ISP’s Selling your surfing habits to advertisers
This is an important case and turning point in web privacy.
A company called ‘Phorm’ are in tests to introduce personalised advertising online based on the information your ISP sells to them about your surfing habits:
The Open Rights Group has raised concerns over potential privacy violations caused by the Phorm advertising system.
The monitoring system analyses users’ surfing habits and is proving increasingly popular with ISPs looking to more accurately target subscribers with advertising.
Talk Talk, Virgin and BT are all currently working with Phorm on a pilot basis.
However, the Open Rights Group is calling for a detailed explanation of the exact workings of Phorm to ensure that it complies with privacy legislation.
“Until we know exactly how Phorm works, and across whose networks our data will flow, speculation about the privacy implications will continue,” said the organisation in a statement.
“Can ISPs’ employment of Phorm comply with the Data Protection Act? Is intercepting traffic in this manner an offence under Section 1 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers [RIP] Act?”
Nearly 4,000 people have signed up to a Downing Street petition highlighting their worries.
Privacy advocates have suggested that Phorm may be in contravention of the RIP Act, which states that the interception of any transmission across a public telecoms network requires the explicit consent of users.
Tim berners lee alluded to this companys practices when he was interviewed recently:
Although the Phorm case was not mentioned by name he said that ISPs have no business assuming they had a right to sell personal internet-use logs.
“I myself feel that it is very important that my ISP supplies internet to my house like the water company supplies water to my house,” he said.
“It supplies connectivity with no strings attached. My ISP doesn’t control which websites I go to, it doesn’t monitor which websites I go to.”
He said that if he had a choice he would change ISP as soon as such a monitoring system was put in place, since an individual’s web history was private property.
“It’s mine - you can’t have it. If you want to use it for something, then you have to negotiate with me. I have to agree, I have to understand what I’m getting in return.”
Berners-Lee warned people that they should be careful of what they put online, as once it was up it would be available to everyone, including future generations.
Indeed, he said social networking sites aimed at a younger audience might soon be superseded by those aimed at older folk, who now had the technical ability to use them and the time on their hands to do so.
Privacy group questions Phorm system - vnunet.com
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