Orange ditches Phorm Orange, the UK's sixth largest broadband provider, is not going to use Phorm's data-snooping technology. Paul-Francois Fournier told the FT: “Privacy is in our DNA, so we need to be honest and clear about what we are doing. We have decided not to be in Phorm because of that... The way it was proposed, the privacy issue was too …
"Fournier said the company would talk to customers about what data they would be happy to hand over, and what they would want in return."
This is fair enough, if Orange want to offer incentives to people who are willing to "share" their data with them then that's fine, as long as they are up-front about what's involved and the customer has real choice in the matter.
As for the rest of the ISPs involved with Phorm; follow Orange's lead and walk away now.
Whatever else you believe, believe this: Where America goes, the UK follows. Nebuad died in the USA, IE8 is promising privacy on your surfing, YaGooSoft is talking about human rights & privacy issues.
Once - if, Phorm rolls out there will be Firefox (and doubtless Chrome) addins to screw their data up (Google won't let anyone stitch up their advertising revenue), and once the advertisers realise the product isn't working they will pull out. BT and whoever will ditch them once they see no marketing revenue coming in, then the EU will declare the practice illegal - six months after it folds.
Privacy of the global internet surfer is becoming a hot topic at the moment, and the NuLaborOverlords will have to tow the line eventually.
I'd be interested to know how long will it be, and what will it take, for all those who do not sign up for services that subsidise their revenue by selling user data (which is what it come down to?) to become pariahs and be charged extra for their privacy (which they wont actually have anyway).
See http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/29/schneier_rsa_privacy/ for why privacy as we have known it will become a myth.
In the meantime a big tick for Orange. Just improve your mobile phone offerings and you may retain me as a customer and get my landline & internet business.
First the PR schmooz to bathe orange in a rosy glow of 'defender of privacy' type saintliness, followed by a rather quieter announcement that they've signed up for an even more stealth way of turning punters habits into banknotes. And the annoucement might just generate a few more bums on seats to be snared by Oranges ludicrous contracts.
Orange, like every other business will do what's good for their bottom line; nothing more, nothing less. Until something better turns up, when an about-face will cause them few moral dilemmas.
I think, if I was honest, there are probably certain things I would hand over if I thought the deal suited me as well. For example; I wouldn't mind handing over the details of my Amazon searches if I thought I was getting some money knocked off my broadband connection by my ISP.
I mean, let's be honest; how many people have actually clicked on a sidebar ad or a splash ad, and gone on to buy something? If people want to display them, give me something in return AND my privacy is respected within the boundaries of whatever I agree with them, then fair enough.
The part that really gets my goat is that these adverts aren't improving my web experience, nor is it making my surfing any safer; it's just increasing revenues for the ISP. I have to pay to download your targetted ad, so give me a cut and be honest about it, and I'll be a lot happier.
Any chance that someone can create a "Phorm Chondom" Addin for Firefox where it will send random dictionary data and site names back to yahoo/ms/google for searches so that the data that they collect will be complete rubbish?
It would be funny to see what ad's they can serve up to you if all they are getting in the system are random search terms and site retrievals, a little box in the corner to show you what is being currently sent and how long before that ad is served, plus if everyone was using it their systems would run flat out.
As they say: shit in - shit out!
You know that old hippy crap about a tree falling over and no-one is there to hear it?
I bet you can do some EZPZ profiling with peoples phone bills and DOB's so you can be sure that 10,000 volunteers on your trial have next to no IT knowledge beyond phoning AOL or Dixons or PC world support lines.
None of the braney clevaclogz such as we will get asked. Or our friends, assuming we have any.
"We never comment about specific discussions with any ISP, but based on conversations we've had with many ISPs both in the UK and internationally, we are very confident that in due course this technology is something that most of them will chose to adopt."
So they've not been bragging about having BT, TalkTalk and Virgin onboard then...?
