Clayton’s report mentioned above.http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rnc1/0805 18-phorm.pdf@Ian KemmishYou miss the point. It’s not the adverts people object to, but the method of collecting the data, right at the heart of your ISP. You can’t do anything about that (except change ISP).