Wikipedia Opts Out Of Phorm

ais523 writes "Wikipedia (and other websites run by Wikimedia) have requested to opt-out from Phorm; according to the email they sent, they 'consider the scanning and profiling of our visitors' behavior by a third party to be an infringement on their privacy.'" Another reader points to this post on techblog.wikimedia.org which includes a confirmation from Phorm that those sites will be excluded.

Comments

Why not go one step better?

[TheRaven64]

Detect IPs from ISPs who are part of Phorm and redirect them to a page about Phorm the first time they visit Wikipedia each day. Amazon probably couldn't afford to do this, but it's not like Wikipedia loses any revenue if they irritate their visitors a bit, and if they can direct that anger to the ISP then it could do a lot of good.

More information please?

[Anonymous Coward]

Would it be too much to ask for the summary to give some clue about what "Phorm" is, or why Wikipedia would need to or want to "opt out" of it?

Re:where is the list ?

[David Gerard]

The Open Rights Group is keeping a list of people it's asked to loudly and publicly tell Phorm to phuck off. Amazon opting out made lots of mainstream media a couple of days ago; looks like Wikimedia doing the same will get a bit of notice too.

The point is to publicise that Phorm (a) exists and (b) is a bad thing. Schemes like Phorm only get away with existing insofar as people aren't aware of them.

Re:where is the list ?

[TubeSteak]

Schemes like Phorm only get away with existing insofar as people aren't aware of them.

Wrong.
Schemes like Phorm exist because they are opt-out.

Numerous studies have shown that people are lazy and won't even do things that are in their best interest if they have to exert even minimal effort. That's why opt-out is so successful.

Re:The official post

[EdZ]

You don't know the BBC. They've reported on their OWN internal scandals in the past, and tried pretty well to remain unbiased over them.

Re:where is the list ?

[bit01]

Numerous studies have shown that people are lazy

Numerous studies have shown that people attempt to rationally allocate their time and attention.

There are millions of businesses in this world. It is not humanly possible to opt-out of all their marketing drivel even when there a cost-benefit in doing so.

Marketers steal the time and attention of many people to make a sale to one person and then act all surprised when those people get pissed. Spam is just the extreme example of that, unfortunately becoming less extreme all the time.

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The USA is