Open Rights Group welcomes decisions to block Phorm

Jim Killock, 15 April 2009

Open Rights Group welcomes decisions by various major websites, including Amazon.co.uk, LiveJournal, mySociety and Netmums, to opt out of Phorm's Webwise.

By choosing to block the contentious online advertising system from scanning its web pages, these firms have taken the positive choice to protect their users' privacy and their own brands. We expect more sites to block Webwise in the near future and also call on ISPs to drop plans to snoop on web users.

Eponymous Cowherd

Reply #20 on : Wed April 15, 2009, 12:58:00

Phorm should not have the right to intercept any communications without prior, explicit, consent. By using Phorm's opt-out mechanism Amazon, etc, are saying "We don't care who Phorm spy on, as long as its not us".

Granted that, if enough commercial web sites and search engines opt-out, Phorm will be dead in the water, but using Phorm's, possibly illegal, opt-out mechanism is sending the wrong message entirely.

Instead they should be publicly stating that they will prosecute Phorm / BT if they find evidence of their commercially sensitive data being intercepted by them.

Thomas Tallyce

Reply #19 on : Wed April 15, 2009, 13:00:44

And how do site owners block Phorm? There doesn't seem to be an obvious link anywhere for this.

Mark

Reply #18 on : Wed April 15, 2009, 13:27:45

Here's the information you can use to ensure that the "Webwise"/"Phorm" spyware system does not process pages on your site:

http://www2.bt.com/static/i/btretail/webwise/help.html#how-do-i-prevent-webwise-from-scanning-my-site

Steve

Reply #17 on : Wed April 15, 2009, 13:59:29

We've just sent the email to Phorm requesting our sites are not included and a testimonial.

But here's an idea for any graphic designers out there. Why not try and design a logo which websites can put on their site shows they have opted out of Phorm?

David Dreghorn

Reply #16 on : Wed April 15, 2009, 13:59:57

Is there anything individuals can do to prevent this? For example, how would I go about blocking Phorm monitoring my web activities? I might be asking a stupid question, but I thought I would ask anyway

J D

Reply #15 on : Wed April 15, 2009, 14:13:30

@David Dreghorn

If your ISP is using Phorm or any other DPI equipment expressly installed for this type of data gathering, you have one of Two options.

Use an external VPN service not located at an ISP using such equipment or move to an ISP not using DPI equipment for this purpose!

Mike Cardwell

Reply #14 on : Wed April 15, 2009, 14:23:28

I second Steve's idea about a logo for sites that have opted out of Phorm. That's a great idea.

Rick

Reply #13 on : Wed April 15, 2009, 14:25:00

If one uses Firefox browser with the Adblock Plus Add-on you are pretty much immune from 99% of all adverts ever reaching your screen; targeted or not. It also prevents advertisers stealing your precious bandwidth and spoiling your web browsing experience. I'd like to see Phorm tackle that!

Trent

Reply #12 on : Wed April 15, 2009, 14:34:04

@Rick From what I gather, Phorm is still be able to gather data on which sites you are visiting, even if you didn't see the resulting advertisements.

While I fully agree that using Adblock is a good idea, in this case Phorm is able to gather data directly from your ISP, so your privacy is still at risk.

Rick

Reply #11 on : Wed April 15, 2009, 14:39:35

Trent, I think the whole privacy thing is a bit over-blown. I am confident that Phorm can't identify me personally as I'm represented by just a number. Using that number they can push advertisers in my direction. OK, I agree that is bad enough as it feels like my browsing habits are being 'tracked' and I don't like it, but above all that I personally hate advertising on any web pages I visit.

Trent

Reply #10 on : Wed April 15, 2009, 15:00:53

@Rick While it may sounds as though Phorm's mechanics are designed to protect your privacy, they can't account for every eventuality - what if a Phorm employee decides to snoop on the raw data coming from the ISP? Or an external party breaks into Phorm and does the same? Or Phorm's policies change? Or the Government brings in an anti-terrorism law which requires Phorm to keep additional tracking data? I would argue that the possibility of breaches of privacy are greater the more data you track, regardless of the intentions of the company holding the data.

Eponymous Cowherd

Reply #9 on : Wed April 15, 2009, 15:24:58

Rick,

It is trivial to link the Phorm uid cookie from your browser to your IP address using nothing more sophisticated than a website operating on a non-standard port(not port 80) or over https.

In any case, think about this. In order to serve up Phorm's "more appropriate adverts" to you, at your IP address, it is not only possible, but a requirement to link your ID to your IP address.

