UK ISP Admitted to Spying on Customers 163
esocid writes "BT, an ISP located in the UK, tested secret spyware on tens of thousands of its broadband customers without their knowledge, it admitted yesterday. The scandal came to light only after some customers stumbled across tell-tale signs of spying. At first, they were wrongly told a software virus was to blame. BT said it randomly chose 36,000 broadband users for a 'small-scale technical trial' in 2006 and 2007. The monitoring system, developed by U.S. software company Phorm, formerly known as 121Media, known for being deeply involved in spyware, accesses information from a computer. It then scans every website a customer visits, silently checking for keywords and building up a unique picture of their interests. Executives insisted they had not broken the law and said no 'personally identifiable information' had been shared or divulged."
Similarity to ET (Score:2, Funny)
Re:They don't have a monopoly (Score:3, Funny)
>Cable customers get phone and internet without even going near BT.
Not every area has cable. Until last year I lived in deepest, darkest Glasgow (a small hamlet in Scotland). We couldn't get cable in our area (another part of Glasgow I lived in previously got NTL cable). Interestingly, Cable & Wireless had a call-centre just down the road from us; a friend of mine worked there and said that neither C+W or NTL had any intention to roll out more cable to "old" areas; they were consolidating and the only new connections would be to newbuild apartments.
>they're not cheap and has been mentioned service is fucking gash (yes I dialled 13 different numbers in one day just to get me away from them).
Pah, that's nothing! I spent 2 hours in a queue once when I was moving to a new house with cable (in the NTL area mentioned above) and wanted to be rid of BT forever. Eventually I got to the top of the queue, and they dropped me back to the start. Long after I'd moved - having settled my bill completely - they sent me a final demand for line-rental for the 3 months *after* I'd moved; I sent them a shitty letter back, and bizarrely they sent *me* a cheque... I have no idea why they suddenly decided they owed me money.
Re:Dupe! (Score:2, Funny)