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BT Drops Phorm, Citing More Pressing Priorities
Posted by
kdawson
on Wed Jul 08, 2009 04:02 AM
from the absurdly-invasive dept.
from the absurdly-invasive dept.
Tom DBA notes a story up at The Register that begins "BT has abandoned plans to roll out Phorm's controversial web monitoring and profiling system across its broadband network, claiming it needs to concentrate resources on network upgrades... BT's announcement comes a day before MPs and peers of the All Party Parliamentary Communications Group are due to begin an investigation of Internet privacy. Their intervention follows the EU's move to sue the UK government over its alleged failure... properly [to] implement European privacy laws with respect to the trials, drawing further bad publicity to the venture." We've discussed Phorm many times in the past.
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BT Silences Customers Over Phorm 196 comments
An anonymous reader writes "The Register reports that BT, the UK's dominant telecom and internet service provider, has 'banned all future discussion of Phorm and its "WebWise" targeted advertising product on its customer forums, and deleted all past threads about the controversy dating back to February.' Phorm is a controversial opt-out system for delivering targeted advertising that intercepts traffic passing through an ISP in order to profile subscribers via an assigned unique ID based on their online activities. Subscribers can opt-out at the Webwise website but are opted-in again if the Phorm cookie is cleared. Firefox users can install Melvin Sage's Firephorm add-on to manage their interaction with Phorm and Webwise."
[+]
Rights Groups Speak Out Against Phorm, UK Comm. Database 102 comments
MJackson writes "The Open Rights Group (ORG) has issued a public letter to the Chief Privacy Officers (or the nearest equivalent) for seven of the world's largest website giants (including Microsoft and Google), asking them to boycott Phorm. The controversial Phorm system works with broadband ISPs to monitor what websites you visit for use in targeted advertising campaigns. Meanwhile, the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust has issued a new report slamming the UK government's plans for a Communications Database. This would be designed to intercept and log every UK ISP user's e-mail headers, website accesses and telephone history. The report warns that the public are often, 'neither served nor protected by the increasingly complex and intrusive holdings of personal information invading every aspect of our lives.'"
[+]
An Education In Deep Packet Inspection 126 comments
Deep Packet Inspection, or DPI, is at the heart of the debate over Network Neutrality — this relatively new technology threatens to upset the balance of power among consumers, ISPs, and information suppliers. An anonymous reader notes that the Canadian Privacy Commissioner has published a Web site, for Canadians and others, to educate about DPI technology. Online are a number of essays from different interested parties, ranging from DPI company officers to Internet law specialists to security professionals. The articles are open for comments. Here is the CBC's report on the launch.
[+]
EU Investigates Phorm's UK ISP Advertising System 90 comments
MJackson writes "The European Commission has opened an infringement proceeding against the UK after a series of complaints by Internet users, and extensive communication with UK authorities, about the use of Phorm's behavioural advertising system, which uses Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology, by internet service providers. Phorm works with UK ISPs to monitor what websites you visit for use in targeted advertising campaigns, though its methods have raised more than a few fears about invasions of privacy. Similar services in the USA have caused an equal level of controversy."
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Phorm "Edited and Approved" UK Government Advice 126 comments
Barence was one of several readers to send in word that the UK Home Office checked whether its interpretation of the law suited Phorm, before issuing advice on the legality of the controversial advertising service. The Home Office and Phorm entered a dialogue about the company's services back in August 2007, at Phorm's request. In an email sent to Phorm in January 2008, a Home Office official writes: 'I should be grateful if you would review the attached document, and let me know what you think.' After Phorm made deletions and amendments to the document, the Home Office sent another email to the company stating: 'If we agree this, and this becomes our position do you think your clients and their prospective partners will be comforted.' From the BBC: "Baroness Sue Miller, Liberal Democrat spokeswoman on Home Affairs, told BBC News: 'My jaw dropped when I saw the Freedom of Information exchanges. ... Anything the Home Office now says about Phorm is completely tainted.'"
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How do we know (Score:4, Funny)
How do we know Phorm didn't use deep packet inspection/manipulation to show us this article while in fact it's not there.....
Now I still have to find an appropriate Matrix quote and my tin foil hat.
n2n (Score:4, Interesting)
Has anyone used the n2n peer VPN [ntop.org]?
