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BT Silences Customers Over Phorm
An anonymous reader writes "The Register reports that BT, the UK's dominant telecom and internet service provider, has 'banned all future discussion of Phorm and its "WebWise" targeted advertising product on its customer forums, and deleted all past threads about the controversy dating back to February.' Phorm is a controversial opt-out system for delivering targeted advertising that intercepts traffic passing through an ISP in order to profile subscribers via an assigned unique ID based on their online activities. Subscribers can opt-out at the Webwise website but are opted-in again if the Phorm cookie is cleared. Firefox users can install Melvin Sage's Firephorm add-on to manage their interaction with Phorm and Webwise."
While I don't live in the UK, I know how I'd feel about such things if they were happening to me.
To begin, it's a private company, and they're allowed to censor whatever they want from their customer forum. Keep in mind, they have to worry about marketing and PR as much as any other private company. Generally, you have options to go to another company if you don't like how they operate. If not, find another place to discuss your beef.
Second, advertising is a means to profit for most any media. We're going through a transition and *everyone* needs to adapt, equally. Many people pay for cable or satellite TV. There are free programs, and paid programs. Everything needs to be funded, somewhere. Let's all try to be reasonable and work this out. There's a learning process to be had, but it'll get sorted out.