ISP's selling our browsing

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Hi there, was wondering had anyone heard of our ISP's selling our browsing habits to Phorm? Phorm is a company that get your browsing history and then send you emails about things they think you would be interested in! BT, Virgin Media and Talk Talk are all in talks with this company, BT has already signed a contract! I think its terrible that they can do this! Why dont the just put cameras in our homes and bug our phones while there at it!!

 

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Add to that CCTV that already monitors you in every town and street and on every bus and train. All your electronic financial transactions are logged somewhere, the whole motorway network is all monitored. The government want to have a big database to store all emails and phone calls made by everyone, and now the ISP you pay for their service wants to make a few bob more off you and sell your browsing habits to a third party..... All the benefits of a modern society.

I don’t like it, there are valid reasons for monitoring some things, but this country is really taking things too far, what with that and the ever increasing cost of fuel, gas, electricity and additional tax on everything you can think of. Phoenix has the right idea, time to get out of the UK. I will always be proud to be British, but in the next few years I am planning on jetting off to somewhere else to live. Maybe it won’t be any different in other western countries, but I really need a change of scenery! End of rant.

Oh, and this Phorm thing is no good anyway, I run the Adblock extension in Firefox so I don’t see many ads at all when online... Luckily my ISP is not one of the bad three, but if they were, I would be getting a MAC code ASAP.

 

who are the bad 3?

 

BT have done two trials in secret (ie no consent), virgin are currently deciding and talktalk as well

more details on

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/29/phorm_roundup/

http://www.badphorm.co.uk/page.php?2

 

Like those Google ad's that appear on this site.

 

BT, Virgin Media and Talk Talk. Although as kevicho correctly pointed out, BT have done two trials in secret without asking customers permission...

There are ads on this site? never seen em!

 

They can't. The CIA already has the contracts for that market.

What's the difference between them and google? Google have been doing this for much longer.

 

Just opened this site in IE, there are ads here!

If Phorm gets rolled out (and they rekon it will have to be opt in) there will be a Firefox extension to block it in about 10 days.

 

There is nothing wrong with google ads
a content provider displays ads so they can earn some money, to pay for the content they provide

CF use google ads to fund the site, if everyone blocked them, we would have no site! the more ethical way to remove them would be to become a premium member!

Phorm takes its data from the ISP themselves, we have very little control over it, what makes you think a browser plug in will stop it? your isp still knows where you have been, otherwise you wouldn't of been there lol

 

There is nothing wrong with ads, they serve a purpose. Generally they are designed to catch your eye, I find this distracting and clutters web pages. I don’t really want to have ads all over the sites I visit, just a personal preference. Adblock keeps most of it off pages I visit.

ISPs may gather data and sell it to Phorm, but the only way they can target ads at you is customising the ones you see on web pages and popups. The current Firefox extensions that stop/cut down on these things like Adblock will prevent most of the ads appearing in the first place, targeted or not.

I think a developer somewhere will build an extension targeted directly at stopping Phorm ads appearing (not much you can do about the data gathering, other than opt out). Phorm has had so much media coverage, I think you would potentially get plenty of press for coming up with a way of blocking their ads.

 

Some of the big ISPs here in the US are starting to do this too. They call it "an enhanced browsing experience". How them making money by selling out their users enhances their user's online experience I haven't a clue, but that's how they are marketing it to their users. Most ISPs who are do this are burying the information about what they doing deeply in their TOS where the vast majority of people will never find it, and then claiming they are informing their customers.

It's a really nasty business.

 

Yep no annoyance for me, I use FF and am a premium member and shall always be

 

The next step is adding a surcharge for the priviledge of "enhanced browsing experience"

 

daft that is

imagine how much extra bandwidth will be used as a result of adverts loading

i personally never look at adverts anyway because whatever it is that the company is trying to throw at me, if it was any good at all then they wouldnt need to advertise it so much

plus theyre probably charging more for the product anyway to fund the adds