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BT Drops Phorm, Citing More Pressing Priorities

Posted by kdawson on from the absurdly-invasive dept.

Tom DBA notes a story up at The Register that begins "BT has abandoned plans to roll out Phorm's controversial web monitoring and profiling system across its broadband network, claiming it needs to concentrate resources on network upgrades... BT's announcement comes a day before MPs and peers of the All Party Parliamentary Communications Group are due to begin an investigation of Internet privacy. Their intervention follows the EU's move to sue the UK government over its alleged failure... properly [to] implement European privacy laws with respect to the trials, drawing further bad publicity to the venture." We've discussed Phorm many times in the past.

7 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Not BitTorrent by FrostedWheat · · Score: 3, Informative

    That's its name these days. Nobody, not even themselves, call it "British Telecom".

  2. Re:Not BitTorrent by weeble · · Score: 2, Informative

    BT (British Telecom) was rebranded years ago and is most widely known as BT. This is because they are an International Company and did not want to be only associated with operating in the UK.

    See:
    http://paulrobertlloyd.com/articles/britain_rebranded/

    "British companies now operate on a global scale and many had decided that any British associations were not good for business. A look at the number of privatised companies that have changed their names will tell you this. British Telecom was one of the first when it became BT in the early nineties - when many other national telecom companies - France Telecom and Deutche Telecom for example haven't felt the need. British Gas (now BG) and British Steel (now Corus) are two recent examples."

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  3. Not too good. by auric_dude · · Score: 5, Informative
    From BT via the http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/default.stm

    "[Our decision has] nothing to do with cost or privacy, it's about resources and priority,"

    1. Re:Not too good. by lobiusmoop · · Score: 2, Informative

      Um, no. The government has forced BT to implement local-loop unbundling to remove their monopoly on telecomunications in the UK.

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      "I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
    2. Re:Not too good. by compro01 · · Score: 2, Informative

      They still own the infrastructure, LLU just requires them to lease it to whoever is interested.

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  4. TalkTalk (inc Tiscali) have dropped it as well. by Maddog+Batty · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/4002-talktalk-follow-suit-on-phorm.html

    I hope nobody owns Phorm shares...

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    wot no sig
  5. Re:Vote with your wallet by smoker2 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Be is part of O2 not the other way around. And you can have a cancellation free contract with Be, you just pay a set up fee. You also get a free fixed IP address, free modem and up to 24 Mbit ADSL2. All for £17.50/month with no usage cap.