Headlines - Survey says: 57% of people would leave Phorm-adopting ISPs

[HEXUS]

Consumers send out a message to ISPs considering adopting the Phorm advertising system.

Read more.

[chrestomanci]

There is a technical explanation of how phorm tracks you on lightBlueTouchPaper.org

Light Blue Touchpaper » Blog Archive » The Phorm “Webwise” System

From the explanation it looks like it would be a good idea for someone to write a Firefox plug in or suchlike to randomly change the Phorm cookie so as to poison their database, which should make Phorm unpopular with the advertisers they are selling the data to, so they go out of business.

[dave87]

Yup, I certainly would (and in a few months time will be out of contract, so can do so if I wish)

[Erkal]

If carphone warehouse do buy out tiscali i would imagine they will roll phorm out across the tiscali network also.
if that happens i will definately get a Mac code and find a new ISP

[iggy]

does ofcom know about this???

[Andaho]

I'll have to start the argument for the PROS side of this

I don't see why people have a problem with it.... I would much prefer websites I visit to advertise useful things to me than junk that I'm not the slightest bit interested in.

From what I've heard about how it works it sounds genius!!! Say you were browsing the hexus forums looking at monitor reviews... then when you go to another site, lets use hotmail as an example, instead of seeing an advert for "£25 FREE BET for all new customers with william hill" (that I see on the top of the page now), I would instead see an advert for a monitor!

What I've heard about it is this:

The data gathered is very basic and looks for keywords and is not read from any secure pages or any user input, e.g. from form fields. Data is never stored on disk and is immediately deleted from memory as soon as a product category match has been made.

I think it sounds very similar to google adwords or the VIBRANT advertising word links that hexus use in their news articles (the green underlined words).

[SiM]

I wouldn't mind phorm too much either. If it reduces internet prices to half and as long as no personal data is at risk then whats the problem? Just use adblock

[MadduckUK]

I'll have to start the argument for the PROS side of this

thats appropriate, you WHORE

[Barkotron]

What I've heard about it is this:

The data gathered is very basic and looks for keywords and is not read from any secure pages or any user input, e.g. from form fields. Data is never stored on disk and is immediately deleted from memory as soon as a product category match has been made.

The thing is, we only have Phorm's word for it that they won't look at form fields: their system does read the entire page sent back to you (unless you're connected via https), and then takes out the personal data etc. It's like someone opening all your letters to pick out the kinds of things which interest you and promising "I'll forget the personal bits, honest" purely so you get junk mail which gives you adverts for stuff you probably bought 2 weeks ago. You've just got to trust that they really will forget what they say they will.

Personally, I've yet to see any reason at all to trust this company: it's an "ex" spyware company (who produced what F-Secure termed "one of the most widespread, malicious rootkits of 2005") who decided (under threat of litigation) to stop using drive-by installs which the user could remove, and go straight to the ISP. To my mind, it's the same spyware crap, but now it's impossible to remove.

We've yet to see anything trustworthy out of them, and the only technically-qualified people who have looked in detail at their system have declared that they believe it is illegal (see Richard Clayton's report as linked by Chrestomanci above).

It's a gross breach of trust by the ISPs, and I will be moving as soon as Virgin implement this, if they do.

@SiM:
I can understand that, but while it would be nice to think that the ISPs would offer people money off by implementing this, there is absolutely no sign that this is what's going to happen. It's a desperate attempt to shore up their own unsustainable business model (any non-cable users actually getting the 8Mb as advertised?) by exploiting their users.

Remember, that browsing data is yours, it's worth money and they're giving you some worthless "anti-phishing" system (free with every modern browser - bargain!) and an at best arguably useless "targeted advertising" system. I can't speak for everyone obviously, but personally I don't want to get holiday adverts when I'm looking at a tech site - I want either adverts linked to what I'm looking at at the time, or no adverts.

The best part is that they want it opt-out by default: unless you tell them you don't want this crap, they'll assume you do - and then even if you do opt-out, they STILL profile your data, they just don't give you the "benefits". At least Carphone Warehouse have changed their minds on this one and appear to be going for a real opt-in system where those who don't opt-in don't have their browsing redirected via the datarape servers.

There are so many things wrong with this system (triple redirects - lovely overhead, please make my browsing even slower! cookie forging! copyright infringement! illegal intercept! the list goes on...), probably the best place to go read about it is The Register, which has been keeping on top of the story since it broke - their page about it is here: The Phorm files | The Register

[Sinizter]

Here's another company which does something related to what Phorm does - read about how much info they can get together ...

