Bad Phorm

[Agent]

I said majority Lucio. You're far too cool to be included in the kinda people I mentioned

[Sinizter]

The main problem is BT have tested on a bunch of people that are not likely to care. If it was done on me, I would certainly be doing something about it. But I was with a different ISP.

The problem is that when I am moving this end of July I am going to be in a region where it seems that only BT and VM are available. Pretty awful.

[tom18230]

All I can get is Virgin Media.

Brilliant.

[Gerrard]

I was just thinking "Oh well, at least I'm not with them". Then I remember I was with them the last 2 years at my previous station (had little choice at the time who I went with). The problem now is, as far as I understand it, is proving that they monitored me. Going from the BBC report (done by Julia Caesar! ), only 18,000 were done, which is a small percentage of their customers. Personally, I can't see them openly admitting who they trialled and any legal battle or otherwise would end up being fruitless. I'll just won't use them in the future (or Virgin or TalkTalk).

[santa claus]

Imho, unless these proposals are confronted now, there will be no choices in future. Your Internet use will be monitored, recorded and profiled.

Really, if you care about your privacy, you need to act (see post #121). If you don't see this as one of the most important issues since the inception of the Internet, then fine.

Y'know that thing you do when you're a kid when you wake up in the middle of the night thinking there's a vampire in the room? That's right, hide under the sheets and he goes away. Always works.

[MadduckUK]

mwahahahaha!

[noTHINGface]

Originally Posted by MadduckUK

mwahahahaha!

Now that is good news

[Saracen]

Still 77.33% too high, in my opinion.

[Lucio]

Must remember to scan & post the response I finally recieved from the Underminstery's secutary's assistant's assisstants, in response to the letter from my MP.

On the plus side, discovered I can get a good enough service from Sky BB, so I've told BT to stuff it!

[Jay]

Is phorm dead in the water or what?

[Lucio]

Originally Posted by Jay

Is phorm dead in the water or what?

No, it's still very real and the general gist of the letter I got back was "We've looked at it a bit and seem happy for it to go ahead"....

It's not good reading!

[santa claus]

Guys, I apologise in advance for posting in this thread again but this is way too important to let drop.

At the time of writing, BT still propose to run further trials of Phorm, or "webwise" as its product will be known on the internet. This will follow the illegal trials in 2006/07 when about 118,000 non-consenting BT customers were "phormed" in a dry run.

The further trials will be opposed at BT's AGM on 16 July by a number of dedicated people who value their online privacy.

I still cannot work out why the response at Hexus is so indifferent (some notable exceptions of course). A member of the House of Lords (Baroness Miller) posted on the cable forum and this must be the first time ever that this has happened, such is the level of interest and reaction.

HEXUS please wake up and extend this debate. If it doesn't bother you, do you want to commit your kids to the potential for routine profiling and categorising in the future?

[Saracen]

I'm certainly not indifferent to it, Santa. I've already said I won't stay with an ISP that implements it. And I would seriously consider going offline completely ... or very nearly so. I might retain a very basic email capability, for essential mails from family, but if I do, it'll be encrypted only (and yes, I know that's not what Phorm is about), and giving up any form of web access, other than perhaps from public facilities like libraries, or anonymous ones like net cafes, completely.

Personally, I will not be profiled by Phorm or anything like it. If that means being web-less, so be it.

Indifferent I ain't. Very, very angry at the concept? Yup.

[Jay]

Originally Posted by Saracen

I'm certainly not indifferent to it, Santa. I've already said I won't stay with an ISP that implements it. And I would seriously consider going offline completely ... or very nearly so. I might retain a very basic email capability, for essential mails from family, but if I do, it'll be encrypted only (and yes, I know that's not what Phorm is about), and giving up any form of web access, other than perhaps from public facilities like libraries, or anonymous ones like net cafes, completely.

Personally, I will not be profiled by Phorm or anything like it. If that means being web-less, so be it.

Indifferent I ain't. Very, very angry at the concept? Yup.

I am the same. I will go totaly offline if this becomes a general ISP business model.

[Agent]

Seems the same issues are happening in the US too:
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/200...-pressure.html

[santa claus]

Originally Posted by Agent

Seems the same issues are happening in the US too:
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/200...-pressure.html

Yes, although I think NebuAd (the US version of Phorm so to speak) is coming under fire from Congress.

BT are proposing further Phorm trials in the UK but there's no doubt the rollout has been arrested by the opposition. The Downing Street petition getting on for 16,000 signatures.

Virgin Media and Talk Talk are currently sitting on the fence as bigger guns enter the fray - the European Union, the House of Lords, the Police etc.

Meanwhile, all's hunky dory here in cloud cuckoo land

Thanks for the link Agent.