ISP's sign up spyware company

[predator]

Apologies if this has been mentioned before or its in the wrong forum.

What do people think about BT, Virgin and Talk Talk (so far) signing up Phorm ( a company who's boss was responsible for some of the spyware we all hate).

Phorm will monitor your web access - not just what sites you visit - they monitor the page content and everything you type in on forms etc. The aim is to send you targeted adverts (lie we really want more adverts). They claim that they wont store numbers over 3 digits to avoid credit card numbers being recorded. Unless a page is secure then they will see everything you do.

How do people feel about having their web usage monitored like this ? Do you see it as something ISP's should be doing or not ?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7280791.stm

http://www.badphorm.co.uk/page.php?2

http://webwise.bt.com/webwise/index.html

[bricat]

I for one will be "opting out" [img]/forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

they are all at it, DELL installs "myway" on all their computers, not so long ago they were producing spyware. once a rogue always a rogue.

[Madeline]

[ QUOTE ]
Do you see it as something ISP's should be doing or not ?

[/ QUOTE ]
No. I'm perfectly capable of taking care of my own on-line security and I don't need any nannying from my ISP.

[Doublell]

On principle I object to anything that requires me to opt out rather than opt in. Unfortunately, if as many as 10% of computer users opt out the firm will still gather a lot of information and ship out a lot of ads. It's just another form of junk mail.

[bricat]

the more i read about this the angrier i get.[img]/forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

If i want to see advertisements i'll watch television.
I pay virgin to provide me with a broadband connection, end of story, not to bombard me with adverts.
if this is their attitude towards customers then maybe we should vote with our feet.

[predator]

Looking at the available info a bit more it looks like they are planning to insert adverts into the pages you view rather than emailing you spam.

As someone who runs a website, I am not happy that someone might then put adverts in my page before delivering it to the users. That is unacceptable as users may assume the adverts are part of my site when I have no knowledge of them as the page is on my server ad-free but could be delivered including ads that I have no control over.

Lets hope some techie genius figures out a way to stop this from working.

[predator]

Talk talk have decided to make the system "opt in" - i.e. users will not have this system monitoring their web use unless they choose to have the service.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7289481.stm

[guiblum]

There is a petition running if anyone wishes to read it and even sign it.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/ispphorm/

[Darkone]

These 2 links may be of interest to others one to help confuse (might be the best description to give) Phorm and the other a discussion on the subject on another forum from Virgin media's customers points of view..

[predator]

If BT and Virgin Media follow the lead set by Talk Talk then I suspect the number of people opting in to Phorm will be pretty low. That means Phorm will struggle to get advertisers prepared to pay them, and their business model starts to fall apart.