See FIPR Papers & Privacy, DPA Fraud Concerns!

The Ability to gather UID’s & therefore link this data to Personal E-mail Names etc , by any unscrupulous HTTP–>HTTPS Website makes this System Highly Suspect from a Privacy & Data Protection Perspective!

This is irrespective of the illegal mirroring of data, THIS REQUIRES THE CONSENT OF BOTH PARTIES & OR A PROPER LEGAL JUDGEMENT TO DO SO!

Hey, fella, choose to use another fcking ISP then !One that in future will not be subsidised by advertising. Pay over the odds for an inferior service and be happy in your smug little world.

“Our decision was in no small part down to the conversations we had internally about how this product sits with the values of our company.”

(link)

you said “Phorm was rejected by The Guardian newspaper because it “didn’t fit with the values of the business”. You can’t get any more polite yet severe a condemnation as this. Phorm has been rejected because The Guardian does not trust it and does not like what it stands for. It knows Phorm’s previous history and it knows that its readership holds it to account for its decisions.”

And you know this how? You are on The Guardians board? or maybe just part of the decision making process? Complete and utter bollocks. Go back to your phorm-rival funded smear campaign…

You seem not to understand a few basic facts.

I dont want you anywhere near my traffic. I dont want my traffic allowed anywhere near any equipment you may have access to.

Just because I look at a topic on a particular site it doesnt mean I will welcome advertising about the topic.

The opt in/out situation shouldnt arise - the system should only require a positive opt in. This is something you are putting in the way of people

Fortunately My ISP charges me a realistic rate for my connection and has no need to bolsetr its income to support an unrealistically low price level

Adware… hmm wasnt there some involvment with “People on page”I seem to recall that being picked up as malware. Just because you put an EULA on a piece of malware/spyware that doesnt make it worthwhile, or desirable.

I know you guys have a living to make, but its a shame that you cant find something worthwhile to hawk instead of trying to legitimise this unwelcome and unwanted spyware

To clarify the inaccuracies above — which you seem to be posting repeatedly across the boards:

1) 121Media was involved, fully transparently, in adware. Each programme had an EULA a user had to sign in order to use the programme. This is not a feature of spyware, as you must know.

2) We do not modify webpages as you describe by inserting adverts. Firstly, OIX ads only go into existing slots on websites we partner with. To make this plain: websites who decide to partner with us show OIX ads. We cannot show ads on pages that are not our partners. The reason websites would chose to do this is that they set a price for that slot which we then guarantee to beat — thus earning the website more money. In addition, we do not serve pop ups or pop unders.

3) As we have said previously the system is designed to offer either opt in or opt out. There is no default as you suggest. Each ISP will decide which option is best for their customers. Either way, it will always be easy for customers to opt in or opt out. It’s always a choice.

4) The system does not store URLs. Full stop.
What we store is: a product category, a random number and a timestamp.

5) I fail to understand your logic here.

6) I disagree — if you truly care about your privacy you should lobby for an industry standard of no storage of personal data, which is in fact what our system represents and delivers. Please see the following flash demo for more information: (link)

Best wishes,

Radha

(link)

My brain is quite capable of shifting from Shoes to Autos and back again and I’ll guess yours is too.. Often in seconds or split seconds. Sure context is helpful to advertising effectiveness, but never a requirement. Advertising itself often operates at the low involvement level and research shows that consumers are not about to introspect into their own reactions.

One way to understand this situation is to look at two ends of the spectrum in performance oriented online advertising. One is the standard banner ad click through performance, which is probably less than 1%, maybe even less than .5% click through. The other end is the Google.com search ad performance which according to sources I have seen suggests an average click through of 22% on those text listings. What your argument suggests is that given a better understanding of the consumer, we couldn’t improve on the .5% or 1% click rate, even in the light of the better consumer insight driven 22% of search. Performance is not binary, it’s a continuum.

One issue for advertising is that it is often considered negatively by consumers for the fact that it is not relevant to the consumer. Having better insight to consumer’s interests and needs can greatly improve the value of advertising for consumers, certainly for the advertiser and even the media company. Net, everyone wins.

The challenge is how do we collect and manage a better level of consumer insight.

Greg Stuart
Co-Author What Sticks, Why Advertising Fails and How to Guarantee Yours Succeeds

• Blue Lithium has a white paper on this.

