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[jelv]

This looks interesting: http://www.dephormation.org.uk/

[kitz]

It does
..... but I still think this says it all

But Dephormation is not a solution. Its a fig leaf for your privacy.

[dave.m]

Just watched BBC Working Lunch which included an interview with the CEO of Phorm.
It can be seen on BBC Broadband Player after 3-30pm
He didn't really sell it to me.
dave 

[jelv]

BT will be changing their T&C's if Phorm is rolled out. But...

We have not amended the BT Total Broadband Service Terms or Privacy Policy yet. The words are still being finalised, so I cannot yet share the exact changes with you.

These changes, however, will not be material and will not be grounds for terminating your existing contract early without being held to term.

Source: 2nd post on http://www.beta.bt.com/bta/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2612&start=120&tstart=0

I'd like to see that tested in court!

[Floydoid]

Well it seems that BT have been a bit underhanded in this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7325451.stm

Trials of an online ad system carried out by BT involving more than 30,000 of its customers were potentially illegal, says a leading digital rights lawyer.

BT has said it trialled a prototype of Phorm, which matches adverts to users' web habits, in 2006 and 2007.

The company did not inform customers that they were part of the trial.

Now there's a surprise.

[jelv]

At last a little bit of good news. I have today received a response from BT which included the following in to our concerns regarding the privacy of our websites (a number of other people have received very similar responses).

For HTTP traffic, we assume that if a website wishes to be found by the public through being profiled by major search engines (Google), then the site is in the public domain and therefore as long as we have consent from the requester of the page, we are permitted to profile the site.
 
However we note that you have specifically requested that your own website(s) should be excluded.  Please can you provide me with the url(s) of your website(s), together with confirmation that you are the website(s) owner, and we will honour your request to exclude your website(s) from profiling within the BT Webwise system. 
 
We believe this approach is reasonable and is supported by the advice we have received.  If I require any further information from you (aside from the url) then rest assured I will let you know prior to commencement of our trial.

If you want your website excluded you need to contact BT - an email to Ben Verwaayen is where I started: ben.verwaayen@bt.com

[oldfogy]

I thought this was supposed to be an "Opt-in" option!

NOT an opt-out option.

At least that's the way I have been reading it.

[jelv]

The opt in/opt out argument is about ISP users.

This about webmasters telling BT/Phorm that they don't want visitors to the websites they run to be monitored. Personally I feel an opt out is a big step forward from get stuffed which is where we were before!

[oldfogy]

Ok, thanks.

[kitz]

Very interesting jelv.

Just to make sure I have understood correctly if I didnt want visitors to this site being profiled by Phorm..  I'd have to write to BT.. and TT.. and VM...  and any other ISP that may use Phorm? ...  including those ISPs in the future that may not even be so open to say they use it.

Maybe there should be a central Phorm registry?

[jelv]

That appears to be the size of it - quite ridiculous. How do you know all the ISP's that are using Phorm? How do you get to know of new ones?

There's an argument that says a central register of sites opting out shouldn't be set up because if someone put a notice on the front page of their site saying Phorm keep out, but they did not register, Phorm could use that as a defence.

It should be opt in!

There's a recognised mechanism for just this sort of thing (robots.txt) but Phorm are refusing to provide an agent string (because they know what will happen!).

[kitz]

Ridiculous indeed

>> (robots.txt) but Phorm are refusing to provide an agent string (because they know what will happen!).

Too damn right.  I would certainly put it in.
~ Users to this site pay their ISP to access the internet and bandwidth they use. 
~ I pay a webhost so that visitors to this site can get information and help - therefore I pay for them reading the site.

Why should some third party cream off money for content I put up and pay for?

Also would the agent obey the robot.txt?   Theres already some dubious ones that dont 
or even if they did - that opens up another possible path for abuse...
would that blacklist the site with phorm and possible ISP portals, so that traffic could be "diverted" to Phorm friendly sites over those sites that were anti-phorm.

 

[guest]

While it probably wouldn't endear you to guests, you could at least draw their attention to this by either watermarking your pages with a "Your ISP uses PHORM!!!" watermark for example, or you could redirect them to a page explaining Phorm and do this every 10 page views/whatever.

In fact if a significant number of sites would agree to do this I think the complaints from customers to the offending ISPs would outweigh the (initial) profit to be made from Phorm.

Just a casual thought which I haven't thought through

[jelv]

I was wondering if I could put something on every page which tested for a faked cookie for my site which has been created by Phorm. If I find it pop up a message "Do you realise your ISP is recording details of every webpage you visit?". I could set a cookie so that each visitor only got it once.

[Floydoid]

Now the security companies are looking at it, according to the latest BBC report:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7359024.stm