Slashdot Mirror
BT Drops Phorm, Citing More Pressing Priorities
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.
How do we know Phorm didn't use deep packet inspection/manipulation to show us this article while in fact it's not there.....
Now I still have to find an appropriate Matrix quote and my tin foil hat.
I think this has always been said in previous articles, but guys, please, stop using "BT" as a shortcut for "British Telecom".
For most of the world, BT is BitTorrent.
Has anyone used the n2n peer VPN?
It would be neat if such solutions were built into the popular distros; with all the monitoring creeping up around us it is about time that our PCs defaulted to encrypted traffic.
"[Our decision has] nothing to do with cost or privacy, it's about resources and priority,"
This "focusing revenues" sounds a lot like an equation which didn't work out well for Phorm.
On one had is the money they "could" make by introducing it by adverts, on the other is the potential number of existing customers who will jump to another ISP added to the number of potential customers not even looking at BT as an option when switching from their ISP. Their current subscribers direct debits are guaranteed income with most subscribers not bothering to look around. Not to mention dealing with Phorm gives you the badge of a pariah.
They could be right, in that it's more profitable to drop Phorm. That said, I'm not sure they dropped it permanently. They seem to have bought into the DPI advert injection model, so no doubt they will only put it into the "let's get back to that after the broohaha has calmed down" box before being reintroduced a couple of years from now under a different name with lessons learned about "how not to get caught". They may still face further legal / political fallout over what they've done to date with Phorm, so dropping Phorm may help mitigate any sanctions.
For those who are currently with BT and have reconsidered moving away after this announcement I say "watch this space, BT have proven themselves perfectly willing to fuck their customers over once, they will do it again". BT think they have done no wrong. They can't be trusted. They avoided police action in the UK, they may yet avoid other punishment, but consumers CAN punish them.
I would like to point out that the BBC, Boingboing, South Africa's Mail & Guardian, the UK's Daily Mirror, the bloody Katmandu, Nepal based Republica, and 632 news sources managed to report the announcement of Google Chrome OS before it was a glimmer in Slashdot's eye.
A very poor show for Slashdot, which is supposed to be news for nerds, stuff that matters.
Too late, BTbroadband. I recently ended my 'unlimited' (which is actually limited) service with them and moved to a provider who doesn't think its OK to inspect and modify my traffic in order to make advertising revenue.
As a bonus, I get a truly unlimited connection which is over 3x faster than BT could offer, a one month rolling contract, no cancellation fee, no port blocking and a nice cPanel customer portal, all for about 3GBP more a month. My only regret is that I didn't do it sooner.
http://slashdot.org/popular
*cough*
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/4002-talktalk-follow-suit-on-phorm.html
I hope nobody owns Phorm shares...
wot no sig
they are still the biggest ISP in the UK
This is a legacy of the old state run monopoly system. Companies like British Telecom, British Gas etc have a strong hold on the public imagination so despite consistently performing worse and charging more they still hold sway over more dynamic, newer companies who struggle against their entrenched power. The watchdog system that was put in place after the monopolies were sold off is supposed to maintain the balance but struggles in the face of corporate lobbying . . .
Citation: http://www.oss.itproportal.com/portal/news/article/2009/7/8/carphone-warehouses-talktalk-wont-roll-out-phorm/
lameness filter we love you, lameness filter yes it's true, without your constant content cravings, no one'd read my poetic ravings.
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
I recall the Yes, Minister Episode where the minister is stringently against invasion of privacy and tapping, but when his life is on the line he accepts the recommendations to tap telephone lines.
In short, all BT has to do to implement this is to show the peers and MPs a real-life example of Yes, Minister episode!
Voila!
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
Following straight on TalkTalk the second biggest ISP in the UK also ditches Phorm .... another 13% of the shares not a good week for them
BT is now dropping Phorm, after a career of dropping Phat beats.
However, there is a glaring fact that needs to be made clear. The Internet, by design, is a public domain. If you put something on the Internet and someone else has an interest in what you have to published. They will see it. If you do not want certain people to see what you have published. Do not put it on the Internet.
refor8atted Software lawyers You don't need to
Kindly phuck off.
Regards
BT
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.