And Phorms's partner ISP (BT) can obviously link your IP address to you physical address.

So your Phorm ID *can* be linked to your IP address and BT (Phorm's buddy) can link your IP address to your street address. You only have the word of BT and Phorm that they won't make that link and no way of preventing them from doing so, or knowing they have done it.

Plan Zero Blog » ‘No Phorm’ logos

Reply #8 on : Wed April 15, 2009, 15:37:03

[...] example, have told Phorm that they may not use data from their website. The Open Rights Group have welcomed the decision of such [...]

Rick

Reply #7 on : Wed April 15, 2009, 15:42:20

Guys, don't get me wrong, I WANT PHORM CLOSED DOWN. Although their anonymity assurances sound OK at the moment you are quite correct in presuming that given time someone will use their system for something other than targeted advertising. That should be a concern to everybody.

Plan Zero

Reply #6 on : Wed April 15, 2009, 15:49:11

I have created a few logos that people might like to use or add to, and uploaded them to my blog:

http://blog.planzero.org/2009/04/no-phorm-logos/

I'm working on a few variants; if you have any logos of your own, I'd be happy to add them to the page.

Damien

Reply #5 on : Thu April 16, 2009, 00:23:27

For the sake of argument, I go online, and i have an embarrassing illness of some sort that means i did such a thing. I use a BT machine from home.

Hypothetically, I would speak to an "online GP" and the data between me and doctor would fall under special circumstances, and could only be processed by BT for "medical purposes" of which they had absolutely no right to do so.

I had not opted out of phorm.

They may not process the form, but the page which returns would be in fairly simply html from the website.

Now if i got an advert from a company based on my medical condition, how fast would the judge award me a very vast sum of money?

Hypothetical of course, but of BT's customers how many have ever visited an online GP?

Theres more than one way to skin a cat - and that might be a door you guys can use.

Richard

Reply #4 on : Thu April 16, 2009, 10:22:04

Phorm are not alone in this field, I would suggest that you visit the site for www.peerius.com as well as those of all of the following UK, US and EU companies offering (i.e. hard selling promises of 5-20% increased sales)similar 'targeting' products under various guises to UK & EU internet traders - this list is neither all-encompassing or up-to-date:
AgentArts, AggregateKnowledge, AlmondNet, aQuantive, ATG, Axciom, BayNote,
BlueLithium, Chiteka, ChoiceStream, CleverSet, ClickStore, ClickSurge, Collarity, Criteo, Fast, FreshNotes, Kefta, Loomia, MineKey, MyBuys, NetMining, NetMining, NuggAd, Offermatica, Omniture, RevenueScience, RollSense, SiteBrand, SourceLight, SpecificMedia, Tacado, TribalFusion, Wunderloop.

Richard

Reply #3 on : Thu April 16, 2009, 11:50:03

There seems to be some misunderstanding of how these targeting products work, you cannot stop them with AdAware or similar anti-Ad software.
The adverts or products are inserted into the traders normal page from a database of all their products, so that it appears as invisible and seamless as possible. Visit www.mytights.com to see it in action, the more products/pages you view the more data is collected and the more focused the targeting.
The targets data is often held by the software provider and the statistics and feedback provided to the online trader who pays for the service to be installed on their site and for a given level of reporting. The most common method of payment being a percentage of the increase in sales (typicaly sales increase between 0-5%, although promises of 20% and more are made by the software providers, who monitor the % increase!).
A few of the more responsible 'targeting' software providers are registered on this site and you can block their activities from here:
http://www.networkadvertising.org/index.asp
The whole concept is often based on the "wisdom of the crowds" which, if valid as a theory, could be used to argue that the majority support and votes for Hitler (especially from educated professionals) was a wise and good thing which should be used to target everyone else...

Shaun Thomas

Reply #2 on : Fri April 17, 2009, 15:56:20

firstly @Plan Zero: Great Logo's I have downloaded one to add to our websites :-)

Our company WoW4 Limited has today emailed Webwebise and requested ALL of our company websites (and our personal websites) be exclluded from the webwise database as we value our customers privacy.

I would advise evertone to do the same, if you value your customers privacy OPT out.

Shaun Thomas
Director
WoW4 Limited

Josh Smith » Wikimedia have opted out of Phorm!

Reply #1 on : Sun April 19, 2009, 17:57:38

[...] names that have opted-out of Phorm now include Amazon, Livejournal, mySociety, and Wikipedia [...]