How ComScore can track your mouse clicks | The Register

**** Phorm ... I wouldnt want to see it anywhere in any phorm whatsoever.

[iggy]

data protection act.

we dont give them permission, theyre doing it illegally. end of line.

[Barkotron]

Oh, and just in case anyone hasn't signed it yet: Petition to: Stop ISP's from breaching customers privacy via advertising technologies.

[cougarslam]

what effect does it have on latency?

ultimate form of spyware imo should be banned or opt in.

[Saracen]

I'll have to start the argument for the PROS side of this

I don't see why people have a problem with it.... I would much prefer websites I visit to advertise useful things to me than junk that I'm not the slightest bit interested in.

Then, when it or anything like it become operational (and in my opinion, it WILL, sooner or later, in one form or another, even if it isn't this company behind it) then you should opt in.

Meantime, those of us that don't want it (and it seems to be most people) shouldn't be opted in by default by our ISPs, as they currently want and seem to intend to do. And unless you opt in, it should mean that companies like Phorm get no access to my data whatsoever, not just that they get it, profile it and then don't set their tracking cookies.

Personally, I don't want online adverts from anybody, about anything, ever, unless I explicitly go looking for it, and I certainly don't want some company watching my browsing habits to determine what adverts to serve me. And, on the same line, I don't want any junkmail through my door either, and I don't want people ringing/texting me for direct marketing purposes, on either my home phone or mobile, for any reason whatever, regardless of who they are or what they're flogging. I just don't want it. Period.

I'm paying my ISP to provide a service, not to provide my browsing data to some bunch of 'bleeps' so people I don't know can try to flog me stuff.

[Andaho]

Personally, I don't want online adverts from anybody, about anything, ever, unless I explicitly go looking for it...

I don't want adverts on TV, in magazines, papers or giant bill boards along side main roads either... but advertising is a huge business... advertisers are finding it hard to reach their target audience with people watching less TV and using the internet more. - I think phorm is a breakthrough that is bound to happen sooner or later.

It's not going to give us more junk, it's going to replace the crap junk with targeted junk! - that can be ignored just as easially.

If it is found to be illegal, then it will be seen as that in a court and obviously won't be implimented in the UK... As to someone mentioning the data protection act. "we dont give them permission, theyre doing it illegally. end of line."... I don't give anyone permission to film me on CCTV as I walk down the highstreet either, yet it's not illegal?

This is just another case of corporate powers changing the way we will see things. It's life. It happens all the time. Live with it Or go and live in isolation on an island

[Saracen]

I don't want adverts on TV, in magazines, papers or giant bill boards along side main roads either... but advertising is a huge business... advertisers are finding it hard to reach their target audience with people watching less TV and using the internet more. - I think phorm is a breakthrough that is bound to happen sooner or later.

But it's going to be junk based on some bunch of people I don't know and didn't approve of analysing MY activity. Not acceptable.

And it's a small wonder advertisers are finding it hard to reach people - they're bombarding us with crap at ever-increasing levels. A lot of people have reached, and exceeded, their advertising overload point. For a start, on commercial TV channels, a third of time is spent sending adverts. Which is why I rarely watch commercial channels live - I record and edit out the ads. If they weren't so over-the-top about it, I wouldn't bother. But I am NOT going to spend three hours in an evening watching TV, only to spend one hour of it watching flipping adverts.

So .... I don't watch adverts on TV, don't buy newspapers and rarely buy magazines .... and ignore ads if I do. But an ad in a magazine isn't based on an analysis of my browsing habits, is it? This is not just about phorm facilitating adverts. It's about them invading my privacy to do it.

If you don't mind that, fair enough.

If people are prepared to sign up for it and, perhaps, get paid for it (as is effectively the case with store reward cards), then fair enough. That's why I won't use store reward cards and, most of the time, pay cash in supermarkets. Let the buggers track and anaylse that.

In both the above cases, it's the user's choice. But with Phorm, it's about the company I am paying to provide me with an ISP service doing it without my permission. If my ISP goes ahead with this and I find out, they've lost my business. And if it ends up as not possible to get ISP service without this intrusion, I will go offline. I am not exaggerating there. I lived most of my life without the internet, and if necessary, will do so again. I'd miss it, but it's hardly the end of the world. But I will not accept the likes of Phorm.