It would be neat if such solutions were built into the popular distros; with all the monitoring creeping up around us it is about time that our PCs defaulted to encrypted traffic.
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what has a Porcelain company [wordpress.com] got to do with encryption?
(for those without a sense of humour, yes I do get the ST reference)
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I guess their logic is, if you pay for an OS that's by no means better than what you can get for free, you'll pay for a program, too, even if all they did for you was compiling it.
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Not too good. (Score:5, Informative)
"[Our decision has] nothing to do with cost or privacy, it's about resources and priority,"
Re:Not too good. (Score:4, Insightful)
Money isnt a resource then?
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Translation:
Phorm couldn't deliver the promised revenue. All the rest is marketspeak.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Um, no. The government has forced BT to implement local-loop unbundling [wikipedia.org] to remove their monopoly on telecomunications in the UK.
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Not so much to remove the telecoms monopoly, just to make sure that their monopoly on phone lines doesn't translate to a monopoly on broadband internet as well.
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They still own the infrastructure, LLU just requires them to lease it to whoever is interested.
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That's not what LLU does.
LLU just lets companies put their own kit at the point where a customers line terminates at the local exchange. BT still owns the exchange and everything upstream of it and as such it has no effect on removal of their telecommunications monopoly, it only prevents them building an additional monopoly around the internet related kit (i.e. ADSL technology) at the local loop. Those companies still have to use BT for everything upstream of the connection point in the exchange and BT stil
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1. a new season of Coupling ending in an uncensored lesbian orgy between all three of the chicks
2. a return visit of Theo Pamphlet to Top Gear, so that we can see "Theo Pamphlet" o
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
BT will wait until Phorm renames itself then BT will roll out the system. They will not pass up the opportunity to earn money for nothing after racking up idiotic amounts of losses because they "invested" in foreign (non-UK) businesses, and could not be bothered to update the UK network, choosing to flog that dead horse copper cable for all it's worth for another 20+ years.
People are not bothered about Phorm and BT, hell, they aren't even bothered by BT's cr@ppy quality Internet and comparatively bad deal i
Monopolies (Score:2)
they are still the biggest ISP in the UK
This is a legacy of the old state run monopoly system. Companies like British Telecom, British Gas etc have a strong hold on the public imagination so despite consistently performing worse and charging more they still hold sway over more dynamic, newer companies who struggle against their entrenched power. The watchdog system that was put in place after the monopolies were sold off is supposed to maintain the balance but struggles in the face of corporate lobbying . . .
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Actually, Phorm in it's current form (pun not intended) will not return. What will return is a milder version of it. Then they can say: look it's not as bad as Phorm, but it needs to be done for the children. The same happened when they planned to change our promised unlimited broadband to a monthly 10GB limit. They received a lot of backlash from their customers then said: ok we won't do it and behind the scenes they changed the contract to say they reserve the right to bother you if you're using too much
I thought it was just on hold (Score:5, Interesting)
On one had is the money they "could" make by introducing it by adverts, on the other is the potential number of existing customers who will jump to another ISP added to the number of potential customers not even looking at BT as an option when switching from their ISP. Their current subscribers direct debits are guaranteed income with most subscribers not bothering to look around. Not to mention dealing with Phorm gives you the badge of a pariah.
They could be right, in that it's more profitable to drop Phorm. That said, I'm not sure they dropped it permanently. They seem to have bought into the DPI advert injection model, so no doubt they will only put it into the "let's get back to that after the broohaha has calmed down" box before being reintroduced a couple of years from now under a different name with lessons learned about "how not to get caught". They may still face further legal / political fallout over what they've done to date with Phorm, so dropping Phorm may help mitigate any sanctions.
For those who are currently with BT and have reconsidered moving away after this announcement I say "watch this space, BT have proven themselves perfectly willing to fuck their customers over once, they will do it again". BT think they have done no wrong. They can't be trusted. They avoided police action in the UK, they may yet avoid other punishment, but consumers CAN punish them.
TalkTalk (inc Tiscali) have dropped it as well. (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/4002-talktalk-follow-suit-on-phorm.html [thinkbroadband.com]
I hope nobody owns Phorm shares...