Another Phorm lie? Shirley not!
for pulling out yet i still do not trust them to do the right thing. With these large corporations the ONLY thing that matters is the bottom line and they will screw their own grandmothers to get a better deal or to rip us off. Orange is not different. I still applaud them for not going anywhere near phorm after looking at the potential problems that could arise, I.E customers leaving in the thousands. I left BT so BT can stuff it and i am not surprised at all that they ripped off the MOD, who will not punish them at all for these breaches, with their call centre scams. PHUCK PHORM and PHUCK BT
"Fournier said the company would talk to customers about what data they would be happy to hand over, and what they would want in return"
Good words, but will the customers actually get anything worth having?
My problem with the whole concept of data pimping is that they're essentially taking something that's mine (my browsing history - I made it, it's my personal work, without me it wouldn't exist) and selling it to someone else.
If it's that fecking valuable come make me an offer, for a bit extra I'll make the rights exclusive.
Clam.
This post has been deleted by its author
Well that's just great that Orange have dumped Phorm.
Now how about they dump Xiam, so your mobile browsing isn't profiled!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/12/mobile_phom/
http://www.xiam.com/press/2007-09-27-Orange.shtml
stop this and I may go back to them!
...is not so much about what people are willing to give in exchange for something, as it is about expecting some level of privacy and control (unfortunately, in the real world, this isn't exactly the case).
The problem w/ phorm's approach was that not only were the users have to opt-out, instead of opt-in (and let's not forget they weren't informed properly and asked for consent in the first place), but regardless of such consent, users net traffic would still go thru phorm's system.
Such companies (ie, phorm) should NEVER have direct access to user's net traffic. Their system should be separate from the ISP's and the routing of traffic (for user's who ONLY opted-in) should be routed to such companies only by the ISP itself.
Carriers/ ISPs are being forced down the route of having to sell content - in this case advertising as the subscription model has been undercut by everyone and their dog. Google with its hugely philanthropic gesture (or overtures) of getting in to the carrier space and offering free access has traditional carriers scared.
In truth the main loser form add insertion at the carrier layer are company's like Google - why would someone pay to have an advert on a website with little contextual input when they could have it profiled and sent to the user. The main issue form the users perspective is that they don't want to profiled - but anyone who currently uses Google is being - its just that they are incrementing features and functionality rather than one big bang approach.
So your choices are;
get free or discounted ISP rental with advertising
or
get free Google access with advertising.
as providing a un-subsidised ISP/ access method is the niche NOT the other way around - 99% of the population will go for the free version - so no company can afford run a service for 1%. Most of the ISP's now (talk talk, orange, SKY, BT) are giving subsidised access to protect their voice revues - they make little or no money from providing the ISP service. As VoIP usage increases this subsidisation will have to drift away - or the dreaded packet engineering come in to play - but again with Google lobbing everyone and there dog for net neutrality (which is a bit of a joke anyway) they are losing this possible revenue stream as well.
Both will use roughly the same level of profiling its about who you trust to hold your data (and personally there's allot more legal constraints on an ISP that there is on an American cloud company).
>"Once - if, Phorm rolls out there will be Firefox (and doubtless Chrome) addins to screw their data up."
... already is..
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7536<
Cheers, installed. I'm with BT. Just waiting for them to change their T&C before attempting to break contract. I've not been invited into the great Phorm test, but I have been watching out for any dodgy redirects and not seen anything. To be totally honest, if BT elect to follow thru on opted out customers not passing thru Phorm equipment I'll probably stay -
- I'm a local engineer for local people, and the horrors of the other ISPs round here (West Yorkshire) of my customers, don't enamour me to them. I Usenet and P2P (Linux distros of course), and BTs traffic shaping only noticeably occur early evening and parts of the weekend. Their T&C explicity say they don't mind P2P but will slow it down at these times and I think that's fair enough.
Ian Livingston (understandably) doesn't seem to want to associate himself with Phorm. None of the major press articles about him or BT ever mention Phorm. The board refuses to answer the question of who was responsible for Phorm when asked at the AGM.
This needs to change.
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http://img80.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ianlivingstonephormcollbq6.jpg
Please download it and host it on your website, with the <img> tag containing alt text which reads: alt="Ian Livingston".
We want any Google Image searches for Ian Livingston to return that image.
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