Phorm get Virgin Media, BT and TalkTalk

The speculation is because of the FUD sent out by Phorm and their PR company. It is also sent out by BT spokespersons who just cut and paste everything Phorm say.

If you read The Reg comments you will see people there know what they are on about and the conclusion is that this is an overhead and it can cause slow down.

Now obviously this has not been tested in the wild so it may or may not be right. But with a good degree of certainty a slight slowdown could be expected. Whether it is noticable to average user is a different issue.

The main issue is that nearly everything you read and write is going to be copied and processed. Even if you do not opt-in to CPW, even if you opt-out of BT your data, your personal browsing data, the host websites copyrighted data is being copied and processed.

It is not right. It has not yet been proved legal. It would make far more sense if people like yourself realised what is going on and did something about it rather than worry about your ping rates.

Please consider the implications of what they are trying to do. Sign the petition, register your disproval with your ISP and consider changing. Please tell your friends and family that personal information you may share on your social networking sites could all be monitored and processed.
 
Id never heard of the Phorm thing until recently.

Are the three ISPs mentioned in the thread title the only ones involved or are others going to join in too? I sure as heck dont want someone snooping on me.

The BBC raised an interesting point - what happens when another user surfs the net on the same machine? They could get the targetted ads that may not be suitable for the current user.
 
A lot has changed since this thread started in March. I will deal with your points first.

Currently the big 3 are signed upto this. I suspect that others may follow but the 'joining fee' costs maybe too high.

CPW were the first to break rank and state that this will be an opt-in service (this has caveats), VM are still IMO very apprehensive about this. They don't like mud tarnishing the brand. I can see them bailing out completely once the number of customers leaving the service hits x%. BT are full steam ahead on this.

The BBC point about others surfing the machine has been mentioned many times. You spend all evening surfing for expensive watches as a present for your wife. She then uses the PC and starts seeing adverts for expensive watches...

In summary: Phorm are employing five PR agencies to counteract negative criticsm - some of their tactics are very much underhand such as registering on messageboards as "PhormTechTeam" when infact they are nothing more than third party spin doctors.

Many legal and technical professionals are convinced that the Phorm / Webwise system is illegal in the way it operates.

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/ukcrypto/2008-April/date.html#start

The government agencies who are supposed to police all this are mysteriously saying positive things about BT / Phorm. They do not seem to be independent - despite having had input from places such as the FIPR:

http://www.fipr.org/press/080406phorm.html

http://www.fipr.org/press/080317phorm.html

If you are still unsure as to what Phrom exactly is then try these sites:

http://www.inphormationdesk.org/

and

http://www.badphorm.co.uk

The petition on the No 10 site is growing steadily but people are still showing apathy here. This is what the ISPs and Phorm are expecting customers to be like. Don't stand for it.

Write to your MP
Write to your ISP (change - it really is an easy process)
Sign the petition

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/ispphorm/
 
mondo said:
Signed the petition. IF Phorm goes ahead they may as well scrap the data protection act!
Click to expand...

What does this have to do with the data protection act? The data protection act is about the storage of personal information.

The Act covers any data which can be used to identify a living person. This includes names, birthday and anniversary dates, addresses, telephone numbers, Fax numbers, e-mail addresses etc.
Click to expand...

Phorm doesnt record any personal information, it records browsing habits of a unique ID, and only the ISP correctly knows who that ID corresponds to.
 
Dist said:
What does this have to do with the data protection act? The data protection act is about the storage of personal information.



Phorm doesnt record any personal information, it records browsing habits of a unique ID, and only the ISP correctly knows who that ID corresponds to.
Click to expand...

Did you not read the Patent application above?
 
It has more to do with RIPA than the DPA but the DPA is relevant.

Your personal information is processed. The fact that 'personal information' is stripped out and the data only held in RAM (apart from a xx day retention on disk for diagnostic purposes) doesn't necessarily get around DPA.

Your personal information is processed and that's the truth.

Phorm doesnt record any personal information, it records browsing habits of a unique ID, and only the ISP correctly knows who that ID corresponds to.
Click to expand...

I suggest you go and read some of the UID / cookie threads over at badphorm and the ukcrypto newsgroup.
 
Madness I’ve just joined VM cable so haven’t being following this or known anything about it!! Shocking really :(

Signed the petition I’m totally against this, as you say I could be viewing sites on my PC then my sister, brother, mum, dad even the dog lol who share the same line on a there PC sees ads aimed at me? No thanks this is a joke I’ve be* broadband as well so I will sack VM off and stay with the one line if VM don’t have any opts out :(
 
Last edited:
Its worrying. I'm not saying that I engage in 'suspect' activities, but its not nice knowing that your every online move is watched. Its Orwellian. And since an individual would be able to be recognised from the data, it is contrary to the DPA.

Is there any other way apart from the petition/changing ISP to get away from the whole thing? I'm with Orange at the mo, please tell me they aren't going to introduce it. Arrrgh!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom