"Phorm" Adware to be used by ISP's

"Phorm" Adware to be used by ISP's

news.bbc.co.uk

Two respected privacy campaigners have praised the user protection measures of a controversial online advertising system about to be deployed in the UK.
The tools, developed by US firm Phorm, track users' online surfing habits.

BT, Virgin and Talk Talk have signed up to trial the technology.

(visit the link for the full news article)

From what i have read on this "software" it is adware that changes the adverts on web pages based on the web traffic from your computer.

I have no idea what effect this will have on sponsered adverts but if they get changed free web pages will disappear because they will receive no funds from advertisers.

The Software puts a cookie on your computer that tracks and records all data apart from names, email addresses, passwords and numbers longer than 3 digits. But how can we guarantee this.

The company developing this software was previously called 121 media and is responsible for the majority of adware installed without knowledge on most PC's.

The new software will supposedly have an Opt-in or Out option but would still record the data either way.

They are touting it as being good for privacy as it removes adverts from web pages that could be malicious sites but i'm not so sure.

I won't accept an ISP that uses this software.

What are your thoughts and opinions?

news.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

I would think that using firefox with the cookiesafe extension would enable you to block this software from tracking your web habits. Just tell it to block that particular cookie.

reply to post by Chris McGee


This is to be used by the isp's and will take the information from your computer traffic not just the cookie.

Not sure if it can be blocked but a disk cleanup and deleting browsing and cookies may help.

i will look for clarification on exactly how it works but wor now just looking in to why they want to use it.

what i find the most distressing about this report is that there are all the warnings about spyware and adware.

all the software to remove adware

and now isp's will be working with the company that developed all the adware and spyware in the first place.


This is not essential to the running of the internet.

It doesn't protect information because it's still on the servers for the pages you have used.

It doesn't improve privacy. quite the opposite, it's storing your data.

they say it doesn't look at sites with https:// rather than just http:// But how many people know the difference unless they are informed of what they are.

And here I was about to rid myself of AT&T entirely and switch my cellular service to Virgin.

Not anymore.

Whenever a program or service is opt-out, you know something nefarious is afoot. That is an effort to enroll as many people as possible because the probability that the majority will understand the implications and react is low. That's why governments use such a method when they want to take some more of our liberty away. It works.

Track me all you want from your own systems. Leave your code off of my machine.

I'm waiting for the men with clipboards to be standing on the motorway collecting information so they can put up the most appropriate billboards.

This is adware plain and simple. although not using pop ups.

It changes webpage adverts to things similar to what you look at.

Shared computers can cause security risks because others will see what sort of things you look at.

I don't want my wife to know i look up porn all day on the internet.

Think of the children looking at childline websites and support information about contraception. i'm sure they don't want their parents to find out.

Another excellent release yesterday from Wikileaks:

British Telecom Phorm PageSense External Validation report

Edit: Since this is from a new news source, I started a new thread, here:
British Telecom illegally intercepted and modified web pages, tracked users


[edit on 6-6-2008 by Ian McLean]

Its called a supercookie that cant be removed.There are ways around that.Use proxy servers.

Well, im a webmaster and sure enough if this is true, im going to ban all users from those isps. Trust me one this, all those users will be banned from many many websites. Professional webmasters aint having it, that someone changes their ads. Just not gonna happen.

I will make a special ban message "It appears your Internet Service Provider is , we don't accept traffic from due to advertisement and privacy abuse of their respected users. Please register as a premium user to access our website through secure gateway."

Now when millions of sites start doing this, it will have affect.

In an anti terror trial last year in London, BT pulled up the persons entire internet history, ISP addreeses used in a proxy programm, the lot.

Turns out that he was one of the 'chosen at random' ( yeah right what ever !) people. The prison officer with him is a computer buff and a conspiracy theorist.

He went home, cancelled his BT line / BT internet and they asked him why.

His reply ? your just the ######## intelligence gathering wing of the STASI.

I am suprised that this is not more main stream though. All providers will have this by 2010 and all will keep for 5 years EVERY bit of data you transmit and recieve. Here in Europe its part of the european constitution and will soon be european law.

This whole EU is starting to look very scary. The lisbon treaty is very dangrous and if it passes im going to demonstrate.

Oh, i forgot demonstrating EU is not allowed anymore after it passes....

What can i say, Europeans are just as blind as Americans. I would have never belived.