Maybe you would, I have young kids and would rather not be served irrelevant ads. So Phorm would serve me and my kids tyre ads, you would get some 'other content'

my norton offers add blocking so it's very rare i see add's on sites... wouldnt this prevent adds being offered by phorm too?

Also I do think some people need to lighten up on the subject... If your interested in Phorm then opt in if/when it becomes available... If you don't want it then it's simple dont opt in!!!

Peace!!!

This system uses a man in the middle attack to breach one of the most important security & privacy protocols on the net, forging and deleting cookies for every domain it can. That activity can negatively impact websites and those that operate them.

This system effectively uses the user's credentials to gain access to password protected areas that, in many cases, contain private and/or personal information belonging to others. Others who did not agree to such interception and the privacy risks posed by this system.

This is a centrally controlled system that may be tapped into many heterogeneous, distributed, ISP systems in the UK and other countries, and it has the ability to silently snoop, manipulate, and steer traffic. Which makes it a national and international infrastructure & security issue. Doubly so given the Russian development team.

The opt-out mechanisms are flawed and even if you opt-out your traffic is still intercepted by the system.

Phorm, Inc. and the ISPs are pushing ahead with this and will continue to do so unless frequently apathetic or otherwise neutralized entities muster the power to actively combat their plans.

Is it a little easier to understand why this is a "heavy" issue?

That add from google you are talking about should no longer appear, it was a mis match on the keyword system it would seem.

If google can do this - why Phorm? Tyres could turn up slimming adverts, as in get rid of the spare tyre.

Question is how much more income will Phorm generate over say a sites existing income? Relevant ads are entirely possible now if the advertising people place their ads on the appropriate pages e.g. buy space on the motoring section of a portal.

Google et al do what they do without any hardware in the ISP's network, this hardware I presume is not free, what tests has phorm done to be sure its system will scale to cope with the browsing habits of a couple of million people? Consider this how many HTTP requests does each web page generate, a lot more than the one in the browser bar.

For some people Phorm would appear to be a step too far in the advertising game, but then advertising does like to push the boundaries in an attempt to gain exposure.

In shared households will the wife when viewing her favourite websites be more likely to click adverts for stuff that is relevant to your browsing?

Another issue which is bothering me about Phorm is the amount of inaccuracies their CEO has when giving interviews. A good example of this was when the Guardian said about Privacy International who NEVER gave Phorm any approval but it was Simon Davies and 80/20 Thinking who did and Kent just said well yes Privacy International.

Kent Ertegrul claims to be from the UK so surely he would understand the grasp of the English language. A Fiat well its a Ferrari isn't it? It's all the same company at the end of the day but I doubt they are similar.

Here caught red handed on the tech radar interview
http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/exclusive-techradar-interviews-phorm-ceo-315326

"TechRadar: How can Phorm convince the average web-user that their data is being profiled �anonymously�?

Kent Ertugrul, Phorm: We built the system from the ground up with privacy in mind and have been very transparent about how it works. We�ve had Ernst & Young, privacy experts from a company called 80/20 Thinking and technology professor, Richard Clayton review the technology."

Richard Clayton REVIEWED the technology but never approved it. In fact if anything he has more criticisms about Phorm. I don't see this building much trust trying to pull the wool over users eyes like this.

In reply to:

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In shared households will the wife when viewing her favourite websites be more likely to click adverts for stuff that is relevant to your browsing?

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For me this is one huge flaw in the thinking. These days it is quite common for more than 1 PC to access the internet so how can Phorm differentiate between traffic when only 1 IP is visible to the outside world?
Also, if BT and others use dynamic IPs, how can they target relevant ads without holding some sort of identifiable information, despite their protestations to the contrary?

Regards,
Steve

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For me this is one huge flaw in the thinking. These days it is quite common for more than 1 PC to access the internet so how can Phorm differentiate between traffic when only 1 IP is visible to the outside world?
Also, if BT and others use dynamic IPs, how can they target relevant ads without holding some sort of identifiable information, despite their protestations to the contrary?

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This is why the system is so reliant on "Cookies", each machine will have it's own unique "Cookie" and there will never be two of the same. It's this way that Phorm can target the correct machine on the network regardless to whatever IP address is currently being used.

I concur regarding the shifty sales and PR techniques. Regarding Simon Davies and 80/20 Thinking approving Phorm, Simon Davies posted a message on the subject of their engagement with Phorm, which ended with "I understand you are concerned about alleged endorsement, but let me reassure you that if we ever endorsed a product, you�d know about it. The last time we endorsed anything was PGP in the era of Phil Zimmermann".

It is hard if not impossible to have a frank discussion with 80/20 Thinking staff now that they are engaged with Phorm Inc. However, my personal belief is that in private they would tell you that they very strongly prefer that such systems never be used by ISPs.

I HIGHLY recommend you listen to this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/audio/2008/mar/11/charles.arthur.phorm at 23:30(mm:ss) in they start talking about Privacy International and Simon Davies. Kent just doesn't even understand the difference.Cant believe he even argues about it, remember Kent claims to have been brought up in the UK so if I understand it then I'm sure he will.

Sure after this interview has been posted online he is still claiming that Privacy international endorse Phorm.

Remember I participate on the Microsoft public newsgroups in my spare time so that means in my own time I'm a Microsoft employee. Not quite the same but not too far off.

Edited by deleted (Fri 11-Apr-08 18:19:33)

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Question is how much more income will Phorm generate over say a sites existing income? Relevant ads are entirely possible now if the advertising people place their ads on the appropriate pages

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If an advertiser wants to target visitors to a specific site, conventionally the advertiser will have no choice but to pay that site's going rate. But with Phorm the advertiser could target that site's visitors after they leave the site, in some cases it might even be cheaper. That website would see none of that advertiser's money.

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what tests has phorm done to be sure its system will scale to cope with the browsing habits of a couple of million people? Consider this how many HTTP requests does each web page generate, a lot more than the one in the browser bar.

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According to the CEO's statement in Phorm's 2006 results, it was about to conduct a trial of its new system on a test base of several 100,000 users. The statement was dated april 2007, so presumably this large scale test would have occurred in 2007


The Company has built on its existing PageSense platform to create a new server-based architecture called ProxySense. In Q4 of 2006, we conducted a live user trial of PageSense with a UK ISP, and we are about to start a larger trial of ProxySense with a test base of several hundred thousand users."


http://www.phorm.com/reports/Announcement_of_Annual_Results_2006.pdf

Edited by AbandonShip (Fri 11-Apr-08 19:04:35)