BT-Phorm "Webwise" trial and rollout
The information at the BT Webwise page seems to me to avoid discussing BT's real motives in proposing to employ this system. The quoted blocks below come from BT's Webwise page.
BT Webwise increases your protection against online fraud and makes ads that appear on participating websites more relevant to your interests. It's completely free for BT Total Broadband customers and you don't have to download or install any software for it to work.
This is rather disingenuous. Most modern browsers offer protection against phishing sites. I strongly suspect that most broadband users would prefer to minimise all advertising: certainly this is one reason I use Firefox with its adblock add-on. Of course it's free, BT will be selling our browsing history
BT Webwise automatically adds an additional layer of protection against online fraud by checking the sites you visit against a list of suspected fraudulent and untrustworthy websites. When you attempt to visit any website on the list, you'll see a warning, so you can choose whether or not to visit it. It's another way BT is helping to protect you online.
Of course, this depends on the accuracy of the list, and how comprehensive it is. This isn't why BT are monitoring and selling your web browsing activity, they are doing it to make money.
BT Webwise also personalises the online advertising you see when browsing on participating websites by linking ads to your interests. For example, if you search for a weekend trip to Paris or visit pages related to Paris, BT Webwise would replace the standard ads that would normally appear with advertising relating to travel or hotels information. You won't see any more adverts than you normally do - they'll simply be more relevant.
Oh, yeah really great. Other users of your pC will start seeing adverts based on your browsing activity. This could have unintended consequences!
Well, I appear not to be one of those who will have Phorm trialled on them (since I haven't seen the invitation screen), and since the rollout is predicted to happen 4 weeks from the start of this 4 week trial, I will be long gone by then. I requested my MAC at 8pm on 29/9/08.
On the "How it Works" page, BT is again rather disingenuous, beginning with the so-called antiphishing service. They also claim if you have opted out
... BT Webwise will no longer collect any data from the web pages that you visit, meaning we will not provide anti-fraud warnings and the adverts you see online will not be tailored to your interests.
Again, BT put anti-fraud ahead of their real motivation. Further to that, the system will still route all your web traffic through the Phorm hardware. It's also cookie-based, which has the problem associated with cookie deletion. Opted out peple will periodically find themselves opted back in as cookies get deleted or time out. Note also that the BT-Phorm system will forge cookies to make them look as though they come from websites visited, rather than Phorm.
All the way through their ridiculous so-called FAQs I see nonsense at every step. For example, I could use robots.txt to stop them scanning my websites, but only by stopping the Googlebot, or Tahoo, or everyone from scanning the site. (See this page, it's down near the bottom)
Phorm is a rebadged spyware distributor - formerly known as 121 Media. For more information about Phorm visit
In the meantime, I will be changing ISP, and I have emailed to request that my websites are not profiled.
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