If Phorm is so wonderful, so transparent and so trustworthy why are so many people protesting against it? Why is the UK government asking questions now?

you do know what “deep-packet inspection equipment” does dont you?

you do know that your govt needs to get a court order to use its capabilitys?

in the case of Phorm’s deep-packet inspection equipment, do you really trust them to not track every single one of your web based movements

Phorms head tech man said they can do exactly this to a US news site. and their commercial patent that discribes all the things they intend going with their DPI kit backed that quote up 100%

do you really want every single thing you do on your broadband line, collected,looked at ,sorted, select information that their interested in at the time picked out, then anonymised and sent to some interested buyer?

perhaps you dont spend your money buying stuff online and so they cant ever see your payment details , not that they would use them OC after all, they clerly see every single key press you make in that website, but promise to throw away everything, after a set No. right!

perhaps you think Phorm is wonderful, after all,who wouldnt want their own personal electronic guard, its like your personal minder ,seeing everything, and forgetting everything, except what you dont mind them remembering so they can make a few quid right.

your “Phorm deep-packet inspection equipment” is akin to your very own personal and yet invisable north korean minder, arnt you just so lucky,
and the Pr Phorm machine will be along any minute now, with a revamping of official propaganda ,just for you US girls and boys that theres nothig to see here , move along….

Stop trying to involve Privacy International’s name. Simon Davies was asked as a director of 80/20 Thinking, NOT Privacy International. Privacy International have made it clear they have not endorsed anything since Phil Zimmerman’s PGP.

You know what the difference between Phorm and Google, MSN, Yahoo, and eBay is? It’s been well documented elsewhere so I’ll summarise it here. CHOICE. I choose to use Google’s services. I choose to use MSN. I choose to use Yahoo and I choose to use eBay. There is no choice about Phorm. Don’t give me crap about cookies - Phorm as presented to UK ISPs meant my data (as Sir Tim said “It’s mine, you can’t have it”) went to you regardless of my consent. And I refuse consent. Clearly and explicitly.

Phorm offers nothing of value to me. I don’t want it, I don’t need it and I’m damn well going to make sure everyone I know is clear on why they don’t need it either.

Can you show me someone as eminent as Sir Tim Berners-Lee advocating Phorm?

Will Phorm actually come out into the open and give honest, independently verifiable answers to the many questions posed in the various internet forums their PR machine has visited and failed to stem the flow of criticism?

Quit the spin. Answer the questions openly, honestly and completely or disappear.

“Phorm’s privacy infringements are less than the data aggregated by major search engines and easier to opt out of.”

First point; search engines - I can easily choose which search engine I use and if I so choose I can use many search engines in order to spread around my browsing. This is in complete contrast to the system Phorm are proposing which being based at the ISP level will see the TOTALITY of my browsing. Changing ISP is not so easy to do.

Second Point: Quid Pro Quo - I have raised this time and time again on all the various news items and blogs. Web based email providers such as gmail, yahoo etc, provide a valuable service in return for being able to aggregate my data. They offer free, reliable, convenient email with large storage. Phorm offers nothing valuable in return. Their anti-phishing technology is nothing above that already offered in IE7 and Firefox already. More “relevant ads” is not valuable to me as I ignore online ads.

Third Point: “easy to opt out of” - this is absolute detritus. We should not have to opt-out in the first place. As the Foundation for Information Policy Research has already stated, in its letter to the information commissioner, the system should be an explicit opt-in so as to order to comply with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. Secondly, even if you opt out you are only opting out of the ads. Your browsing is still mirrored to the Phorm profiler.

Just in case the Phorm PR people turn up here (and they really shouldnt as they should wake up and recognise that they are losing the battle here) lets deal with the new “spin” angle they have started putting out: namely that the internet and our Internet Providers could not survive without the revenue from online-advertising and that the money the ISPs get will be ploughed back into services.

Firstly, I believe most people, given the threat to privacy that this technology encompasses, would gladly pay a few more pounds a month to our Internet Providers if it meant they had nothing to do with Phorm. Secondly, I doubt the blood-money the Internet Providers will receive will be ploughed back into services one iota. It will go to service debt and to shareholders. Plain and simple.

My last comment, is reserved for the real villain in all this, the Internet Providers and specifically Virgin Media. The longer you stay silent on this. The longer you duck this issue the more militant people are becoming. Step up to the plate and start providing some answers and engage your customers in dialogue. Stop being so cowardly as to let Phorm take all the flak.