So Has TalkTalk / Carphone Warehouse (Score:2)
Citation: http://www.oss.itproportal.com/portal/news/article/2009/7/8/carphone-warehouses-talktalk-wont-roll-out-phorm/ [itproportal.com]
lameness filter we love you, lameness filter yes it's true, without your constant content cravings, no one'd read my poetic ravings.
All for a little while (Score:2)
I recall the Yes, Minister Episode where the minister is stringently against invasion of privacy and tapping, but when his life is on the line he accepts the recommendations to tap telephone lines.
In short, all BT has to do to implement this is to show the peers and MPs a real-life example of Yes, Minister episode!
Voila!
Dear Phorm (Score:2)
Kindly phuck off.
Regards
BT
Re:Not BitTorrent (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
At one time people were jokingly calling them Bombay Telecom. At least until India changed the name of the city.
Re:Not BitTorrent (Score:5, Insightful)
Moreover, BT the (global) telecommunications company has used this brand long before BitTorrent existed. Might I suggest he stops calling BitTorrent BT to avoid himself getting confussed?
Also, AT&T don't call themselves American Telephone & Telegraph Company in all their advertising literature and billing, do they? Perhaps for the hell of it he could stop referring to them as AT&T because he might also easily confuse their name with AT&T [wikipedia.org].
Alternatively, he could just use wikipedia's disambiguation before posting silly requests.
Parent
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I often confuse AT&T with running my old modem in test mode
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Easy to do - the speeds are about the same.
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There's an American security agency called "AT&F"?
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Might I suggest he stops calling BitTorrent BT to avoid himself getting confussed?
BitTorrent is way too formal, anyway. Unless we're talking about the protocol itself, it's just torrent.
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Well, I for one, say that BT (BitTorrent) is way more important than the British Telecom, and therefore, I use the abbreviation accordingly. ^^
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Slashdot is global. Around where I live, BT means Bankers Trust, and BA is bugger all.
Please don't use 2-letter local abbreviations in a global forum, at least not on the first mention in a summary. OK?
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BT (British Telecom) was rebranded years ago and is most widely known as BT. This is because they are an International Company and did not want to be only associated with operating in the UK.
See:
http://paulrobertlloyd.com/articles/britain_rebranded/ [paulrobertlloyd.com]
"British companies now operate on a global scale and many had decided that any British associations were not good for business. A look at the number of privatised companies that have changed their names will tell you this. British Telecom was one of the first wh
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British Gas is still British Gas [britishgas.co.uk].
Though confusingly they're an "energy" company now, not just gas. They do my electricity.
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Though they are technically just a brand of Centrica [centrica.com] now, but that matters little because Centrica is one of the companies that the original British Gas split into, so they are still (indirectly) the original British Gas. The sourcing side of British Gas split to become BG [bg-group.com], but that side of the company wasn't what most people in the UK would understand as "British Gas" anyway.
Also, wtf they have a youtube channel [youtube.com].
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Though confusingly they're an "energy" company now, not just gas. They do my electricity.
And Southern Electric do my gas.
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The "British" brand has not been a mark of quality in Europe for anything but pop-music for at least 30 years.
(personally I blame it on shoddy management)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
awwwwwwww go throw your toys out the pram
BT has been around since the 1980's and operates in over 170 countries....
I think that beats bit torrent...
guys, please stop calling it BP, for most of the world BP is Brooklyn Philharmonic
-errrr ... NOOOOO!
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who is this magical ISP? - please tell me!
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Bit of guesswork on who it is...
Well 3x faster than BT would have to be an LLU Operator, because everything else is all BT (openreach) infrastructure & the only difference between ISPs that use that is how good they are at kicking BT up the arse when things go wrong*.
That limits it in practical terms to Be and Sky (O2 are Be resellers). None of these have a 1 month rolling contract with no cancellation fee. Both of them are IWF encumbered, which is a negative mark against them.
* In that respect I reco
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Me three. A&A provide a very solid service and are totally up-front about what you get for your money. None of this "Unlimited broadband" in the headline and then "actually, extremely limited" in the small print. It amazes me that the consumer watchdogs make lots of fuss about descriptions like "Up to 8 mbit" (which is accurate) but allow blatantly false claims about "Unlimited" packages to pass without a murmur.